Sparkle the Designer Cat's Blog, page 469

Update on Bono

It was a funny coincidence that I mentioned recycling cats in my Earth Day post yesterday, because later on, I found out what happened with Bono, the gorgeous black rescue kitty being fostered by best-selling author Helen Brown!

First off, I want to say that my readers are awesome! You all worked very hard to find Bono a home! My blog post about him was shared 290 times on Facebook! My friend Dash and his human worked extra hard on Twitter to get the word out, which is really cool because they live in New Zealand, which is where Helen Brown was originally from (she now lives in Australia). Bono became an international sensation, thanks to you! Of course, the only thing that mattered was finding one single family in New York that was willing to share their lives with Bono, knowing that his chronic renal failure would probably shorten the time they had together.

As you have probably figured out, yes, Bono did find a home! Monique, an oncology nurse, was drawn to Bono by Helen Brown’s Huffington Post blogs about him, and by all the social media attention he had received. And it had been five years since she lost her beloved cat Onyx. Monique loves house panthers… don’t you like her already?

Well, when Monique came over to Helen Brown’s apartment, Bono decided he liked her too! They connected immediately and almost mystically, and as soon as Monique’s husband agreed, they adopted him! You can meet Monique and find out the whole story from Helen Brown herself in her Huffington Post story.

Good luck and happy times to you, Bono — you deserve them!
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

An Important Earth Day Message

Happy Earth Day! Is your human recycling? Good! Bringing his or her own totes when shopping for your cat food? Great! Using environmentally friendly litter? Paws up! If your humans are also handing you the occasional handmade or makeshift toy — a milk ring, bottle cap, or shipping box — that is also awesome. These are all small ways to lessen the carbon footprint that we kitties and our humans leave on the planet.

But are your humans doing the most important kitty recycling? That is, getting a recycled kitty from a shelter? Are they helping to prevent more wasted kitty lives by spreading the word about the importance of spaying and neutering cats? Are they aiding TNR organizations in their work to stop kitty littering? I know most of you humans reading this blog already make efforts in these areas, but are you doing your part to spread the word?

When it comes to Earth Day, caring for the planet has many faces.
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Sunday Catinee: Agility Cat

Have you seen Suki running the agility course and performing tricks yet? She looks like she is having a great time!

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

Doesn’t that make you want to jump around too? From what I can gather, Suki has been in training for most of her young life. Here she is at three months, learning the ropes — she was already pretty good!

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

By wintertime, she was pretty familiar with the course:

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

Her young trainer has a whole YouTube Channel, and she trains several other pets, so if you would like to see more of Suki and her family members, you can watch them here.
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Photo Hunt: Withered

I think this is my worst Photo Hunt blog post ever! Look at what my human made me pose with.

A disgusting bowl of withered, dried-out cat food! It was my dinner earlier this week. She snatched the bowl away from Binga, who was trying to steal it, and put it away somewhere and forgot about it. Ewwww. Then she decided to photograph me with it.

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

Special Guest Star on Bird TV!

The other day, Binga was watching the Bird TV on our patio area and she started freaking out like she saw some sort of rock star! And maybe it was, because my human’s boyfriend said it “looked like it had a mohawk.” Fortunately my human had her camera handy so she could take a photo. But she had to zoom in like crazy — I think the lens was sticking all the way out! Plus she had to shoot through glass that was dirty. But she caught him on pixels!

In all our years of Bird TV watching, we had never seen this one! Usually it’s just sparrows and bluebirds and mourning doves. Oh, and that dumb hawk that one time.

It hung around for quite a while. It seemed to enjoy making Binga go crazy.

Finally it got sick of the paparazzi and flew away. My human is as much of a luddite when it comes to ID-ing birds as she is about pop culture. So can one of you tell us what kind of birdie this is? And which celebrity it looks the most like?
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

An Amazing Thankful Thursday

My readers are really amazing! Lots of you came out and voted for me in the AmazeCats Next Top Cat competition, and while I did not make the cut, I did make a lot of new cat friends on Facebook, like George the Handsome Deaf and Blind Cat (who is moving on to the next bracket), Smoky, therapy cats Spaghetti-Bob and Dexter, and The Three Catketeers. These are all great kitties who are working hard to make a difference for less fortunate cats, so if you are on Facebook, I suggest you “like” their pages.

And of course, thank you for attending my amazing surprise party! We all had a great time! And I was very excited to see some of my new friends stop by my commenthon! The good news is I am just a teensy handful of comments from making my donation goal for Tabby’s Place! So if you missed my party or didn’t comment yet, please stop by and do so! The giveaway for the Sleeky Lounger XL will be open until Sunday night.

I have to say, you kitties are party animals! I thought I was well stocked up on treats, but you ate them all!

And some of you went a little bit crazy with my toy box!

And SOMEkitty isn’t helping much with the clean up! Maybe I should just have my human do it. Once again, thank you so much for being part of my life and having fun with me!
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Wordless Wednesday: Sun Puddle

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

Purrs to the Heroes

Yesterday’s tragic events at the Boston Marathon devastated just about everybody my human and I know. Several of our blogging and Facebook kitty friends live in the area, and I am grateful they weren’t near the explosions. I am purring for those who were not so fortunate. But that’s not the reason for this post. In the days to come, I think I will best remember not the horrible events but the humans who took action and jumped in to help. And if you saw any of the video footage from the event, you know there were a lot of them!

