Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
congratulations on the new cats to everyone who brought a stray cat inside "just for this cold snap"
— ?? stick ?? (@briggityboppity) December 28, 2022
I found this thing in a bush when it was potato sized 5 years ago pic.twitter.com/wZjYPw04kt
— ?? stick ?? (@briggityboppity) December 29, 2022
(For once, it’s worth reading the replies!)
Thursday Morning Open Thread: Warm Thoughts for A Cold SeasonPost + Comments (247)
i swear to god. if one of you doesn’t go get fishtopher…https://t.co/fpr71yOUL2 pic.twitter.com/k6lLRoquCg
— Molly Clarke (@mollyaclarke) November 24, 2022
Something cheerful, for a Sunday morning…
Fishtopher has been adopted!!! ITS A #Caturday Miracle! #fishtopher #CaturdayMiracle pic.twitter.com/v3HsVRkH7N
— Future Now (@YoTotalAF) November 26, 2022
my bf adopted fishtopher AMA pic.twitter.com/UzHR2w7maZ
— heat miser?? (@honkinn) November 26, 2022
fishtopher purring AND biscuit making pic.twitter.com/HeBWEr0C79
— heat miser?? (@honkinn) November 26, 2022
Per the Washington Post:
… The “very sad and depressed” 5-year-old feline, a New Jersey shelter said, was waiting for someone to adopt him.
The call-out that went viral — possibly thanks to Fishtopher’s decidedly unimpressed expression — has been answered: A Maryland couple drove to pick up the “big cheeky boy” at the shelter this weekend.
“FISHTOPHER HAS LEFT THE BUILDING!” the Blackwood, N.J., shelter said Saturday.
Social media users have avidly followed Fishtopher’s story since a Twitter post with a screenshot of the seemingly grumpy cat’s online adoption profile was posted on Thanksgiving Day, earning more than 169,000 likes…
Tanner Callahan, 24, applied to adopt Fishtopher after his partner, Laura Folts, 22, sent the link to the cat’s profile — though it wasn’t initially “a super serious thing,” Folts told The Washington Post on Twitter. “We had been talking of Tanner adopting a cat or dog since he moved into his new (bigger) place, and had a trend of me sending cute animals as a joke,” she added.
Callahan lives in Baltimore, and Folts outside of the city. The couple posted pictures of their journey home with Fishtopher on Twitter…
Folts tweeted that Fishtopher has feline immunodeficiency virus, or FIV, which weakens cats’ immune systems and is similar to the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV. Cats cannot transmit FIV to humans…
The executive director of Homeward Bound, Lysa Boston, told Insider, “We are thrilled with all the attention that he [Fishtopher] got and hope that it will make people realize that we have so many wonderful cats and dogs as well up for adoption that are so often overlooked.”
Fishtopher the cat got some circulation on socials the last couple days. and the folks who adopted him are being so kind to share many pics of him with us. let's not badger them, but also, LOOOOK at him! https://t.co/CSBkCyxzty
— Suzy (endless screaming) (@mis_cue) November 26, 2022
Of course, Fishtopher has his very own twitter account, now — and he (his humans) share pics of other forlorn shelter cats who are still looking for their own happy endings…
learning to play!! pic.twitter.com/sr7DVYyJIe
— Fishtopher the Cat (@mrfishtopher) December 2, 2022
Loved meeting @mrfishtopher and his amazing new fur-parents today!! Coming up tonight… How this viral sensation is helping other animals get adopted?? @wbaltv11 pic.twitter.com/bLPUlznd3Z
— Jennifer Franciotti (@wbaljfro) December 2, 2022
Sunday Morning Open Thread: Yay for Fishtopher!Post + Comments (116)
I tracked down my favorite meme: the hot pink bitch named breakfast!! He was born at a Wendy's, he's a punk rock groupie, and he's living out his golden years in Western Massachusetts (and doggie diapers). More in @DefectorMedia
https://t.co/a3wBOFxguk— Annie? Rauwerda? (@anniierau) October 27, 2022
Before y’all get judgey, I once dyed my first dog glitter blue for his doggy obedience-class Halloween party. He didn’t find the dye (which washed out right afterward) nearly as annoying as the strap-on butterfly wings and the light-up deelybobbers… he was a Papillon! (And a bodhisattva, but that’s a longer story.)
“This hot pink bitch was named breakfast!!!” is a string of words and punctuation that’s just barely coherent enough to communicate its subject matter (a magenta dog that is named after a meal) and just crazed enough to inspire intense devotion. The sentence was written, possibly for the first time in history, in a March 22, 2018, post to “Dogspotting” by Katie Dawson along with a blurry snap of a roseate Pomeranian.
In Dogspotting, the 1.8 million-member Facebook group, people post pictures of dogs they’ve spotted and assign them semi-arbitrary point value. It was a mid-2010s internet triumph: one of those rare low-stakes, positivity-only outposts on an increasingly sour and combative internet…
But Breakfast is, at least by the standards of viral animals, underexposed. Unique among internet-famous pets, Breakfast has no curated online presence, no brand deals, no intention to be anything other than a hot pink bitch. Breakfast presumably doesn’t even know they are hot pink, as dogs are colorblind and pink is not a color they see.
