Sparkle the Designer Cat's Blog, page 398

Rescue a Cat and Raise Your Endorphins (Or a Tale of Two Torties)

 

There are few things that make a human feel better than helping a cat in need. Many of you know this already, and my human was reminded of one of her very own experiences this week. You see, a friend of ours — you may know her, she’s the human of Selina and her family at One Eye On the Future — was at the pet store the other night and saw something that upset her greatly. There was a five-month-old tortie kitten in a cage all by herself, the cages on either side of her empty. Her litter box was a disaster. A few crumbly pieces of kibble remained in her food dish. What water was left in her water bowl had clumping litter floating in it. The neglected kitten reached her paw out of the locked cage, begging for attention….

My human had a flashback of a small tortie kitten, reaching desperately through the bars of her cage. She wasn’t at a rescue cat in a pet store, however, she was at one of the roughest animal control facilities in Los Angeles. It was October 2000, and the cat was Binga.

My human followed the story of the tortoiseshell kitten at the pet store on Facebook as it developed. Selina’s human was outraged at the kitten’s neglect and desperately wanted to help her somehow. Her own feline home was full, so she couldn’t adopt her herself. Plans were discussed…. and then her cousin casually tossed off that she might take the kitten. Selina’s human made the arrangements and picked her up. The next post that showed up on Facebook was a photo of the tortie kitten in Selina’s human’s arms. Both of them looked happy beyond words.

My human knew the feeling. It was the same one she had when she picked up Binga from the Animal Control facility and drove her to the veterinary clinic where her boyfriend worked at the time. She wasn’t intending to adopt her — she had pulled her just because it was clear she needed to get out of there. But the selfless act of saving a cat in need stirred something inside of her. It was an all-encompassing wave of love and joy that you wish could go on forever. It was an endorphin rush!

One of the coolest side effects of rescuing a cat in need is that awesome feel-good sensation. It’s actually your body reacting to big emotions. Endorphin rushes also happen to regular exercisers after a hard cardio workout and women who have babies. Saving a cat is much easier than these two things, I think! There is nothing like getting up close and personal when you are helping rescue a cat, and holding her in your arms when she is out of danger. You don’t even have to be the adopter — in fact, it feels even better when you aren’t because then it’s totally an act of unconditional love. So always keep a lookout for situations where you can be of service to a cat in need. You’ll benefit too!

Have you ever had an endorphin rush from saving a kitty? Tell me in your comments if you have!

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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” Sparkle had answers to many annoying problems in her two award-winning books! Visit her author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of her awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Bookish Bloopers

Remember that cute photo of me with Rescued from Monday’s blog post? It actually took my human a couple of days to get that shot! There was just one good shot. The rest of them… well, here they are.

Here I am, seeing if the book passed the smell test.

Because some of the stories are so gripping, I decided the book deserved my “dramatic cat” face. My human did not appreciate this.

I goofed off so much that my human actually gave up and threw the book in her laptop bag and brought it to our hotel room in Ontario.

She thought she was funny putting the book on me. I disagreed.

You can tell I was getting impatient with her silly antics!

I even walked off the set. Somehow, in the midst of all this my human did manage to get the shot she used. She lucked out!

Remember to stop by the Pubslush crowdfunding campaign and check out the reward levels for Rescued! There are some pretty good ones. And help spread the word about the book!
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” Sparkle had answers to many annoying problems in her two award-winning books! Visit her author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of her awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Stiff Competition!

Here I am, in the hotel room in Ontario, CA, the day before the cat show started! I love hotel rooms. There is so much to explore, and this one was really cool because I found a cricket! My human says we are not staying there again, and I don’t understand why. She said she thought there were some creatures there called “tweakers.” Are they anything like crickets? If so, they are probably fun to stalk.

We were both happy to get to the show the next day and set up. We were “benched” next to my breeder again, but it may be the last time for a while because she is probably going to retire her Aby girl, CG, from shows and put her in the breeding program. My human likes CG and is going to miss seeing her.