And I don’t want any of you to say, “I could never have done that,” because I know lots of you are heroes to us kitties. There was some point in your life — many points for some of you — where you leapt out of your comfort zone to rescue a kitty in distress. Humans who love creatures and their fellow humans will always surprise themselves by taking action when it is needed. So never sell yourself short. If you trust your heart, you will always do the right thing.

Paws up to the rescue workers and volunteers who helped save lives yesterday. And paws up to you too, because I know you have the same strength and heart inside of you.
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Where I Left Off

Yesterday took the wind out of everybody and I have some things I would like to say, but I will save them for a separate post. The bottom line is I didn’t feel right about promoting a silly cat competition for most of the afternoon and evening. So I am way behind. Could you make a quick stop by the link below and vote for me? And if you have already voted, thank you… and could you please share me with your cat-loving friends? Click here to vote for me in the AmazeCats Next Top Cat bracket! Voting ends at 2 PM Eastern Time, and I would at least like to have a good showing.

And yes, my Amazing Surprise Party and giveaway is still going strong! And the great news is that I am not too far off from hitting my maximum donation to Tabby’s Place! So if you haven’t commented yet, please stop by the party, grab a few snacks and do so! You will be able to enter the giveaway all week.

Oh, and did someone say yesterday that they wanted gravy? Here it is — and some mashed potatoes too, if you’re into the carb thing.
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

My Amazing Surprise Party, Giveaway and Commenthon!

Today is the day to vote for me in this bracket of the AmazeCats Next Top Cat Competition! This round is extra tough and I have no idea if I will be able to make it to the next bracket, so… I figured why not throw a big party now? And that is exactly what I am doing! It has been a while since I had a party, so I am pulling out all the stops: it is not only a party, but also a giveaway and a commenthon! Everyone is invited — you do not have to vote for me to attend because you are all my friends! Let’s get started!

First I want to be a good host and introduce myself to those of you who are new to my blog. I am Sparkle and I am a Somali cat (a longhaired version of an Abysinnian) and I have two roomates, Binga (the crazy tortie) and Boodie (the shy but equally nutty Ragdoll/ Birman/ who knows? kitty) — they are both rescues. I have been on the internet for over 10 years and on social media since 2005, starting with Friendster! Anyone remember that place? Now you will find me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and of course here!

I am an award-winning blogger (I got Petties twice and a Muse Medallion from the Cat Writers Association), and I am also the author of two books of cat-to-cat advice, based on the advice column on my blog. I am known as the “Dear Abby” with claws. I have a new book in the works about Cat Rules for humans to live by!

My blog and social media presence has three goals: 1) to entertain, 2) to educate humans about how awesome we kitties are and how better to serve us, and 3) to help kitties less fortunate than me! I love to make kitties and humans laugh, but I love it even more when I am able to help save a cat’s life!

So that is who I am — now let’s party! The food is casual but so tasty — everyone gets a KFC box lunch!

For those of you who were trying to guess what I was eating on Saturday, it was a piece of a KFC chicken thigh! Yum! It is one of my favorite treats.

Dig in!

I have lots of treats for you too!

There is enough for everyone, so don’t be a hog like Binga!

I also have Catnip Coladas! Be careful — these things are potent! I hope you have a designated driver.

I have all sorts of activities for you kitties, starting with my favorite toy, Da Bird!

You can be as rough with it as you want…

Because I have extra feathers if you accidentally kill it a little too hard!

Feel free to play with any of the toys in my toy box. I have loads!

And you can play with Binga too, but be warned… she can be a little rough!

When you are tired, you are welcome to take a nap anywhere you want. I have an awesome new Sleeky Lounge XL that is totally awesome! And guess what? The Brawny Cat human who makes these said I could give one away! All you have to do is leave a comment here on my blog and say you did on the Rafflecopter widget below! You have extra chances to enter by sharing on Facebook and Twitter, or by following me on either Social Media site! Because of mailing costs, this giveaway is only open to U.S. residents — apologies to my international readers.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

You can enter any time between now and Sunday night at midnight, Pacific Time. I will announce the winner on Monday, April 22!

And now for the commenthon. The AmazeCats competition has some really great special-needs cats running, and honestly, I am sure one of them will be the more-than-deserving Next Top Cat. I love them all, and I want to honor them by donating to Tabby’s Place, a cat rescue that cares for a lot of special needs kitties! They even have a Facebook page for one of them — Dot, a plucky young kitty with spina bifida. And sometimes these kitties get adopted! D’Art, who can’t use his back legs, just found a home in Canada this past week! Here is his Facebook page, with his new family!

For every comment by a unique visitor, my human will donate 50 cents to Tabby’s Place, up to $50! I am hoping to get enough comments to hit our maximum, so please spread the word and invite your friends to my party!

Thank you, AmazeCats, for an awesome competition and good luck to my fellow Sweet Sixteen kitties! And yes, if you are so inclined: click here to vote for me on the AmazeCats page!
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!