A few weeks ago, after I saw a periodic repost of the photo, I realized that the photo was four years old, and that’s about 30 percent of a Pomeranian’s lifespan, which made me sick with fear that Breakfast might have died. I’d lose my breakfast if I lost my Breakfast!
So I cracked my knuckles, opened a new tab, and started my quest for Breakfast. First, I tracked down Katie, Breakfast’s original spotter who now lives in Arlington, Va., and works in partnerships at a philanthropy organization. The Dogspotting Facebook group has an ironclad rule against posting dogs you know, so it was unlikely that Katie and Breakfast had a long-established relationship, but I hoped that maybe she had stayed in touch with the dog’s owners. I mean, they’d presumably struck up a conversation when they told her Breakfast’s name. I pestered Katie with a few messages and eventually she replied to say that she did not know Breakfast’s whereabouts. “Pretty wild that I still get people reaching out about this when I took that picture close to five years ago,” she added, making it clear that she’d moved on. I, unfortunately, had not…
We asked each other, “If you were a hot pink bitch named Breakfast, where would you be?” The answer, instantly obvious, is Instagram. Reed and I looked through the hashtags #breakfastdog and #breakfastthedog, which turned out to be mostly galleries of egg-topped hot dogs or dogs eating bacon, until we found one blurry shot of a Pomeranian by a couch. A bit of sleuthing revealed that Breakfast’s owners had been in an NYC-based punk band—making them the exact type of people you’d expect to dye a dog hot pink, I suppose. Soon enough, I was on the phone with them.
“We got him in 2012 and first dyed him pink in 2013,” Sofia, 33, told me while she was making dinner for her human toddler. In this moment, I realized that Breakfast was a he—a hot pink bro, as it turns out…
More on the 10 kittens, and photos!
Introduction from Laura:
WaterGirl, in her infinite patience with Luddites, offered to post a second installment in the Hartstene Island Kitten Rescue epic, so here goes:
I am trying to find homes for ten kittens.
The ten kitties are eating, pooping, playing, sleeping and practicing their winsome cuteness skills in hopes of finding the homes their moms and dads never had. They come from a property where a kind lady fed a few stray cats and tried to get them fixed, but couldn’t keep up with their reproduction. When I found out about the situation, there were thirty plus cats on the property. A friend and I are trapping the adults, getting them fixed, and placing them in barns through BarnCats.
I am a volunteer at a sanctuary for unadoptable cats. It is not an official charity. The sanctuary is a series of cottages with enclosed yards which the owner built to house the overspill of feral, elderly, and sick cats from a local cat rescue. The kittens are in large ferret cages in one of the cottages, They can’t live at the sanctuary for the rest of their lives; there isn’t room, and besides they are adoptable!
The lady from Kitten Rescue came out and dewormed the kittens, gave them their first shots, cleaned their ears, and figured out what sex they all are. “Phoebe” and “Spice Girl” are boys.
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So here are the kitties:
Sammy is a Siamese mix. He was nearly dead when I found him curled up on a pile of garbage. He is now a sweet, happy, bouncy kitten with cream and brown fur and blue eyes. Very playful!
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10 Rescued Kittens & Cats Need Homes! (Update)Post + Comments (54)
In case you missed it, we have a new pet charity this year – Athenspets.
Looks like a family affair.
Boo-le-Bark on the Boulevard and Athenspets Last SundayPost + Comments (126)
John is recuperating from the Dreaded Homecoming Weekend, and he asked me to put this together.
I thought about titling this: You Need a Kitten! And You Need a Kitten! And You Need a Kitten!
The note below is from wonkie. Her email address is in the text below.
Let us know in the comments and/or via email if you think you might be interested.
John was kind enough to let me have some space on his blog for some kittens that need homes.
This is a picture is of Ashley, the runt. She’s tiny. She has a sibling that is almost identical but a little bigger. I want them to be adopted together. She is eating solid food now, but she is so small that she can’t be spayed yet. She and her sib need to go to a quiet, secure home because they are going to be small, gentle cats. They both are socialized and purr.
I am a volunteer at a sanctuary for unadoptable cats. Though I am not formally associated with any official rescue, I have been part of several large scale rescues of feral cats around Mason Co. Washington where I live. We are Appalachia West out here and overrun with cats.
I got an email about a lady in town who had upwards of forty cats on her property. She’s not a hoarder; she’s a kind-hearted lady who started out feeding strays—and trying to get them fixed—but she couldn’t keep up with their reproduction. She went from two to forty plus in one year.
Most are feral. A friend and I have gotten twenty-two off the property so far. I am driving them into Tacoma to NW Spay and Neuter, and my friend is placing the cats in barns and outbuildings through BarnCats. She has vouchers that are helping with costs.
Of the cats rescued so far, ten are kittens. Five I snatched up because they were visibly sick, small, and outdoors—at risk of being killed by a raccoon or owl. I call them the Fab Five, and I think they are the survivors of three litters. I had them in my bathroom for a while, nursing them back to health, Kitten Rescue of Mason Co, was a HUGE help to me since I’ve never cared for such young kittens before. They gave me food, medicine, and lots of advice! Kitten Rescue has around one hundred kittens in their care, so they can’t help me place the Fab Five in homes.
