Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

People are weird.

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

You are here: Home / Pet Blogging / Cat Blogging / National Spay/Neuter Day

National Spay/Neuter Day

by | 77 Comments

This post is in: , ,

The good ladies at CAAR are celebrating National Spay/Neuter Day, so today might be a great day to go toss them a donation to help out the furry critters. Besides, this kind of forced sterilization might make Santorum mad.

Also, it appears I am not the only one with a cat who likes to drink with his paws:

That’s pretty much exactly what Tunch was doing with my water earlier today.

Reader Interactions

77Comments

  4. 4.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    That’s pretty much exactly what Tunch was doing with my water earlier today.

    That’s where prosperity and freedom come from: the invisible paw of the market.
    /Adam Smith’s cat

  6. 6.

    trollhattan

    O/T Obama to the UAW, today.

    “Or you’ve got folks saying, ‘The real problem was with the workers. They all made out like bandits. Saving the American auto industry was just about paying back unions.’ Really? Even by the standards of this town, that’s a load of you-know-what. About 700,000 retirees saw a reduction in the health care benefits they had earned. Many of you saw hours reduced, or pay and wages scaled back. You gave up some of your rights as workers. Promises were made to you over the years that you gave up for the sake and survival of this industry, its workers, their families…. I keep hearing these folks talk about ‘values’ all the time. You want to talk about values? Hard work — that’s a value. Looking out for one another — that’s a value. The idea that we’re all in it together — that I am my brother’s keeper; I am my sister’s keeper — that’s a value.

    Also, too, more Republicans should be “tutored.”

  7. 7.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    Cootie looks exactly like my Peter Kitty. Is there a name for that breed of all-grey cat, or is he just a mutt? I got him from the local shelter and they knew nothing of his origins.

    Peter does at least lap from a water bowl, but he insists on taking each piece of food out of the dish and putting it on the floor before eating it.

  9. 9.

    Cave Man

    I understand the intent. and agree that it is better in the long run, for such services to be made available at low or no cost.

    However, I feel I made a mistake in fixing my 13 year-old Queensland Heeler.

    I sure wish I had a couple of his pups. Best dog ever.

  10. 10.

    Ben Franklin

    Holy Moly; Cave man is me. What is up with WP?

    Hopefully, this comes up correctly.

    Ben Franklin

  12. 12.

    Thymezone

    The cat cannot drink from that glass, it’s too narrow. Get him a proper water dish for crissakes.

    — signed, The Cat

  13. 13.

    Anne Laurie

    @Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:

    Is there a name for that breed of all-grey cat, or is he just a mutt?

    British Blue, or British Blue Shorthair. (‘Blue’ is grey or dark grey, according to breeders & animal geneticists.) If you’re being precise, you can say Peter is a “British Blue type”, but in my experience cat people are not gonna demand to see his registered pedigree.

  14. 14.

    shortstop

    @Cave Man: If we weren’t paying attention, and we so often weren’t, our late heeler could still take us down as he rounded the edge of 14. My god, but they do hang on. To heels, that is.

    PAWS here in Chicago, source of our wonderful mutt, does free spaying and neutering for low-income Chicagoans’ dogs and cats. It’s a favorite target of our donation dollars. Not saying people shouldn’t give nationally, but there are many lovely local efforts, too.

  16. 16.

    spencer neal

    My old guy (16+) prefers to put one foot in his water bowl while he drinks, walk all over the house and then jump on my lap.

  21. 21.

    quannlace

    Nah, looks like Cootie is just trying to keep that charcoal grill from flaming up. Wow, that cat’s got asbestos paws!

  22. 22.

    Hungry Joe

    Our cat Zelda has to dip a paw into her water bowl a few times and fling some droplets around before she’ll deign to drink because … because she’s a cat and she feels like it, I guess.

  23. 23.

    kdaug

    My cat sits on the edge of the tub and meows until we turn on the water for her, and then drinks exactly the same way.

  24. 24.

    Linda Featheringill

    Cootie is a cutie!

    Very peaceful in my house at the moment. Four cats and a dog are napping luxuriously, daughter unit is in Pennsylvania [again] courting, and I survived to complain another day. What more could you ask for?

