Agent of Chaos

kittenheavenpov on tiktok

kitty sounds!!!!

😭😭😭 mama calling them all in and then going to find the one that fell behind and then another baby panicking and screaming because she can't see mommy and mama calling her and the baby rushing over with obvious enormous relief oh god I am CRYING

I want an entire streaming service of nothing but this!

Janusz Grabiański (Polish,1929-1976)

Bialo Czarny Kot, 1966

Watercolor

Happy Halloween 🎃 Everyone knows that black cats are the ultimate halloween mascot, so I had to draw them for this year’s spooky season. Contrary to popular belief, they’re not bad luck - unless you refuse to give them a treat or cuddle them, in which case they will seek revenge!

I drew these for last month’s drawing challenge on drawing expressive cat studies! If you like monthly drawing challenges, sign up to the flame tier on my Patreon and join us ~ we are about to get started on the November challenge! 💖

Walking around my neighborhood wearing my sick as fuck custom T-shirt that says "I STEAL EVERY FRIENDLY CAT I MEET WITH NO REMORSE I DO IT ALL THE TIME DON'T CALL IT A COMEBACK I BEEN HERE FOR YEARS KEEP THAT BEAST ENCLOSED LEST YE FACE MY LIGHTNING CAT GRASP" and smiling politely while my neighbors' indoor-outdoor cats gently trot down the sidewalk towards me as the neighbors themselves read my shirt with a growing sense of panic.

Unfollow me for cat theft all you want. You'll never catch me and you'll never stop me. Those things are this season's must-have lipgloss in an understaffed Sephora, and baby? I'm a middle-class teenage girl who's not getting enough attention at home...

People in the notes keep saying, "This is just another reason you should keep your cats inside," and I know they just mean the fact that someone in general could steal them, but I like to think they all mean that you gotta watch out for me specifically. Because you do. I'm everywhere. And I'm fast.

I can think of a really easy solution to this problem.

If the cat is preferring to be at someone else's house when you let them outside.... I'd say that cat is definitely choosing them over you.

Someone at my work recently found a roughly 7 month old intact male cat who is extremely friendly and has been hanging around her house more and more and more. They live near an extremely busy road. They're going to contact the local shelter and see what they need to do legally, but when there was no microchip I looked this person in the eye and said "Please welcome your new cat." Provided they don't find owners, and I'm hoping to everything they *don't*, he is going to live out the rest of his life as an indoor-only cat.

Urban or suburban cats (i.e., those adjacent to busy roads) should exclusively be indoor cats. If you let your cat out in that environment, you're rolling the dice on more than it being hit by a car.

And rural cats get eaten by coyotes and foxes and uncontrolled dogs and possibly birds of prey and possibly shot by kids or adults with rifles who hate cats and they get exposed to parasites and bring those home to you and they get exposed to diseases and spread them and they also kill a ton of wildlife...keep them indoors.

except to the prev comment, barn cats are a thing. theyre livestock guardian animals that work in tandem with guardian dogs, they need to see the vet regularly just like any other farm animal, but you need to realize they are not pets nor are they the same as "outdoor cats". theyre working animals and for the safety of the livestock and the sakenof rodent control, they CANNOT be indoor pets. they're taught how to behave and where to go.

people in rural areas that have cats typically theyre farm cats with a purose, but idk maybe you just live around really stupid people who think they can just leave an untrained cat outside and think itll be fine?? but otherwise, yes farm cats are the only cats who should be outdoors

Barn cats, if they are not contained to the barn itself (at which point they are no longer outdoor cats), are extremely ineffective rodent control, often will not tackle rats at all, and can spread several diseases to livestock including toxo which is particularly deadly to sheep but can cause issues with all livestock, they also still hunt native wildlife including birds, lizards (both of whom help control insect populations), and snakes.

They also still get eaten by predators, get into fights with other cats, get injured by livestock, and get run over by cars and farm equipment.

They still wander into neighboring farms and can attack or even kill their animals.

