February 19, 2013

Feline aids, a growing problem in Amsterdam

Filed under: Animals by Orangemaster @ 11:58 am

Feline immunodeficiency virus, or commonly called ‘feline aids’, is being diagnosed more and more in Amsterdam’s cats, according to local cat catchers. Almost 10% of the cats caught just this year have contracted the disease, mostly found in male cats that are not castrated.

Once diagnosed, sick cats have to be put to sleep because there is no cure for the disease and they could easily infect other cats, although not humans, by the way. The story goes that cats on ships carried the disease over from far away, but then that’s been said about every modern disease.

If more cats are castrated, the problem would more manageable, cat catchers say. The other classic theory is that in times of crisis, people don’t spend money on things like castrating their cats.

(Link: binnenland.nieuws.nl, Photo of Dead cat by ndanger, some rights reserved)

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July 4, 2012

A cat with an enemy?

Filed under: Animals by Branko Collin @ 8:50 pm

A cat in Almelo has been shot at twice in one year.

Estelle, the cat of of the Tolsma family in the Schelfhorst neighbourhood was shot in its lungs yesterday by an unknown assailant, RTV Oost reports. The owners believe that Estelle was shot when she was out in the yard, because they could hear two bangs. “She never leaves the garden”, Mrs Tolsma told the reporter.

The bullet is lodged beneath the spine, which is why it cannot be removed by the local vet. The Tolsma family will have to take it to a specialist in Utrecht for an operation.

Last year Estelle was shot in her right front paw with an air gun.

(Video: Youtube / RTV Oost)

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June 6, 2012

Helicopter cat Orville goes up in value

Filed under: Animals,Art by Orangemaster @ 2:29 pm

Artist Bart Jansen didn’t kill his cat Orville, a car hit him. Then he stuffed it in an unconventional way and turned him into a remote-controlled flying cat. Jansen had originally asked € 12,500 for his work of art, which was on display in Amsterdam at the KunstRai art fair until last Saturday. “The work has not yet been sold but we have an offer of € 100,000 on the table,” Jansen’s dealer Geoffrey van Vugt told Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant.

Cat brother Wilbur, both named after Orville and Wilbur Wright (aka the Wright brothers) is just a regular Dutch cat eating cat food made from other dead animals who obviously had a worse life, Jansen mentioned to the press.

It’s a tribute to the cat Orville, that was named after the famous aviator Orville Wright. After the cat was killed by a car, and followed by a period of mourning, visual artist Bart Jansen transformed him into the Orvillecopter: Now he is finally flying with the birds. The greatest goal a cat could ever reach!

You may choose to dislike Orville for all kinds of reasons — it’s pretty freaky! — but saying he killed his cat is utter nonsense. Last year Dutch conceptual artist Tinkebell was found not guilty of animal cruelty for an exhibition with 95 hamsters in exercise balls, while she had killed her ‘depressed’ cat and turned it into a handbag.

It will always be hypocritical to believe that some animals deserve to die for our use (pigs, cows, chickens) and get upset at cute pussy cats flying around because cats are cute and pigs are bacon. Hate Orville the Flying Cat, but Bart Jansen didn’t do anything wrong or even illegal. In fact, he’s honouring his cat in his own freaky way, whether we like it or not.

For anybody who needs an ethical reality check, the real dead people show Bodyworks (even more controversial) is still on in Amsterdam until 17 June and nobody is whinging about that anymore — and they used to. It was on at the very same time and not very far from the Art Fair where Orville was flying around until last Saturday.

(Link: www.dutchnews.nl, Photo of Dead cat by ndanger, some rights reserved)

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August 26, 2011

‘Oldest Dutch cat is 25’ and living in Vlaardingen

Filed under: Animals by Orangemaster @ 11:05 am
tightrope_moonster2a.jpg

It is really difficult to determine whether a cat is really that old except to trust their owners to tell the truth. When we wrote ‘Oldest’ cat of the Netherlands dies, we put quotes around ‘oldest’ because it really is hearsay. And ‘our’ cat story had a 29-year-old cat. And we wrote about it because on the same day, my cat died at age 21.

Of course, when you’re a tabloid and the news is dominated by non-Dutch things and rainy weather, a cute cat story in a pinch will do (our story comes from the same paper). The article says the oldest living cat is 21, which means my cat and the two above made the record. It all sounds too easy to me.

The thing I want to heckle is the uneducated stupid attempt to calculate the cat’s age in human years, which is preposterous at best.

A 3-month-old cat is a kitten, a two-year-old cat is an adult, a 10-year-old cat is a senior. The development of a cat is not comparable to that of a human. If you want to try and come close to the animal’s human age with an adult cat, add four years to their cat age and multiply the outcome by four. I grabbed this calculation in a Dutch book called ‘Encyclopedie van misvattingen’ (The Encyclopedia of Misconceptions), which I highly recommend if you spread repeated nonsense about cuckcoo clocks being made in Switerzland (instead of Germany) and Inuits have, I dunno, 53 words for snow.

That crap of multiplying animals’ years by seven is for stupid journalists who repeat things like parrots do.

(The cat in the pic is our deceased Moonster.)

(Link: ad.nl)

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May 14, 2011

Giant cupcake by Beerd van Stokkum

Filed under: Design by Branko Collin @ 1:43 pm

These colourful plastic cupcake cups, called Sweet Cakes, are 70 cm in diameter. Apparently they are meant as all-purpose containers, and can even be bought with a pillow for your cats to nap on—first take the toddler and the water out though. Designer Beerd van Stokkum sells them on his own website in most colours of the rainbow for 150 euro a piece.

(Photo: Beerd van Stokkum)

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January 17, 2011

Rope to save cats from drowning in canal

Filed under: Animals,Architecture by Branko Collin @ 8:34 am

After their fifteenth cat had drowned in the Marquette Canal, the citizens of the Kersenboogerd neighbourhood in Hoorn, Noord Holland, installed a long rope along the side of the steep canal wall to prevent any more cats from drowning. The long rope should help future cats to climb out of the canal more easily, RTV Noord Holland reports in this video segment.

It is unknown why so many cats fall into canals. The Hoorn initiative follows a similar one from Leiden of a couple of years ago called Katuitdegracht.nl.

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October 5, 2010

Cat buys tickets for a musical online

Filed under: Animals,Online,Shows by Orangemaster @ 10:16 am

I know what you’re thinking, if the musical was ‘Cats’ it would be a lot funnier.

A young Dutch woman in a small village was surfing some bidding site and her cat jumped on the keyboard because that’s what cats do when they want your attention. Unknowingly, the cat scored some tickets to the musical ‘ We Will Rock You’, which meant the woman was out 51 euro.

This is my cat Pussyminou (RIP), the bilingual cat, about 10 years ago on my desk. She just liked to sleep there. The vintage of my computer says it all.

(Link: waarmaarraar.nl)

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November 6, 2009

Dutch company makes sauna for cats

Filed under: Animals,Gadgets by Orangemaster @ 3:40 pm
sauna-cat

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.)

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February 23, 2009

Driver gets money back for not driving over cat

Filed under: Animals,Automobiles by Orangemaster @ 8:58 pm

Little 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 on telly 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.

(Photo of Cat crossing the street by ll_browneyes_ll, some rights reserved)

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November 26, 2008

Cat up a tree? Fork out the money

Filed under: Animals,General,Weird by Orangemaster @ 11:20 am
Cat up a tree

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)

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