MEWSLETTER 34: February 28, 2005 

by Pauline Dewberry

Hi there, everyone, and a very warm welcome to all the new subscribers this month. Please feel free to share this MEWSLETTER with your family and friends.

We have a packed MEWSLETTER this month – full of, what I hope you’ll consider, interesting articles.

It’s been a busy couple of months since Christmas and Garfield has been back to see, Kevin, our vet, a couple of times for blood glucose check ups. His pancreas is still maintaining its own level of insulin which means Garfield doesn’t have to have insulin injections anymore. Considering he’ll be 19 at the end of March, he is doing really well.

March is busy with things to celebrate. It will be Mother’s Day here in the UK on Sunday, 6th March and Laura Dumm has drawn another great cartoon for the HOME PAGE. Wouldn’t we all love to be pampered so lovingly!

March 17th is St. Patrick’s Day and for a great Irish website full of lots of interesting facts and information on all Irish customs and culture, you could do no better than to visit this brilliant website:

http://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/

Easter falls at the end of March with Good Friday on 25th March and Easter Sunday and Monday on 27th and 28th. Ed Kostro has written a gorgeous Easter story about a cat and a skunk for you to enjoy, and you can read it here:
http://www.thedailymews.com/articles/easterskunk.htm

Garfield’s 19th birthday falls on Easter Sunday (27th March) which also happens to be when British Summertime begins so we put the clocks back – so Garfield gets a whole extra hour of birthday to celebrate. Watch this space for the amazing birthday hat ritual – which I’m sure he’s waiting for with gritted teeth (well, with what teeth he has left to grit!) Hopefully, by April’s issue I’ll have pictures to show you – I am still not quite up to date with the latest technology – I don’t have a digital camera!!!! I DO have a photo of ALL the Daily Mewsers in various poses on my bed and you’ll see this on the HOME PAGE on the right hand side. This is the first time in about 3 or 4 years that they’ve all be in one place long enough for me to run downstairs, get the camera, run back upstairs and take the picture! Hope you like it!

Laura’s been busy this month: you can check out her latest cartoon for Cudell Street cats here:

http://www.thedailymews.com/Cudellstreetcats/begging.htm

And in the Some Cats Are … series, click here:

http://www.thedailymews.com/Cudellstreetcats/somecatsaresweet.htm

She also sent me the very funny ‘Dear Cats and Dogs’ article that you can read here:
http://www.thedailymews.com/amewsments/dearcatsanddogs.htm

Some cats are very vocal and will do almost anything to get your attention. Do you have cats like this? One morning, I was doing some sub-editing work in the dining room and I could hear Billy calling me insistently from the garden. I went out to see what the matter was, and he was on the shed roof, meowing for all his worth. When he saw me, he then started looking up at next-door’s roof, continuing to meow. I couldn’t see from my back door so I had to walk up the garden path a bit to see what he was so bothered about. Imagine my surprise when I saw a little baby squirrel up in the guttering! How it got there I’ll never know but Billy alerted me, and I contacted the RSPCA. You can read about Billy’s adventures with the squirrel here:

http://www.thedailymews.com/mewsers'%20mewsings/squirrelandbilly.htm

Laura did the lovely little cartoon of Billy and the squirrel!

When a beloved pet dies we all react in different ways. Some write poetry and I have a wonderful poem, in commemoration of a much loved pet, written by Jared Kline. You can read it here:

http://www.thedailymews.com/poems/mrstripey.htm

Jared also wrote a great story which you can read here:

http://www.thedailymews.com/catchat/milou.htm


Continuing on the theme from several MEWSLETTERs ago about declawing, I have a vet’s report on the effects on declawed cats which makes compelling reading. The sooner this barbaric practice is outlawed, the better. If a person’s drapes and furniture are more important, then the answer is simple – don’t get a cat! Or buy the cat several scratch posts – declawing is NOT the answer!!

http://www.thedailymews.com/articles/whyyoushouldntdeclawyourcat.htm

For those of you with diabetic cats here is a very good website which will answer all your questions about managing your diabetic cat and lots of useful information. It also has a really good invention for collecting urine in the SmartBox litter box. Click here to see more: http://felinediabetes.com/pet-supplies/smart_cat_box.htm

The latest breed to be profiled is the Maine Coon – to read about this most beautiful of cats, click here:

http://www.thedailymews.com/articles/mainecoon.htm

Another pair of the black and white cats who just passed through the catflap at Daily Mews were Dinkie and her brother, Sox. You can read about Dinkie and her little family here:

http://www.thedailymews.com/articles/dinkie.htm

Jim Willis is a great friend of mine and I love the amazing work that he does with animals that are considered to be unmanageable or unhomeable and I’m really happy to give him his own section that has all his writings, poetry and articles in one place. To see Jim’s collection of writings, please click here:

http://www.thedailymews.com/jimwillis.htm

Roger Kiser is another man who abhors animal cruelty and this article from him will have your reaching for your tissues. I’ve read it several times now and I still cry each time, at the sad waste of a life not yet fulfilled.