Barn cats are not taught. They are not trained. They are feral, semi feral, or even human-raised cats that are brought in because their form of rodent control *doesn't* require training and direction from humans, unlike ratting terriers (extremely efficient and enthusiastic rodent extermination option).

Additionally, you know why a LOT of people have barn cats? Because people see a barn, people that do not live at the residence with said barn, and go "ah ha I can dump my cat here and they will just be a barn cat, which is fine." and then they dump their fucking cats at the barn, and the farmers, who did not ask for this but may not be up for killing your cat for you, choose to take care of them. It's that, or people feel bad that all the TNR places trap, neuter, and want to re-release ferals but rebranded as "barn cats" when in fact, they aren't barn cats they're just ferals that should have been trapped and euthanized. They're not suitable for domestic life, and feral life is absolute hell for cats with an expected lifespan of just 2-5 years for an animal that EASILY lives 15+ indoors, and their deaths are typically horrific- vehicular impacts, toxins, predators, starvation, etc etc etc.

I have a barn. It is not in ANY WAY suitable for cats. There is no hayloft to keep them warm, it's completely cement bottomed and full of birds and bird equipment. I will not be feeding or watering outdoor cats. I will not be taking them to the vet. And yet I get people who dump cats on my property thinking they can be barn cats. Several times a year! Some of them are friendly enough I can just go pick them up and drop them at a shelter which is what the other person should have done. But usually it's cats that "weren't suitable" for indoor life (read: someone was not willing to invest the time and money into making their house livable for a cat that didn't want to be bored witless and eat hard tack its entire life), that someone dumped thinking it would be better suited for farm life.

And why do they think this? because absolutely hot garbage opinions like this get spread around as a norm.

I'm sorry, and I wish I lived in a world where cats were both perfectly safe and could be trusted to only kill specific pests and nothing else and live perfect little indoor-outdoor or outdoor lives, but that's just NOT the case. Outdoor cats DO do a mass amount of harm and are at a HUGE risk of injury, illness, and death, and there's NO exceptions.

linus takes a trip to the nether. birthday gift to my sister

The Governing Council of the Cat Fancy (UK) posted this to their Facebook page today:

We are very excited to announce our NEW RECOGNISED BREED - The Transylvanian! 🤩

'Indigenous to the woodlands and forests around the Carpathian Mountain areas of Romania and Hungary, the Transylvanian cat is the most recently discovered natural breed in the world.

They have fascinating features such as the reverse Karparti coat, born white, over the first 12 months the kitten grows a black, blue or sometimes a red coat whilst leaving the points of the ears, nose and paws white. Basically a reverse point! The Transylvanian is thermal too, being lighter in summer and darker in winter.

The foundation breeders led by Beverly Elian (WCF Judge) are based in Romania, Hungary, Switzerland and in the UK with Stuart & Amanda Brass.

Extensive testing has occurred on all four generations supported by Leslie Lyons and it appears the breed is robust with no genetic or hereditary issues appearing in any of the litters.'

Not seen and heard enough? You can see our newly recognised Transylvanian at the Feline Fair! Buy your tickets here - https://tinyurl.com/5dm7kp9a! 🎟️

i have to say it is funny that of all the reasons you shouldn't let cats roam around outside unattended the only one that outdoor cat owners care about is the possibility that someone could steal your cat and keep it inside. literally this

But like... from the owners perspective how is it any different from your cat dying? Like as far as you know your cat just didn't come home one day. You don't know if it was shot or eaten by another animal or ran over with a car or permanently living inside someone else's house...

if only there was a way to make sure none of those things happen to your cat. oh well

looks at the cat breeds blog and gets mad about cat breeds all over again

@pinetreeparadoxx so basically it's this way

Cats are very different from dogs and most other domesticated animals, in that 99% of cats aren't a breed at all. They are just cats.

A lot of animals have breeds because they were needed for different jobs and in different areas of the world, and humans intentionally influenced their breeding to select specific characteristics. For example there are different goat breeds for milk, for meat, and for hair/wool.