  25. 25.

    lamh35

    Wow, now let’s imagine the shrieks that will be heard if Michelle Obama said this:

    Ann Romney: Media Doesn’t “Want Anyone Who Has A Chance” Against Bam

    “All of us in this room know the media loves Barack Obama. They don’t want anyone who has a chance of defeating him.”

    “I am so mad at the press [that] I could just strangle them! And, you know, I think I’ve decided there are going to be some people invited on the bus and some people just aren’t going to be invited on the bus.”

  26. 26.

    Violet

    My friends who don’t have a lot of money used a local organization that does free/low cost spay/neutering to get their new rescue kitty fixed. I’m so glad those organizations are available for folks like them.

  27. 27.

    David Koch

    @lamh35: Why would she be mad at the press, the Village is the only thing keeping the floundering Mittens afloat.

    Also too, Mrs. Cadillac’s screeching sounds like someone who’s about to lose their home state, tonight.

  30. 30.

    shortstop

    @Raven: I do not know!

    @lamh35: What is with these people’s timing?! Annie insults the press the same day her husband will lose, or barely win, his boyhood state. Mitt, watching Santorum pile up Democratic votes in Michigan, decides it’s a good day to sneer at the Republican base’s hyperemotionalism. This is like the 2008 Clinton campaign x 100 in terms of unforced errors.

  31. 31.

    Violet

    @lamh35:
    Wow. Talk about feeling entitled. And that’s how you keep the media under control. Threaten that they won’t get to swing on the tire swing ride on the bus.

  32. 32.

    shortstop

    @Raven: They do eat it up, but that comes at the price of tonight’s/tomorrow’s coverage. I’m guessing it won’t be particularly favorable. “ROMNEY BOMBS IN BOYHOOD BACKYARD.” “STATE SHAPED LIKE MITT WANTS NOTHING TO DO WITH NAMESAKE CANDIDATE.” “NO MITT, SHERLOCK, SAYS MICHIGAN.”

  33. 33.

    MikeJ

    @lamh35: Just more working the refs. Now all the media will bend over backwards to prove to the Romneys that they hate that Kenya usurper too.

  35. 35.

    David Koch

    If Mittens loses tonight it will ignite a panic and feeding frenzy and all the whining by Mrs. Cadillac wont’ be able to stop it.

  36. 36.

    Mike E

    Then there’s the whole drinking out of the faucet thing…wildcats gotta drink wild, or sumptin.

    My daughter’s cat Periwinkle prefers dry food but likes to knock it into the water bowl, then fish the hydrated morsels out with her steady paw. You ever see this behavior before?

  40. 40.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    @Anne Laurie: Ah, thanks. I had a look at some pix of the breed. Peter isn’t as jowly and stocky as many of the British Blues I saw, but he has the look and the coat. He’s a great cat – friendly but not clingy, and he cuddles with my son every night, which makes him priceless to us. I feel bad for whoever had to give him up, and he’d been languishing at the shelter for months. We lucked out.

  41. 41.

    shortstop

    @Linda Featheringill: It means she thinks she can make her husband more attractive to the press by banning members of it from the campaign bus. And I thought she was the smarter one in this couple.

  46. 46.

    shortstop

    @Ben Franklin: It was all fine and amusing and so forth until he had the third baseman’s 95-pound grandma face down on the floor. Fortunately she was uninjured.

    We used to warn guests at dinner parties that when they got up to go to the bathroom, they needed to move slowly and remain alert to Norm’s location. It caused him real anguish to have someone leave the group.

  47. 47.

    Keith

    While only one of my cats will paw my water, both of them will fight over the rights to paw out of a glass of egg nog.

  48. 48.

    Triassic Sands

    That’s a pretty inefficient way to drink. I have a female cat who just folds back her whiskers and sticks her little head all the way into the glass and drinks normally — for a cat.

  50. 50.

    here4tehbeer

    The first time my kitteh did that he chose to do it with a glass of vodka. I should note that it was also the *last* time he chose to do that.

  54. 54.

    gogol's wife

    @Karen in GA:

    Oh, she’s adorable. She’s the size of my beloved Louis.

    I need happy cat stories, worrying about my Masha with a tumor in her lung. She’s fine for now, but won’t stay that way. It’s agony waiting for her to get really sick.

  56. 56.

    Anne Laurie

    @Cave Man:

    I sure wish I had a couple of his pups. Best dog ever.

