TV documentaries and my thoughts (Ozzy doesn’t do a lot of thinking really…)

Well despite all my efforts and good intentions, I did actually what I’ve promised myself I won’t do when I took over Sheng Chi’s blog….I didn’t blog often as I was meant to do. You see now I understand how easy is to get distracted when you are such a busy kitty like myself. You have good intentions and well thought plans but they never come into effect because life sometimes has other plans….

Now I understand all the work Sheng Chi had to do and how difficult it can be to keep on top of everything….too much to do so little time…and they dare to call us lazy as species go…cats are not lazy even when they do seem to be doing nothing at all as they are still working, planning, thinking how to do things and how to keep other kitties in the house along with their always making a mess hoomins in control…It can be really exhausting trying to keep up with everything, a cat’s work is never done completely, they are always things she needs to do to keep a happy and well maintained home….

After a hard day's work a kitty is entitled to a little relaxation....a catnip bath!

Ozzy of course prefers a more...traditional method of relaxation...snoozing!

So when you see on TV programmes hoomins made about us, kitties, and our lives and behaviours, well, sometimes you have to try very hard not to get annoyed. Supposedly we are great and ferocious hunters, behave like lions when at home and we can’t live with other cats at home we can’t stand each other, we are manipulating because we talk to our humans by meowing (the only way possible really) when we want something from them (how else you are suppose to communicate then with vocal creatures like hoomins?)…well what a lot of…what is that expression you hoomins are often using….it begins with b…I think…excuse me but I’m not very good with hoomin swearing like Sheng Chi was….

My point is that what you see in these programs is sometimes half the truth…not all cats are the same or behave in the same way….

They often seem to forget to mention that many kitties these days live a safe and enjoyable life being permanently indoors and some have never even put a paw outside (myself included) so they have never chased, catch or kill and god forbid, kill or even eat a bird or a mouse….I like birdies and I’d never even dream of trying to catch and kill them…they haven’t done anything to me, they are cute little creatures who I enjoy watching flying and eating from the birdfeeders outside in the garden….as for eating them ….why on earth any kitty would eat a bird who has feathers or a furry small rodent when she can have delicious meals at home served on regular intervals by her hoomins? Really now let’s be realistic, cats are not that stupid they are a lot more clever than some hoomins think anyway…

Besides a lot of cats are not very good at hunting anyway…at the moment I’m looking at that big spider on the wall (it looks huge actually) and I’m hoping that hoomin would catch it and let it loose outside as it is quite big and a bit scary too…So not all cats are not very good with hunting, they simply don’t know how while also some they are even afraid of small furry running very fast creatures….I remember very well one of my best companions a few years back, poor Flouffy, who used to get petrified of anything small and furry like the hamster the hoomins used to also have at that time. If the little thing was out of his cage (which needed regular cleaning if I remember correctly, it was such a long time ago you see…) Flouffy would go into hiding under the bed till the hamster was back on his cage again….Yeah poor Flouffy was never any good at hunting anything other than his little blue ball which he used to love…

Even the great and menacing Sheng Chi wasn’t such an expert at catching anything really even spiders which she used to accidentally kill sometimes by simply stepping on them and flatten them (by the way and to update you tall hoomin finally caught that huge scary spider and let it loose outside to terrorise in the garden…so glad that I don’t go outside in that scary garden….). At least in my younger days I could catch the occasional moth and even eat although I must admit they didn’t taste that good…..prefer tuna or salmon instead and very small chicken pieces well cooked….not raw.

Of course and let’s not forget that some cats are even friends with what they suppose to catch and eat like birds and smaller animals….there are so many videos on the internet now with many cats and their small friends….

No, those programs on TV must be banned or at least to stop showing us being so mean and vicious and trying to convince hoomins that all of us, kittens, are terrible killing machines or that we are still wild and behave like our ancestors….Not true, us cats have evolved and now we are equal family members who enjoy having an easy life and be pampered and loved by hoomins….who really wants to go outside where it is cold, noisy, smelly and rather dangerous for small creatures like ourselves, definitely not me and my other three companions….