Cats weren't like that—cat populations in different parts of the world have some traits that are adapted to the climates, but there's no difference between a "mousing" cat and a "companion" cat. There was no need to purposefully breed cats with certain traits, because the purpose of a cat is to be a cat.

But when animal breeding became a hobbyist thing and there started to be breed clubs, formal breed standards, and shows, people wanted to do it with cats, so they started developing "breeds" of cat. Starting out most of them were local landraces from different parts of the world, which were bred to stay true to those locally adapted traits.

Mostly, cats don't have striking natural variation in their basic shape and size. There hasn't been strong selection pressure for dramatically different variations in certain populations of cat. So these "types" of cats from different areas and climates aren't that much different from some random cat. But breeders wanted cats that did look like a special kind of cat. So they were breeding cats into the most extreme shapes possible, and whenever there was a genetic condition or mutation that made a cat look different, someone would see it as an opportunity to make a new "breed" of cat.

But most of the cats people recognize as "breeds" aren't really "breeds." They have no history or purpose. They don't look the way they do because of adaptation to live well in a certain place or be good at a job, it's purely for the sake of amusement and novelty.

So many cat "breeds" exist purely because a cat with a genetic mutation popped up and someone took that cat's kittens and inbred them with each other to make sure the mutation would be passed down, when it would not have spread otherwise.

This would not necessarily be bad, except most of the genetic mutations that got turned into cat "breeds" harm the cat and cause it to suffer. Like, among the examples i can think of:

on top of this, there are a BUNCH of "breeds" that are hybrids between domestic cats and wild cat species. The most popular is the Bengal cat, which is a hybrid of asian leopard cat and domestic cat, and it's not necessarily bad because there are bengal breeders that are just breeding together cats with a wild ancestor in their distant past that contributed the neat coat patterns.

But there's also Bengal breeders that are still keeping wild leopard cats in captivity to breed them, same deal with savannah cats which are hybrids of domestic cats and Servals, and people are also trying to hybridize Caracals and god knows what else

sometimes people are uncomfortable with "working" animals or animals that are "used" for a purpose but the consequences of animal breeding for amusement and novelty rather than purpose have been terrible.

of course a lot of current farm animals show the same issues (though not to the same degree, because they have to function as animals).

But the time before industrialized corporate farming and cat and dog fanciers, is 99% of human history with domestic animals, and in that time selective breeding had to be practical and it had to prioritize the animal's needs a lot more. Heritage livestock breeds aren't as "productive" because those animals had to be tough, resilient, able to take care of themselves when exposed to the elements, resistant to disease and injury, and able to give birth easily

Cat breeds like Siberians, Bengals and British short hair are mostly healthy and happy fluff balls. But I will never ask for the crazy ones like Persians. They look and act some demonic cube that has fur for some reason. And why breed sickly cats?

Yeah, I don't necessarily have anything against breeding cats (tho i find it more questionable than breeding other domestic animals, because purebred cats' selected traits don't really have a usefulness or importance that wouldn't be found in a regular moggy). But the health and happiness of the animal should be important above all else.

The sad thing about Persians is they weren't always like this. The classic style persian is called the "doll faced" persian and it looks like this

Their faces are a little bit short, but there is nothing wrong with them, their health is not affected negatively by it

The more recent style of persian is called the "peke face" and it looks like this:

These cats are suffering because their face is turned inside out

some breeds, like the Japanese bobtail and Norwegian forest cat, have been around for centuries and came about through either genetic drift or natural selection. different places naturally develop different traits in their cat populations. not all breeds are bad!

howEVER, the ones that are bad are REALLY bad

I almost forget japanese bobtail! Unlike the manx cat there are no health issues associated with the short tail (that I know of)

Also I think the curly coated cats don't have any issues (devon rex, cornish rex, laperm etc)

When I was ten, we lived on a rice farm with a lot of big buildings in the middle of nowhere. One of the shitty employees of the rice farm decided that, because we had barn cats on the premises, it was perfectly fine to dump a litter of very small kittens into one of the barns.

