No idea what to get your cat for Christmas? Well, your search is over! Get them something they’ll cherish forever: a cat sauna!

That’s right! Keep your feline friends toasty warm and at no more than 50 degrees celsius with their very own cat sauna from Interhiva. To see what it really looks like, cat and all, check out the pics and videos.

(Link: Bright.nl, Photo: Photo of Cat in human sauna by jsade, some rights reserved.)

Litte over a year ago, we reported on a driver in Schiedam who was fined EUR 75 for not driving over a cat, or technically, ignoring a green light. The man was trying to avoid running over the cat by waiting until it got out of the way.

The story goes that after going to court over the matter, the driver got his money back, as he was given the benefit of the doubt. The police’s argument is that they did not see a cat crossing the road.

I can’t imagine someone making that up and purposely stopping at a green light. Good news.

Any cat in the small town of De Marne, Groningen that dares climb up a tree in the future will costs their owner a fistful of euro. Ask the friendly, local voluntary fire brigade to fetch kitty kat for you and they will charge you somewhere between 350 to 500 euro. I wonder what the difference in price entails. Tree height? Time? Cat cuteness?

Tjerk Elzinga, the local fire brigade commander says, “providing a service is something that is not part of our legal tasks. (…) There are companies specialised in that sort of thing and it would lead to unfair competition.” Either this man is enlightened and the rest of the country’s volunteer fire brigades should follow suit or he’s really, really annoyed with not having any fires to put out.

Local residents are divided on the issue, but everyone thinks 350 to 500 euro is a helluvalot to ask for a cat up a tree. The idea is that small, non life-threating situations like rescuing cats costs the fire brigade money, so they feel someone else should pay for it.

Dutch entrepreneurship in times of recession or just plain weird, you decide.

(Link: rtvnoord.nl, Photo (non lolcat version): arttherapyblog)

An electronics company in Hengelo has developed a GPS system for tracking cats, which it will launch sometime this fall. The goal was to reduce the amount of abused cats: Wilfried Peezenkamp thought up the system after his own three cats came home in a bad state.

The cat gets a small GPS receiver in its collar. By coupling a base station to a home computer, users can see using the digital atlas Google Earth where their feline friend is. “If the cat is trapped somwhere because its paw is stuck, then you can take action right away,” says Peezenkamp.

I’m wondering how original this idea is. The famous Mr Lee cat of the Mr Lee’s cat cam already has a CatTracker for sale, a – you guessed it – GPS tracking system that looks exactly the same as what this company is suggesting (picture shown here).

(Link: gelderlander.nl)

Black cat Mous from the town of Korte Akkeren passed away last Sunday at age 29, making it probably the oldest cat of the Netherlands. Such an age for a cat is quite exceptional. The average house cat lives to be about 15.

Here at 24 oranges, we had to put my 21-year-old cat Moonster to sleep yesterday, which makes this an interesting coincidence.

Our condolences to Mous’ owner, Cornelis Kalmeijer. We really, really know how you feel right about now.

Read more about Moonster the cat.

(Link and photo above, ad.nl, photo: Branko)

De Kleine Hans (The small Hans) is a brand new photography prize and this time around, the winner is a cat. The award, also referred to as “the world’s biggest small photography prize,” was awarded this week to Mr. Lee, a male cat owned by Juergen Perthold, a German man living in the US. Juergen built a camera that he attached to Mr. Lee’s collar, which takes a picture every minute. The result of many wanderings can be seen on the site.

(Link: nrc.nl, Photo: Mr. Lee)

A driver in Schiedam was fined EUR 75 for not driving over a cat, or basically, ignoring a green light. The man was trying to avoid running over the cat by waiting until it got out of the way.

“If I had hit the gas, I would have killed the cat and gotten a fine for ‘destruction of property’. So I waited and because I did, I got a fine for ignoring a green light.” The driver says he’s usually calm, but this got him pissed off. “I wrote to the the mayor and told her that her fining policy makes me sick and then I wrote to every member of parliament.”

(Link: depers.nl)

In De Loostraat in the Eindhoven city district of Tongelre a new road sign has been placed that warns against crossing cats. A 10-year-old girl lost three cats from cars driving too fast and managed to get the attention of the city council to place two signs on her street.

(Link: Omroep Brabant)