Sometimes it is nice to look at some funny cat pictures as a respite from the serious stuff. Here is a small selection with a few comments. You may have seen some before.
Put a harness on a cat that has never worn a harness and what is likely to happen? The cat rolls over and is uncooperative. Cats don’t really like harnesses unless they have been trained to accept them by wearing them since kittenhood. People have different views on cat harnesses. For some sorts of cats they are essential, such as F1 Savannahs. You can’t let some cats wander around free.
Sometimes when cats rest they rest in what we would consider to be uncomfortable positions. My cat sleeps in this sort of position sometimes. I am not sure where it comes from. Perhaps it is just comfortable for a cat.
This has a serious side. Cats do wait for their human companion to come home. I know mine did. She would be just inside the front door. Bless her. I loved her dearly. It all becomes history as she died about 18 months ago.
We can all relate to this; giving our cat a pill. There are umpteen different ways of doing it. My preference is a pill gun. It is pretty effective. Or putting the pill in food but cats are very sensitive to that. It does not always work. In fact it tends to fail. Has anyone got a clever idea? Vets have a easier time giving a pill to a cat because cats are more pliable and cooperative in a vet’s surgery.
We all have our ways to stroke our cat. Whatever way it should be gentle and it should be a way that pleases our cat not just us.
I like the last two – maybe because they aren’t real – but they are funny – I will put them on my Facebook.
For dogs a harness is kinder than the collar round the neck in my opinion and dogs DO have to be restrained when outdoors except in their own gardens for their own and everyone else and other animals’ safety, and of course everyone accepts dogs have to go out without an argument, not so for cats sadly lots of people begrudge cats their freedom. I can see your point Everycat, maybe in some cases a harness is appropriate but I remain convinced that cats are free spirits and shouldn’t treated like mini dogs normally
I love the last set of cartoons on petting. The cat is just brilliant.
As for harness training, for cats or any animal. If an animal is resisting the leash to the degree in the picture, then the person has got it 100% wrong.
I know that many detest the use of harnesses on cats, and refuse to accept that sometimes they have a place. I once took on a very elderly deaf cat (20+ yrs) who insisted he needed to go out every day, twice a day on patrol. I couldn’t allow him to do this on his own, because his new home with me was not deep in the countryside where he grew up. Without any force at all, I worked with him to accept the harness and we had twice daily walks (wherever) he wanted to go for the time he was with me. He loved it and really enjoyed his daily expeditions. He always took the lead and if I had to climb over a wall to let him go where he needed, I did. He also had a slight degree of cognitive decline and would have easily got confused and lost if loose. So this was a compromise that worked.
I trained Gerry to the harness to enable him to safely learn how to be amongst my other cats (he was 100% unsocialised to other cats)
For Mungo, I couldn’t risk him running off and getting into a fight before he was fully rooted in his new home after being a stray. He took to the harness easily and quickly learned that his garden was the safest place to be.
I don’t see the same loathing of harnesses where dogs are concerned. I wonder why this is? Cats have that unique essence of freedom about them I suppose.
For me, cats on harnesses isn’t a permanent or ideal solution to getting a cat to have some outside time, but in some instances for brief periods it has been very useful to me and my cats.
Using any harness or system of restraint/control on any animal requires extreme patience and an understanding that the drive of the animal is of prime importance. Reward is everything.
I’d seen most of these before but not the poor cat on the harness and I’m sure you know I hate that one too. It looks like the person is almost dragging the cat as he is desperately trying to show how reluctant he is.
Pictures like that greatly upset me because it’s not natural for a cat to be led, yes I know some get used to it including poor Savannahs who have to be lifelong prisoners or shackled like that for no crime committed.
Oh people say they are happy enough, but accepting is the word, because they have no choice.
All cats are born free spirits but sadly too many are not allowed to live their natural way of life.
Again it’s down to humans who ‘own’ the world and all the creatures in it and are able to control, use, or abuse animals for their own egotism without as thought to what the animal wants or feels.
Great pics all but the first one (as you probably expected)which I think is sad and humiliating for the cat. I worry that this scene is happening for real in many a home and I’m sad for those hybrid cats that are not allowed to live a cat’s life.
I agree it is amusing to some people but there is a serious side to the picture. The trouble with very exotic and expensive cats like F1 Savannahs is that you can’t let them behave “normally” because someone will steal the cat or in America shoot it because they think the cat is a wild cat of some sort. That means training to walk the cat on a leash like a dog. They are relatively easy to train but this does bring into question the whole process.
That last one is brilliant. I’m impressed that these are all new to me! Yeah for me. 🙂
My favorite lolcat is one of a cat caught licking his foot. The caption is “I has a flavor!” I love it.
I am pleased you have not seen them before! It can be hard to find stuff that is “new”.