(I hate her I hate her I hate her)

The kittens were not old enough to be on their own, and despite one of the barn cats looking after them, the majority of them did not make it. All except for one, a little tuxedo that let my dad pick it up.

He brought it into the house, and I decided I was going to nurse it back to health. He was mostly black with a white chin, little white toes, and a white belly. He was so small. I fell in love with him.

I named him Pookie.

He would curl up in the crook of my neck and sleep on my shoulder, where it was warm. He was eating the cat food I mushed up with water, and for three days I thought he might make it.

Then, inexplicably, our dog Fancy, a heeler/shepherd mix, attacked him in the laundry room. She had never done anything like that before and never did anything like that afterwards. I never knew why she did what she did.

I begged my parents to take him to the vet. Please, see if there's anything we can do. I want to save him so badly.

But we had very little money at the time, and my mom couldn't justify an enormous vet bill for a cat we'd had for less than a week that there was surely nothing to do for.

I put him in his basket that night with food and water and many blankets. He had no external injuries besides a nosebleed, so I hoped it wasn't as bad as it seemed.

He didn't see the morning. My dad buried him in the flowerbed without much ado.

I cried for two days into the arms of an unsympathetic mother who didn't understand why I felt so strongly over a cat we'd had for three days, bombarded with criticism from a judgmental sister who severely disliked cats. My dad did his best to try and comfort me, but he's not the best with emotions and didn't know what to say.

It has stuck with me for 20 years. I wonder, from time to time, if I did enough. If I'd kept him in my room instead of the laundry room, if I'd looked up how to care for him, if I'd kept closer watch on him and kept the dog away from him, would he have lived. Would he still have been my cat. Would he have known a life of love and warm fireplaces and full bellies and cuddling into my shoulders until he was too big to fit.

I'll never know.

I told Sawyer about this recently, in a moment of emotional upheaval where I was just spewing out a list of things that had happened in my past that I'd never really gotten over. The conviction of my sadness apparently struck a deep chord with Sawyer, who decided to make me a memorial for Pookie to keep his memory close.

No one else had taken my emotions regarding Pookie seriously. Not until now. And not only did Sawyer take it seriously, the emotional vomit of an adult woman still crying over a cat she had for three days in fifth grade, but Sawyer thought it important enough that it should never be forgotten.

It's nice, sometimes, to know the person you've chosen to go through life with is the best person in the world for you.

look how they pose for me

Source: lilochipie

I don't usually like animal videos with captions, but I'll make an exception for this one because the voice-over is actually good.

Have some cute cat pics in these trying times

foods that will poison cats:

if you have a cat please reblog this

Even if you don’t have a cat please reblog this for all your followers who may have their own precious little baby.

I HAD NO IDEA ABOUT TUNA OMFG

If I remember rightly it’s the trace elements of mercury in canned tuna that is toxic to them. Their kidneys can’t filter it out like human kidneys can.

ok im gonna break this down a bit because some of these are BLATANTLY untrue and it kills me every time i see this.

alcohol: not very good for humans, either, but alcohol effects pets the same way it effects humans: targeting the brain and the liver. the issue? it takes way less to kill your cat than it does a human. you weigh, on average, at least 100 pounds (or 10x) more than your cat does. 3 teaspoons of liquour could kill your cat. don’t do it. alcohol WILL poison your cat.

chocolate:  theobromine (and to a lesser degree, caffeine) is the issue with this one. humans? we can break this down in our bodies. cats, dogs, birds, ferrets? they can’t. it usually takes a pretty big amount of theobromine to cause a pet to actually die, though. it’s present in cocoa, so the higher % of cocoa in a chocolate, the less needs to be ingested to cause serious, life-threatening effects. baking chocolate has a high concentration of theobromine and 1 square can kill a cat or small dog. white chocolate is a low risk, on the other hand. chocolate CAN poison your cat, especially DARK and BAKING chocolate.