I’ve got a treat for you today — my human turned off the camera sounds on her iPhone while I was in a ring so she could surreptitiously take a couple of photos without bothering the judge! Here I am as number 175, waiting for the judge’s decision. Can you see the other two cats trying to look at me? At least that is what I think they were trying to do! The one next to me is a red Somali, and the one on the far right is a fawn color (that is the dilute version of a red Somali). I don’t know if I mentioned it before, but my color is called ruddy.

Here I am, actually being judged! Being judged is fun because you either get to meet a new human, who pets you and puts their hands all over you, or you get to say hello to one you have met before! Some cats don’t like visiting with the judges and they stand there with their tail between their legs, but I always have my tail in the air. Sometimes I try to head butt the judges too. This judge is busy picking through my fur, checking my ticking and undercoat for any flaws. They are very particular about that sort of thing.

I finaled in another ring, and since the judge was done scoring us, my human was able to use her regular camera to take photos. Judges use cat toys when we are on the table, but it’s not because they want to play with us. That is a little bit of it, true, but they are also looking for things like head shape and ear set, and that is easier to examine when we kitties are alert. Right now, the judge is talking about my nice head shape and ears.

If you want to know who the top cat was in this judge’s premier class, it was not me — it was this impressive guy. Like I mentioned before, a good Persian takes a lot of work to groom well, and their breeders and owners are often rewarded for their efforts. This cat’s owners really earned first place — he is an amazing cat.

The competition at this show was really tough! I had a hard time competing for best in breed over a group of other older, more experienced Somalis but I managed to do it a few times. And I did final in two rings. Whew! And it’s not going to get any easier — my next show is the San Diego cat show in two weeks, and it is a very big and very important show!

It was raining when we were done. I hope the weather is better for the San Diego show!
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” Sparkle had answers to many annoying problems in her two award-winning books! Visit her author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of her awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Introducing a Very Special Cat Rescue Anthology

I know Sparkle mentioned it a few times when it was in the submission phase and later on, when it was being edited, but now the cat rescue anthology that my human has been working on is coming out at the end of the month! Here is what it looks like — it’s called Rescued: The Stories of 12 Cats, Through Their Eyes, and the official release date is Tuesday, January 27!

You already know some of the authors because they are fellow blogging pals: Crepes from Cat In the Fridge, Gemini from The Cat Post Intelligencer, Nerissa from Nerissa’s Life, and Rascal from Rascal and Rocco! Some of you who have been in the Twitter and blogging world for a long time will remember Ryker, the predecessor to Allie, Maxwell and Faraday at A Tonk’s Tail. But there are seven other cats who told their stories in this book, and I know you will love them too! In fact, you can meet three of them now because they have Facebook pages: Magoo, whose human does awesome rescue work in Wisconsin; Tuffy, who is the muse for his human, a cozy mystery author; and Lucky, who I admire so much because he overcame horrible cruelty and now helps other less fortunate animals on his page. Please check them out!

There is also a Facebook page for Rescued, but more importantly, there is also a Pubslush campaign that just began today! Pubslush is like Kickstarter or IndieGoGo, only for authors and publishers. You can become a supporter by buying into different reward levels, and the money will go to recoup the book’s expenses.

Go to the Rescued Pubslush campaign now!

I’ll briefly explain the financial stuff behind publishing a book, to show you why my human’s publishing company felt it was important to have a crowdfunding campaign. To put a book out properly, you need to hire a cover designer, pay for things like ISBN numbers (that’s how retailers, online and off, find the book), get the book proofed (which turned out to be a bigger expense than expected), print bookmarks and create other promotional materials, do a “short run” printing for reviews, possibly hire someone to create an eBook version, and more! All these expenses are charged against the book’s account, and they need to be paid back before the book goes into the profit column. And it’s only when the book does that, that the authors get paid royalties. And because the publishing company is new and very small, the authors didn’t get an advance on their royalties, which means they have not yet gotten any money for their hard work!