    There’s always that temptation, which is why all seven of the dogs I’ve owned over the past 25 years have been the same breed (the first three from the same breeder). But I’ve also known enough professional dog people that I can assure you it’s impossible to “copy” a particular Great Dog, even from quite inbred genetic lines. Even the beauty-contest conformation breeders can’t duplicate their top prize winners consistently. And the talent-dog people (obedience, agility, herding, schutzhund) hardly bother — some of them will try to get their “replacement” dogs from the same breeding lines, but I’ve known other professionals who say that it’s too heartbreaking to have a beloved dog’s puppies turn out to be disappointments… perfectly nice dogs, even competition-quality dogs, but not great dogs.

    If you know who your Heeler’s parents were, you can go back to his breeder & get a puppy that will have more or less the same mix of physical & temperamental traits that make your guy perfect (for you), but they’ll never be quite the same dog. Which may be for the best, since even a clone could never be a “replacement” in your heart!

  57. 57.

    Ben Franklin

    @Anne Laurie:

    I agree 100% that it is a genetic roulette wheel. Especially heelers who have only recently been recognized by AKC, because the blood-lines were (long ago)
    impossible due to the fact the breed is half or quarter Dingo, with balance going to feral and domestic K-9s of dubious ancestry.

    Replacing the original, with any dog, or person is a fools errand. But I would love to have his pups! :>)

  58. 58.

    beergoggles

    Speaking of spaying – does anyone know of any studies on whether female dogs can be kept on birth control instead of spaying? Because after almost 10 years of dealing with urinary incontinence from the last spaying and the hypertension and vomiting from the meds and other meds to treat those syptoms and the constant blood tests to make sure she’s ok, I don’t think I can ever let any of my dogs get spayed again.

  59. 59.

    Raven

    @Ben Franklin: Raven, our late great Black Cocker was an amazing dog and we loved him deeply. About a year after we lost him our vet called and said “we have a little female Blacky that was abandoned and is it need of help. We NEVER would have tried to replace Raven but when we went to see her I was literally taken to my knees when they brought her out. She’s cost us a bundle with cataract, bladder stones and autoimmune hemolytic anemia (AIHA). She’s my first female after 40 years of males and she’s wonderful and a bundle of joy. Between her and our rescue huskie/samoyed, Bohdi, we’re very lucky.

  60. 60.

    Jennifer

    Agreed, that kitty is being very smart in getting the water out of that glass.

    Recognizing that all kitties for whatever reason find water tastier out of a cup or glass, I have for years been keeping the cat water in a large plastic cup on the side of the tub. When kitty wants a drink, she just jumps up there and drinks…none of them have ever knocked the cup over, but if they did, it would be a lot easier to clean up in the bathroom, plus there’s a 50% chance they’ll knock it into the tub and no clean up will be required. The other nice thing is it keeps it out of the way in the kitchen – mine is small enough that guest regularly step in the cat dishes, so I know I’d be cleaning up water on a regular basis if I kept it out there.

    All the kitties have had their quirks. Eartha Kitty, who’s been with me for 8 years, goes crazy over celery – tries to climb into the grocery bag whenever I bring any home. I had a cat growing up who really loved pumpkin pie and pumpkin bread – one Thanksgiving, she got up on the table where the pie was cooling and ate the middle out of it. I had a cat in college and after who had been declawed – he would leap onto the feet of anyone who came in the house and “sharpen” the claws he no longer had on their shoelaces.

  63. 63.

    WereBear

    Here’s the latest science:

    How Cats Drink

    And it probably isn’t what you think!

    Cats are drawn to the freshest sources; running water, a fountain (we have one for the cats) and our own tasty beverages that have been freshly poured.

  64. 64.

    beergoggles

    @Raven: Wow thanks. That’s pretty thorough – if I knew all that beforehand I probably would have waited on getting her fixed. Still, it doesn’t say whether the incidence of spay incontinence decreases by waiting till maturity to fix her. Does keeping a dog on birth control reduce the risk of pyometra? So many question – I just don’t trust vets to answer them honestly since they are all about getting the dogs fixed ASAP.

  65. 65.

    WereBear

    @Anne Laurie: Which may be for the best, since even a clone could never be a “replacement” in your heart!