caffeine: same story as alcohol: not that great for humans either, causes similar effects as in humans… just quicker and with less caffeine ingested. elevated heartrate, seizures, etc. can be seen. dogs and cats are more sensitive to the effects than humans are. caffeine WILL poison your cat.

dairy: cats are lactose intolerant and so their bodies cannot properly break it down– much like how we can break down theobromine and cats/dogs can’t. however, it’s not going to poison your cat, just give them diarrhea and other gastrointestinal upset. dairy WILL NOT poison your cat, but will cause gastrointestinal upset and diarrhea, so it is strongly recommended to not give dairy products to your pets.

fat trimmings: fat trimmings are just fat. if you feed fat to your cats, they will become fat and/or it will increase the level of lipids in the blood, leading to diseases and complications like chronic pancreatitis, which can be fatal. fat trimmings WILL NOT poison your cat, but will lead to disease that can be fatal, so it is strongly recommended to not feed fat trimmings to any pets.

raw meat: cats can eat raw meat. cats are obligate carnivores. cats are designed to only eat meat, and raw meat is not of serious risk to them. disease carried in raw meat? not a problem when you are a cat who has evolved over millions of years to eat raw meat. i hate hearing “cats can’t eat raw meat!” from people with outdoor cats. you realise your cats are eating raw lizard and bird, right? raw meat has more nutrients than cooked meat (which we eat veggies & fruits to compensate for– cats can’t digest these) and, obviously, there are some diseases and bacteria that cats aren’t immune to but cats are less likely to eat rotten meat than dogs are, anyway. treat the meat like you treat human meat and it’s totally fine. cats are DESIGNED TO EAT AND DIGEST RAW MEAT! IT’S PERFECTLY FINE TO FEED YOUR CAT RAW MEAT, but make sure that the meat is in-date and properly stored/cared for. rotten or spoiled meat CAN lead to disease and poisoning, but the same goes for 90% of the animal population!

eggs: its ok to feed your cat eggs. im not even sure why this is a question. raw eggs rarely carry salmonella and even humans rarely contract salmonella from infected eggs. your average cat will never contract salmonella from raw eggs, only in an immuno-compromised cat would this ever be an issue. cats can safely eat raw and cooked eggs, as salmonella is pretty much only a concern in an immuno-compromised cat in the first place.

fish: see raw meat above. fish, however, is a bit of an exception because of higher levels of mercury & low levels of taurine and differing balances of phosphate and calcium mean that it’s not a sustainable diet for cats and could lead to mercury poisoning or bone disease if it is the only protein given. when given ~1 time a week and with varied proteins there is no issue. again, cats are DESIGNED TO EAT AND DIGEST FISH AND OTHER MEATS! however, previous warnings about storing fish correctly still applies, and proteins should be varied due to fish having different levels of phosphorous, calcium, and taurine and mercury content. a primary diet of fish CAN lead to bone disease or mercury poisoning in extreme cases.

grapes and raisins: admittedly, this one is a bit of a wild card. some pets eat raisins/grapes without an issue, but in others, these can cause renal failure and death rapidly. we still don’t know why. animals with prior kidney issues are more likely to be effected by grape/raisin toxicity, and cats are more likely to have kidney issues due to many cats not getting adequate moisture in their diet. grapes and raisins MAY lead to poisoning in some cats and dogs, especially those with pre-existing kidney conditions. 

onions and garlic: yes! all members of the allium genus (shallots, scallions, leeks, etc. are included) contain thiosulphate which, when ingested by cats and dogs, can lead to a serious condition in the blood known as hemolytic anemia. basically: their red blood cells burst. this can be fatal and a small amount of onion/garlic/etc. is needed to cause clinically significant issues. onions, garlic, and other members of the allium genus CAN and WILL poison your pet in even small amounts.