Till later (Ozzy also agrees with me while he is currently eating my food….go away pest and eat your own food…..). 

Introductions

Hi there. My name is Ripley and along with Ozzy (who currently is growling behind me....he is hungry again I guess) we are taking over from now on the ownership of this blog.

I am Ripley, the clever one

This is Ozzy the one that hoomins  often call trouble and who is not that clever really, he likes eating and playing a lot...

Sheng Chi unfortunately passed away a few months back,very unexpectedly and her loss caused a lot of sadness to both my hoomins and myself of course along with Choo Choo too. Since we've lost Sheng Chi hoomins have brought home (or as they said it they've 'adopted') two other rescue cats. 
Faith, a 12 year black and white female who has no many teeth left (just four really, poor thing) and a bit of arthritis on her front left leg which makes her limp most of the times and impossible for her to jump on high places. Faith came from a local shelter and she is a very affectionate and loveable cat who causes no trouble and who i also like very much.

Faith snoozing in her new bed...she is quite cute really...

My hoomins also adopted Ozzy (big mistake really) from the local cats protection branch, who is a 7 year old black and white male and who most of the time acts like a 1 year old kitten, instead. He is far too playful and a big pain in my fury....who thinks that anything and anybody is there for him to play with....Yes it is quite obvious I guess that I don't like him that much really but now he is a member of our family so slowly, very slowly I'm getting used to him being around (believe me it is very hard to do though ...). 
Unfortunately and although Ozzy is not that clever really nevertheless he has managed to win over the hoomins and Choo Choo (not Faith who she doesn't really trust him as he runs a lot and tends occasionally to knock her over....he can be very excitable and he also tends to buzz a lot like a mosquito....this is why the hoomins call him mosquito, I guess). He sometimes behaves also like a puppy, following the hoomins all the time, being affectionate and cute with his big eyes and rather cute face (grr...) so you tend to hear quite often from the hoomins a lot of 'ooohs' and 'aaaahs', and 'how cute is he'....grrr and more grrr...such a manipulative little monster he is....
Anyway this is how things are now that Sheng Chi is not around any more and from now on and since I'm the oldest and the wiser of course I'd tell you on a regular basis, hopefully, some of the things that are happening in my house and which you might find interesting and entertaining perhaps. Oh yes Ozzy (ha, ha right if this is ever going to happen....) would perhaps take over and tell some of our stories also as it was agreed (the oldest and the youngest in our family) but very much doubt as he doesn't have the patience really to sit down and type anything...
Till next time then! Time for dinner now which hopefully will stop Ozzy for a little while from running like a maniac downstairs....poor hoomin can't get a moment of peace and quiet, he, he!

We kitties know which species is the most intelligent on this planet (clue: not humits or goggies...)

Problem solving kitty at work...

What a day yesterday was...it was going to be a normal quite day, you know one of those when I'm simply trying to convince one of my humits to provide me with more nutrition than the normal portions when out of the blue humit2 got really annoyed with something she read...To be honest I don't think I've ever seen my humit having steam coming out from both ears so what she was reading must had being really bad news...

What she was reading was an article about how some silly humits did some sort of research and they found out that goggies have evolved a bigger brain because they are more social than kitties (yeah right!) while the brains of more solitary mammals such as cats, deer and rhino, grew much more slowly during the same period. According to that research we are not therefore as clever as dogs because '...dogs are quite good at solving problems, which gives credence to the traditional image of the cunning fox which is a member of the same family. Dogs descended from wolves which appear to have the biggest brains as they live in large family groups...' (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/pets/8151924/Dogs-are-smarter-than-cats.html).