    The first cloned cat, for instance, was a calico; whose patches were different from her genetic donor’s.

    This illustrates how even the same genes get turned on and off by the environment.

  69. 69.

    beergoggles

    @Mnemosyne: Gah I hope not – it’s a painful enough procedure as it is and they were very good about giving plenty of pain meds for her post-op. The pet clinic was highly recommended by my neighbors when I moved here. They take great care of the pups when I need them groomed or take them in for checkups or to have their teeth scaled. But like the big pet hospital here and the other 2 pet clinics I’ve visited, they are all about getting the dogs fixed. All the online research I’ve done on it seems to indicate that spay incontinence is pretty common – it’s just a nightmare to manage.

    @Raven: I trust em to do their job, I just don’t trust them to overcome their must-spay-now brainwashing or to look at many alternatives. There’s also me second guessing myself that after 10 years I’m turning into some anti-spay version of the anti-vaccine crazies out there.

  70. 70.

    Anne Laurie

    @Mnemosyne: Actually, some degree of urinary incontinence after spaying really isn’t that uncommon in dogs — it’s the lack of estrogen that causes ‘loss of tone’ in the relevant muscles, same as in older women. But while those ‘light bladder leakage’ pads can be adapted for dogs, it’s obviously not a very convenient solution. Veterinarians used to prescribe estrogen replacement as a treatment (we still get pharmacy ads targeted to ‘women of a certain age’ addressed to our late little dog Candy-Mouse), but that raised the risk for breast cancer. Now they usually start with a drug called Proin, which has its own side effects, including the risk of high blood pressure.

    Of course the non-pet-lovers are going to class all this as #firstworldproblems. But ‘housebreaking failure’ is probably the number one reason that dogs are turned over to shelters. And it can be really distressing for a fastidious older dog to find she’s unable to Follow the Rules. Mousie was, to put it gently, not college material — she literally could not chew biscuit & walk — but she would get very agitated when she found herself standing in a puddle & obviously had no clue why it had happened.

  71. 71.

    Mnemosyne

    @Anne Laurie:

    I’ve never heard of it happening in cats, so I wasn’t sure. Male cats can have urinary problems post-neutering, but the problem is that they get clogged up and can’t pee, not incontinence. I haven’t really heard of any downsides to early spay/neuter in cats, but obviously dogs are a different species.

  72. 72.

    beergoggles

    @Anne Laurie: There’s also urine scald to deal with after they wet themselves. The entire area there turns red and rashy.

    I found that giving her phytoestrogen supplements allowed me to cut down on the PPA dosage by half but it still makes her pace and she still needs a full dosage of famotidine or she starts throwing up – and of course throwing it up results in her not getting her PPA dosage and then she ends up wetting herself all over again.

    Just not ready to deal with this all over again with another dog – so there’s gotta be some kind of non lose-lose solution of either risking incontinence or pyometra or just sticking to male dogs in the future.

  73. 73.

    Mnemosyne

    @beergoggles:

    It’s again a cat thing, but I remember hearing that when they have established feral cat colonies, some organizations have been getting the male cats vasectomies instead of neutering them so they keep their hormones (and their natural aggression towards outside males trying to mess with “their” females) but don’t make any more kittens. Is anyone out there trying doggie tubal ligations or something like that?

    Though of course you would then have a dog who was still at risk of reproductive cancers, and as someone who had a late-spayed cat die at 10 of kitty breast cancer, I can’t laugh that off.

  75. 75.

    beergoggles

    @Mnemosyne: Sorry about ur kitty :(
    I think tube tying works fine for males but for females the big issue is pyometra which can kill them faster than you can realize how sick they are and take them to the vet-ER. And as long as they have a uterus and a heat, they are at risk. I don’t see how cats aren’t at risk for it either – in the case of feral cats it’s just possible people don’t perform autopsies to find out the cause of death?

    @General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero): Thanks! Rose-colored-glasses would have been too long and not nearly indicative of the alcohol consumption.

  77. 77.

    Mnemosyne

    @beergoggles:

    Hmm. Looking at Wikipedia, apparently pyometra can happen with cats, but it’s much less common. Anatomical differences between the species, maybe? Plus female cats in heat are a LOT less pleasant to be around than dogs in heat, so maybe cat owners are more likely to spay?

Comments are closed.