A Michael Broad Blog
The war against domestic and feral cats in Australia continues unabated. It looks like a war to me and in line with that analogy, the latest policy of a north-west Sydney council, Hornsby Shire, was cruel because it would have led to pointless and possibly illegal cat killing. On my understanding, Hornsby Shire local …
Introduction (2023, January) : I first published this page about 10 years ago. At that time the Australian Mist was a relatively little-known cat breed except perhaps in Australia and New Zealand. Nowadays, a Google search for this breed produces lots of entries. At the time I thought that it would be a success …
I have noticed, today, a few articles on online news media about taxidermists creating rugs out of domestic cats and dogs. It’s obviously disgusting. It is obviously self-indulgent. It obviously highlights a human weakness about death and being separated from their loved ones. And finally, it highlights a failure in the domestication of cats …
This is a really tricky question although people tend to oversimplify it. First, what is too many cats? It is subjective. That’s the first hurdle but let’s say that without question your neighbour has too many cats. He or she may have, let’s say, 25 cats. Nearly everybody would say that is too many …
In some Australian jurisdictions families are being forced to give up dogs and cat when they go into rental accommodation because landlords ban pets. Australia is not alone. There is a dearth of rental accommodation allowing pets. Or if pets are allowed the conditions are too tight. This can lead to tenants with pets …
The information comes from a study in which 1,210 cats were assessed. As I understand it, the study looked at lost cats in America and Australia. The summary opens up with the words: “At least 15% of cat owners lose their pet in a five-year period and some are never found”. Only 61% were …
NEWS AND COMMENT-SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA: The first point to make is that although huntsman spiders use venom to immobilise prey and can reach up to 5 inches across, based upon my careful research they do not cause harm to domestic cats who kill them and perhaps sometimes devour them. If a cat devours a huntsman …
NEWS AND COMMENT-QUEEN VICTORIA MARKET, MELBOURNE AUSTRALIA: Gloves trimmed with genuine domestic and stray cat fur are on sale at the Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne. They are marketed as fake (faux) fur but when they were tested by an American laboratory the fur trimming was found to be genuine and that of a …