But there’s more to this book than just the authors getting paid. When my human chose the 12 writers, she asked each of them to pick a U.S. cat rescue that was near and dear to their hearts… and for the first year or so, a whole third of the profits from the book will go to these cat rescues (later on, there will just be single donations for the subsequent years). So that makes it doubly important that the expenses get recouped, and for the book to go into profit! The sooner that happens, the sooner the authors will see money, and the more the rescues will receive. That is what inspired my human to put together a crowdfunding campaign for the book.

Visit the Rescued Pubslush campaign and check out the rewards, and see if you might want to become a supporter! You can also see the book trailer there, and become a fan (it’s free to become a fan).

My human is hoping that Rescued does really well, and if it does, it may set a standard for future books that come from her publishing company.
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” Sparkle had answers to many annoying problems in her two award-winning books! Visit her author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of her awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Sunday Catinee: Gamer Kitty

What happens when a gamer has a kitty who wants to join in? Find out when this young guy and a kitten play League of Legends together. I’d say the kitty wins!

If you can’t see the above video, click here to watch it on YouTube!

I have to give this guy credit for letting his kitten keep playing — even though clearly, the kitty has better skillz!
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” Sparkle had answers to many annoying problems in her two award-winning books! Visit her author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of her awesome Dear Sparkle books!

The Caturday Report: The Love Edition

Why wait for Valentine’s Day — I have news items about kitty love now!

And of course my blogging pals have some great info for you too!

Did you hear about the woman who married her cats? Even crazier, they are celebrating their 10 year anniversary! I don’t know about you kitties, but I rather enjoy playing the field.
And if any of you humans are considering ditching the dude for a Tom, here is an article that lists 13 reasons cats are better than relationships.
Here is a really cool photography project by Adréanne Lupien. She spent a year taking pictures of people and their cats and creating very cool composites that show how much the cats own their space.
Socks from the Alasandra, the Cats and Dogs blog, looks at the possibility that some cat food may be causing hyperthyroidism.
And the Sometimes Cats Herd You blog examines the shortfall of black cat adoptions to black cat intakes in shelters.

My human has been busy getting a very important project ready — I think a lot of you know what it is, and I’ll be telling you more about it on Monday — so I tried to make things easy for her with this week’s posts!

Well, maybe except for this one… she wants to throw out my favorite toy, so I put the vote up to you guys!
Clearly my human needs some more training, so I’ve offered four human training tips that all us kitties can use!
Binga and I had a cat tree battle! It was epic.
And… there was a surprise ending!
Finally, in advance of this weekend’s cat show, I posted some fun outtakes and never before used photos that I thought you would enjoy!

If you see a good cat-oriented news item around the internet, send me a link and I may include it next week!
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” Sparkle had answers to many annoying problems in her two award-winning books! Visit her author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of her awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Outtakes and Extras

I just realized that over the past few weeks, there are a lot of extra photos of me. Some are outtakes, but some are really nice photos too! Since my human and I are getting ready for a cat show in Ontario, CA this weekend and we don’t have a lot of time, I decided to share some of these photos with you. A couple have been on Instagram, but most are “never before seen!”

Here I am, looking sultry, although I’m probably not old enough yet for this. Hey, if Brooke Shields could be a sexy teen in the 1970s, I can be a sexy 10 month old kitten!

Everyone always says I have a cute face, but I can look mean too — see? And I have Binga to back me up.

Yep, I’m giving the photographer a very subtle raspberry. I guess that is more teenager-like, isn’t it?

Remember when Sparkle made herself tall? I can do it too! She was better at it than I am, though.

I didn’t tell you, but my human actually bought two Santa hats for last month’s holiday season. You can see why there were no photos of me published with this one.