Of course this is just a lot of rubbish and silly humit talk since everybody with a bit of intelligence knows that brain size doesn't really predict intelligence in a species...take a good example here, the humits themselves, they have quite big brains in proportion to their body size and who are the only species that they actually believe in their own superiority and cleverness...everybody else on this planet knows that humits are not that clever after all...a good look through history would tell you why...they are the only species that have managed to destroy the entire ecosystem of their own planet and even to destroy many of their own species members through wars and conflicts over silly and unimportant matters like ownership of land that was never theirs in the first place...(belongs to the the planet sillies, you only live here for a short period and you don't own anything not even your own bodies...as wormies and other microbes are having it after you've long gone), issues about silly humit religions and beliefs...along with other selfish and really unimportant matters...not that clever those humits after all...

As for us, well, we are the intelligent species here as we have humit servants who have trained them after years of domestication to look after us, we do what we want to and we can live our own lives without having a lot to worry about...besides we have allowed humits to take us into their homes and allow them to treat us in some cases as equal to them (I know, a bit degrading at times...) as nobody really wants to live in the wild these days and to have to hunt for food and look for shelter when silly humits can easily provide all these..Besides our brains are big enough when you compare them with what little goggies have in their place on their heads... and in the right proportion with our bodies...any bigger and we wouldn't have being able to move properly and to catch prey, with a very big head and brain...silly!

Also as my humit pointed out '...other studies have also often suggested quite the opposed ....that cats are not only very intelligent but actually having an IQ which is only being surpassed only monkeys and chimps (and humits I'd have added her myself!). Cats can think and adapt to changing circumstances and they can easily learn by observation, imitation, and trial and error (wrong humit...us kitties don't make errors...that's a humit term, we kitties never use it!) and some studies seem to have shown that cats have been shown to exhibit greater problem solving abilities than dogs and that a cat's recall can last as long as 16 hours, exceeding even that of monkeys and orangutans....the anatomy of brain of cat is very similar to the human brain, whereas the anatomy of brain of a dog is not very similar to that of a human brain. Both cats and human beings have same regions for emotion in their brain. The brain of an adult cat weighs about one percent of its body weight while the brain of an adult human being weighs about two percent of its body weight. The brain weight to body weight ratio in cats is greater in cats as compared to dogs (see long comment at:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/pets/8151921/Dogs-are-smarter-than-cats-feline-friends-disagree.html)

With other words...yes we are a lot more intelligent than dogs...and these silly humits that said otherwise need to have their own brains examined as their own brains don't seem to be working as well as ours...Meoow...humit feed me nooow...I'm hungry!

Little writing before Easter

It has being a while since I've blogged but you know how things are when you are a very busy kitty like me....not enough hours in a day to snooze, eat, bully the others let alone write...Actually I have being very very busy helping my humit to complete her research (what a week that was....we all got headaches and pulled a lot of fur or hair out) as well helping her with other assignments and work...boy there have being a lot of enquiries about human-kitty issues...humans are getting worse by the day it seems. It must be really difficult for all these poor cats to have to live and cope with humits that behave in strange ways...I mean humits some times can be almost impossible to tolerate with all these mood swings they get and depression and work related stress...they become inhumit if you know what I mean and then they will blame everybody else...mainly us because in most cases we can't talk in humit tongue to explain how wrong they are...Anyway the fact remains that a lot of humits seem to have issues with many aspects of a kitty's life that they should already know how to deal with, for example, when a kitty is not using the litter tray because she has either to share it with others or because of cleaning issues or even because of location and texture issues...I mean I purrsonally hate the woody stuff because it gets stuck on my paws and fur and then humit complains that I look dirty and messy and in need of brushing...just the thought of that gave me the shivers now...brrr! Humits that live with kitties they should know they are very lucky and privileged because they are allowed to share the shame environment with us and they shouldn't make fuss when we are doing only what it is only natural to us...not using an inappropriate located, not cleaned properly or even smelly because of other kitty litter box...we are kitties with standards you know....anyway time to stop...I think I heard a humit in the kitchen...purrs for now!