The other five kittens are with their mom at the cat sanctuary. Their mom, Sunny, is a beautiful Siamese mix with lovely blue eyes, but feral. She will stay at the sanctuary, but her babies will need homes in six weeks or so.
All the kittens are socialized. All are healthy, though some are small for their age and will probably be small adults. None are ready to go to homes yet, but all can be placed before Christmas and three can be place very soon. It is going to be very hard to find homes, given how many cats are in need. I will drive kittens to anywhere in Western Wa. or Portland. If you want, anyone can come visit me on Hartstene Island and meet the kittens. While you are here, I can get you a tour of the Wild Felid Center, since it is located on the grounds of the cat sanctuary. I can give you lunch, too!. Wild Felid Advocacy Center (wildfelids.org)
Wally the Whale, the biggest kitten. He’s a wild one! He is only partially socialized. Sammy is part Siamese, very friendly and playful. He was nearly dead when I got him but has made a great recovery.
Muffet is Sammy’s best friend and they need to be adopted together. She has medium length soft fluffy fur and little white toes. She is a very sweet kitty, a bit shy, but has a wonderful purr.
This picture shows Sunny’s babies playing.
This picture shows her two runts. Two of her kittens are cream colored, two are dove gray and one is a very dark tabby. The smallest runt is tiny and has fluffy gray fur. They are just beginning to play outside the nest.
This last picture is Sunny, Miss Hissy Fit, the mother who started the whole mess.
So anyway if you can find room in your home and your heart for some kittens, please let me know! I’ prefer placing them in pairs and placing them after they are fixed, but will work with people who have good access to a low cost vet. I am serious about the invitation to come visit for an afternoon to meet the kittens—and take in the Wild Felid Center. I can be reached at Lkoerber889 @ aol.com (no spaces, of course)
Thank you, John, for posting this.
Laura, aka wonkie
If you have any questions, ask away!
Hello all- we spent two years with our last charity and decided it was time to move on and give a shot to the arm to a new team, and I am proud to introduce Athenspets!
I’ve spoken at length with their point of contact, Lisa, and let me tell you, the pets are in good hands and under solid leadership with a dedicated volunteer pool. We think that our calendar money (which does not get there until February or March, remember), will provide a nice bit of money for them to expand their operations and to have an emergency fund, much like what was needed for Artie.
At any rate, please read the post below and help welcome Athenspets to Balloon Juice. Baud, keep your pants on, we have company.
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Athenspets is an all-volunteer 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to helping the neediest animals in the Athens (GA) area and the people who love them.
Athenspets started as an informal website in 2001 to promote the animals at Athens-Clarke County Animal Services, then a municipal shelter that euthanized approximately 70% of the dogs that were impounded. The publicity greatly improved things, so that with little else changing, approximately 80% or more of the shelter dogs were being reclaimed, adopted, or transferred to rescue groups by the 2010s. The cat situation, though, remained dire; from the time the county began running a cat shelter in 2011, more than 50% of the impounded cats did not make it out alive.
In 2015, Athenspets was incorporated and became a public charity. Volunteers raised funds to start a medical program for the shelter, treating animals with injuries and illnesses rather than leaving them to be euthanized. We also developed a spay/neuter program that both strategically altered shelter animals to improve the outcomes of all of the shelter animals (for example, selecting female animals that were in heat to reduce the associated behavioral problems in all of the animals) and narrowly targeted the owned animals in the community that were at highest risk of adding to pet overpopulation in our area.
Despite the incredibly high poverty rate in Athens, where more than 30% of permanent residents live below the poverty line, the community responded to these efforts. By 2019, the last year in which all medical treatment for the shelter animals was overseen by volunteers and funded by donations, the live release rates for the shelter animals had put the shelter on the verge of “no kill” status (which recognizes that open admission municipal shelters will always euthanize some animals since they are legally required to impound whether or not the animal is vicious or terminally ill or injured, and regardless of whether there is space available).
In late 2019, Athenspets led an effort to overhaul the shelter: to bring in new, progressive management and see that the county funded the shelter at an appropriate level. This effort was successful, and many of the programs Athenspets had set up and taken responsibility for running and funding were transferred to the county. The shelter is now considered a model for Southern open-admission municipal shelters thanks to these efforts.
Because of these changes, Athenspets was able to move to focusing on keeping animals in good, even if impoverished, homes, reducing future pet overpopulation, and simply being volunteers, while still funding the extraordinary medical expenses of shelter animals, like Raven’s dog, Artie.
Each year, we cover the cost of spaying/neutering, vaccinating, and microchipping more than 500 owned and community animals. We designed and ran an innovative Community Innovations program in 2020-2021, working to change pet care norms in the neighborhood in Athens that most disproportionately produces dogs that are euthanized at the shelter because of prior physical and social neglect.
Funds donated to Athenspets go 100% towards our programs; we have no office space, paid employees, or other overhead costs.