I don’t know what it was about that Neko Nappers Sleeping Bag, but there are a lot of photos of me sitting beside it and making faces.

See, I’m at it again!

This was one of the rare occasions I was napping in my human’s lap while she worked. She says that sometimes I even smile in my sleep.
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” Sparkle had answers to many annoying problems in her two award-winning books! Visit her author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of her awesome Dear Sparkle books!

A Kitty Coda

A whole lot of you seemed to think I lost yesterday’s battle… but you are wrong, because here I am, on top of the cat tree, and I won it fair and square!

Even though I know you are dying to find out how I did it, I’ve decided to keep that a secret for now.

If I can win the cat tree from Binga, who knows what else I might be able to accomplish?
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” Sparkle had answers to many annoying problems in her two award-winning books! Visit her author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of her awesome Dear Sparkle books!

The Battle of the Cat Tree

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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” Sparkle had answers to many annoying problems in her two award-winning books! Visit her author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of her awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Four Tips on How to Train Your Human

Did you know that January is Train Your Dog Month? Do you care? Didn’t think so. Shouldn’t we kitties declare January Train Your Human Month instead? Because as many of you know, a well-trained human is a happy one! When humans haven’t had proper kitty training, they tend to scatter their energy, have no focus and just behave very chaotically. They also tend to act out in negative, unpredictable ways. Humans need structure and a direction in life, and if we kitties don’t help them with this, who will? Certainly not the dog. The dog needs training just as badly… but that’s not our job.

So with all that in mind, here are four crucial human training tips.

1. Keep them on schedule. Cat behaviorists are always saying that we kitties need routine, but you know what? Humans need it just as bad, if not worse! Without a schedule, they will drift aimlessly, watch too much television, forget to change the litter box and, worst of all, feed you late! Basic human training, of course, is making sure they are always on time when it comes to meals. I’m sure most of you are already experts at reminding your human when it is dinnertime. Some of you may even be like Binga, and start reminding them an hour or two beforehand. Honestly, I think she is a little paranoid. You shouldn’t need to start your reminders more than 30 minutes before it’s time to eat. If you can get them on a schedule for litter box cleaning and playtime, that’s ideal!

2. Make sure they get enough recreation. Humans work, work, work and then they come home and do chores, and they think that recreation is zoning out in front of the TV. Oh, that is fun too, and I’m sure a lot of you kitties join them, but you’ve got to get them moving now and again. It’s a well-known fact that an active body releases endorphins. So encourage them to play with you often! I actually bring my toys to the humans so they can play with me. Not just the mousies either. I even will find the wand toys and drag them around the house until one of the humans takes the hint. Don’t let them slack off on this.

3. Be persistent — and consistent. Nagging looks bad coming from humans, but when kitties do it, we get things accomplished! If your human is not getting things done the way you like — whether it’s cleaning the litter box right after you’ve used it or opening the curtains to let in that morning sun puddle — keep at them until they get the idea. Consistent repetition is the best way to get your human on track, and it’s how they learn best.

4. Offer rewards. Humans can get a little cranky if you spend all your time ordering them around and nagging them, and that’s all you do. Can you blame them? Humans aren’t robots, programmed to do your bidding – they are living, breathing creatures with feelings, just like us kitties (only not as smart). A simple purr can work wonders. When they’ve done well, thank them. After dinner, Sparkle would sometimes jump on my human’s desk chair and give her head butts. My human knew that she was showing her approval and not asking for anything because, well, she had just eaten. Humans love little gestures like that, so be generous with them. Not too generous, though — you don’t want them to start expecting rewards for every little thing they do. So give them just enough, and hold back on occasion. Don’t spoil them.

I hope you’ve found these tips useful. All in all, I’d say that training humans is much more rewarding than training dogs. Lucky us.
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” Sparkle had answers to many annoying problems in her two award-winning books! Visit her author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of her awesome Dear Sparkle books!