http://www.thedailymews.com/Animal%20Welfare/littlemissy.htm

When a beloved pet goes missing how many of us offer up a silent prayer for its safe return? I expect most of us can identify with the thoughts of the following item submitted by Myla in the US. A prayer for a lost cat can be seen here:

http://www.thedailymews.com/poems/prayerlostcat.htm

I’ve been learning Spanish for many years and can full endorse the wisdom of learning another language. The next two items, which are in the A’MEWS’MENT ARCADE, will make you laugh! Michael Kolonel in Newfoundland, Canada, sent me a very funny article called Equal Opportunities and the link is here:

http://www.thedailymews.com/amewsments/equalopportunities.htm

The second one was sent in by Amiee Amarral and is called ‘Bark!’ and you can see it here:
http://www.thedailymews.com/amewsments/bark.htm

The final chapter in the wonderful story of Frankie Weiss and Her Magic is now on site and you can read it here. As far as I know, Dan Weiss is going to write another book written from Frankie’s perspective – let’s hope we don’t have to wait too long for the first chapters! To read ‘Love Letter to Frankie’, please click here:

http://www.thedailymews.com/articles/letteroflovetofrankie.htm

Richard Carlyon sent me an update on his latest cat Spike, who joins Storm and Smokey. Read what happened while Richard was putting up the Christmas decorations … we’ve all been there and can identify with this scenario only too well.

http://www.thedailymews.com/catchat/christmasforsmokeystormspike.htm

Lynne Massie’s story of Crispy, the Courageous Kitten was featured in a recent Petwarmers issue. You can read about this dear little kitten here:

http://www.thedailymews.com/catchat/crispycourageouskitten.htm

Jackie Brooks’ clever poem, Sleeping Kitten, is based on the Pi format – to see how it’s done, click here:

http://www.thedailymews.com/poems/sleepingkitten.htm

For the creative quilters among you, Sundrop Designs have got a beautiful new critter for you to copy and make up: a giant panda.

http://www.sundropdesigns.com/valley/critter.html 

As you know the giant panda is now sadly almost extinct, and Sandy has gone to a lot of trouble to give lots of information about the giant panda. Click here to read more and to see if there is anything you can do to help save these beautiful animals:

http://www.sundropdesigns.com/valley/panda.html

Another contentious issue is cloning. What are your thoughts and views on this subject? I read in my cat magazine the other week about someone only identified as Julie who lives in Austin, Texas, who had her beloved cat Nicky, a Maine Coon, cloned after he died by the company Genetics Savings and Clone (GSC). Little Nicky is the result but various proponents of animals’ rights and welfare raised serious questions. Something I found staggering to digest was the fact that on the day Julie bought Little Nicky home, approximately 6,000 cats were destroyed in shelters for want of a good home. A spokesperson for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) says: ‘GSC (the cloning company) hopes to rake in huge profits on future clonings but is silent about how many failures there were before Nicky. It is estimated that 98 animals die for every animal successfully cloned. We urge people to go to a shelter and adopt if they have the time and resources to care for a cat.’

The RSPCA issued the following statement: ‘The society believes this is a grossly immoral abuse of cloning technology and a waste of time because it involves subjecting cats to painful and distressing procedures. There are extremely high failure and mortality rates and the cloned cats are not identical to the original cats in any case because each will be brought up in a different environment, resulting in animals with different personalities and appearances.’

Julie paid $50,000, which is roughly the equivalent of £26,000 to have her copycat and said it was the best money she had ever spent! Surely if a person has that amount of money to spend, and given all the thousands of beautiful cats in shelters throughout our countries that need loving homes, you’d have thought she could have spent her money a little more wisely. But then, that’s just my opinion!!!!

Please go and sign the petition at the SPAY-NEUTER PROGRAM on this link: http://www.snapus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=compassionpledge&s_oo=3mXnsFxORv-PLhYs3lnipg..

They want 33,000 signed pledges by 8th March against electrocuting dogs.

Here’s a lovely link to a sweet bit of fun: http://screenclean.j1media.com/lick.html

For some time now I’ve had Google Ads on the right hand side of the pages on the website so each time you visit, will you take a few seconds to click on the ads? You don’t have to buy anything – but each click earns me a few cents and probably by the time I’m a thousand years old I might make the 100 dollars necessary before a cheque (check) is sent out. All monies earned from Google Ads will go to a local cat shelter where Ricky came from. Thank you!

And on the subject of clicking, will you also take the time out to go to the Book Picks page and check out the books that I recommend? The two books that I’ve recommended this month are: Cat Massage by Bo Lundberg and What is my cat thinking? by Gwen Bailey. Both books are excellent and full of interesting information that will help the cat loving person to love and understand their feline companion just that little bit more!

And finally, sent to me in another email, children’s letters to God, this one touched my heart: ‘Dear God, I didn't think orange went with purple until I saw the sunset you made on Tuesday night. That was really cool. Thomas’

So until the next time, enjoy Mother’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, and Easter and have a purrfect month.

All good wishes

Pauline – editor
Garfield – Chief Technical and Health Advisor
Billy and Timmy – Home Affairs Advisors
Sam – Ethnic Minorities Advisor
Ricky – Counsellor and Psy-cat-therapist
Ollie – Comedian in the making and all round mischievous bundle of fun!

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