tuna: see fish above. canned tuna tends to be soaked in oil which leads to the same issues as fat trimmings in increasing lipid count in the blood. sashimi quality tuna will also have higher concentration of mercury and shouldn’t be consumed more than occasionally in the cat’s diet. canned tuna in oil is often too fatty and leads to the same issues as eating fat trimmings, however, tuna steak/sashimi/etc. quality tuna is the same as other fish: occasional inclusion in the diet is fine!

xylitol: relatively small quantities of this (an artificial sweetener) will cause a sudden drop in blood sugar in dogs, which can lead to comas, seizures, or death. many times, if they are not rushed to the hospital immediately, they will die, and even then, they may suffer permanent liver damage. however… cats are not adversely affected, and typically aren’t attracted to foods w/xylitol in it in the first place. xylitol is NOT likely to poison your cat, but small amounts can KILL your dog, moreso than chocolate! 

This is an important thing and you should read it.

@ky-ak

@dinoshade

THANK YOU. Every time this post comes around it makes me enraged. Thank you for helping to spread the truth!!!!

So, we tried doing this with a cat we were looking after. We would not get up until the alarm clock went off.

One morning, he was standing by my head and screaming, but not in my ear. I looked up and saw that he had his little face one inch from the alarm clock. Because we only woke up when the alarm clock went off, he decided that it was the alarm clock that he needed to scream at until it woke up.

It works with dogs too.

Supes says the good thing to do, not the popular one eheh 🐦

HE'S RIGHT AND HE SHOULD SAY IT

My family is trying to make the cats outdoor cats and i am not happy with this

But it is hard to think of solutions because the cats keep pooping outside the litter box and if there is animal shit in your living space, well it is hard to tolerate that

There have been repeated incidents of the kitty door leading to the cats litter boxes being locked or of recycling bags piled up against the door so they can't get in, which is part of the problem

update

two of the cats have been outside for about a week, they haven't really left the immediate area of the house much unless following one of us and they cry to be let back in a lot. Emmy seems to enjoy running around and having "zoomies" when one of us is outside in the yard with her, but when she's alone she seems to always hide in the yew bushes.

Mostly the anti outdoor cat argument is that they kill wildlife and are invasive in most of the world, and I am very worried about my frog pond and the birds and other wildlife I have been seeing return to the yard, but I am much more against outdoor cats because most outdoor cats I have known either died gruesomely or "disappeared" within a couple of years.

Like for about 10 years when I was growing up we had a cat colony on the back porch that we couldn't get under control because spay at vet clinics was $200 a cat and TNR programs in the area had a nine-month waitlist.

Over a dozen, probably 20 or so, were "pets" at one time or another and lived part-time indoors. Only a couple of them made it to 7 years old. The two oldest cats we ever had died of respiratory illnesses at 8 or 9. Altogether there had to have been well over a hundred cats and most of them "disappeared" before becoming 3 or 4 years old. A lot of them were run over by cars and killed, there were multiple more that were badly mangled by cars and had to be euthanized, I remember finding one cat under a bush still alive with her guts hanging out of her, another time we came home to find a whole litter of kittens mauled to death by a loose dog. They were always sick and full of parasites and wounds from fighting other animals. My sister is the most in favor of keeping the cats outdoors and honestly I think it's because she's too young to vividly remember these things.

I've been in college most of the time we've had these three cats so I don't think I've bonded with them very closely really, it just bothers me that cats are culturally considered so disposable, and I think it might be why I have a hard time bonding with cats, the ones I loved so much as a kid kept disappearing and I knew most of them had died in miserable, painful ways.

There's this sort of mythological story a lot of people tell themselves that cats "come and go as they please" and when a cat "disappears" it is off having "adventures" or some twee bullshit like that. Even the Warriors series acknowledgements says something about one of the authors cats that "left to become a warrior." People decide that just because they didn't see the dead body, their cat didn't die, it just "left." This is such a silly story for grown adults to be believing.

As i'm writing this, the coyote pack is wailing and howling outside...

it seems to me that the litter box problems are probably caused by a combination of the following: