Sunday, September 30, 2007 , the wee hours

What to do if your cat goes missing

Ironically, I’d been planning to write this very post this very evening, and it ended up being the same day that Dobby ran away.  Go figure.  Now I get to find out if these pointers work.  Here’s what the experts say you should do if you lose your cat, oh, because it escapes via the doggie door:

  • Put your cat’s food dishes and usual food on your front porch or back step or wherever it’s safe to put such things. 
  • Put out your cat’s bed, and put an item of your clothing with it.  Your cat may find its way home by your scent.
  • Unless it’s huge and unwieldly, put your cat’s litterbox out on the porch as well.  Basically, you want to recreate a familiar home environment.
  • Make up “Lost Pet” flyers and post them around your neighbourhood, and at local vet’s offices.  Of course, keep in touch with animal control as well.
  • Don’t give up searching.  Experts suggest you keep up your search and keep putting out food and bedding for at least three months.

Sadly for Dobby (and us), if she comes back in three months she’ll come back pregnant.  We couldn’t microchip her because she was too small and skinny when we first found her, and she didn’t wear a collar because we couldn’t handle her.  At least she had her shots, so I hope she won’t get sick.  Oh, I did all of the above suggestions, and found a completely different cat eating out of Dobby’s dish and sleeping in Dobby’s bed.  I may have to catch this new cat before Dobby will feel safe coming around here.  I wish people would just keep their cats inside (unless their cat is lost, of course).  This new cat is a grey tabby who I’ve never seen before, and she doesn’t have a collar.

I’m tired and sad.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 09/30 at 12:07 AM
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Saturday, September 29, 2007 , lunch time

Flown da coop

Dobby escaped via the doggie door sometime last night.  She didn’t show up for her breakfast, and about five minutes later I heard the dogs barking oddly outside.  They’d found her behind the air-conditioner.  Like so many cats, Dobby becomes so scared that she seemed to forget who we are, and when I tried to approach her to put a dish of food down, she bolted.  We chased her to the yard next-door, I climbed over the wall with a ladder, and as soon as I hit the ground, she bolted again.  We now think she’s in the yard of the house on the other side of us.  I put a trap out, baited with her favourite food, and I hope that will eventually lure her back.  I just can’t figure out what to do about the damn dog door, though—it’s now a bigger problem than just Frank.

Dobby_around_10_weeks

Come home, Dobby… we miss you!

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 09/29 at 01:37 PM
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SuperZoo rumors: what the pet food companies are saying

I’ve got two little bits of inside information for you, via some folks I met at SuperZoo.  I spoke to people from Canidae, and people from Natural Balance, both companies which have been subject to new recalls and/or Internet innuendo over the past couple of months.  Here’s what I was told:

  • I asked someone at Canidae about the acetaminophen rumours.  I was told that Canidae had tested their own food numerous times since that report, and had not found any acetaminophen.  Then I was told… pause for suspense… the the person who made the original claim against Canidae has made similar claims against other companies in the past, and that perhaps this person is just looking for some sort of quick cash in an out-of-court settlement.  Just one person’s opinion, of course, but this person was eager to talk about it, and seemed confident of what they were saying.


  • At the Natural Balance booth, we were happy to find out that Eatables will soon be returning to the stores.  All Eatables were recalled about two months ago because the human food plant where they were manufactured was shut down by the FDA.  A human food product (a chili sauce) was found to be infected with botulism, so everything made at the factory had to be recalled.  Natural Balance did a bunch of tests on their Eatables and none were found to be contaminated, but nevertheless, they all had to be destroyed.  It’s sad when the company that goes the extra mile to have quality ingredients ends up getting the short end of the stick because of unhealthy human food!  A new manufacturing facility for Eatables has been found (another human facility), and the products will soon be back in production.  Our little dogs really loved the Eatables foods, and you could tell from just looking at them and smelling them that the ingredients were fabulous.


  • This isn’t a rumour, per se, but I’ll put it here anyway.  Look for new “freeze-dried raw” foods to hit the speciality petfood store shelves soon.  It’s raw food with the water removed, so it kind of looks like flat kibble, but it’s not uniform in size and really does look like it’s just been crumbled from a large dry sheet.  ZiwiPeak is one brand which comes to mind - they make both a dog and cat freeze-dried food.  I guess it’s good if you want the convenience of dry with the benefits of raw, but I can’t recall if anyone promised me that the nutrients in freeze-dried food are identical to their raw forms.  It’s just hard to imagine that nothing would change except water.  I fed some ZiwiPeak dry raw cat food along with regular raw food, and the cats overwhelmingly preferred the fresh, wet food.  They normally like kibble, too, but they ate the ZiwiPeak very slowly, and a couple of them just walked away from their dishes.  I can tell you that the dogs loved the food when I accidentally fed it to them first!


  • One last thing… some pet food companies have now taken to stating the obvious on their labels, just in case anyone had questions.  Check out the sticker on this bag of Evo (click the image to enlarge it:

no_Melamine

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 09/29 at 01:23 AM
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I’m an Internet celebrity with 15 seconds of fame

Starting today, I’m a “Featured User” on the homepage of Lijit.com.  Lijit is a fun little search utility you may have seen in my right-hand sidebar, and it gives you some interesting search stats and also links visitors to other sites about me on the web.  Like my Facebook page, for example.  Lijit’s been wanting to write a blurb about me for a couple of weeks, but I’m such a slacker that I kept forgetting to send them a photo which was “representative” of my blog.  The picture I chose was one of baby Carlo, wrapped in a towel after he’d made a messy stinky or something.  Good thing photos aren’t scratch and sniff.  Anyway, I’m not the only Featured User on Lijit, I’m one of many, and I had to reload the Lijit homepage a dozen times before my entry came up.  Then I grabbed a screencap, so you’d all believe me.  Look for Carlo’s cute and tiny head on the left, near the bottom (or click the photo for the life-sized version):

lijit

If you want to add something fun to dress up your blog, you should give Lijit a try.  The folks from the company are very nice and helpful, and I’m finding that the widgit gives me information that’s different from what other stats trackers give me.  I like that Lijit is fun and easy looking, too, and not stiff and formal.  I tend to pass by a lot of widgits which look neat, but which really don’t add anything to my blog, but I liked Lijit enough to give them some space.  And now they’re showing me love!  Sniff!  The Internets is beeyootiful, man.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 09/29 at 01:11 AM
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Flippy needs a new pair of free shoes

Flippy just sent me an email about how to win a free pair of shoes or a t-shirt from Ryka.  You basically just click this link to go to the Ryka contest page, and then you register with your name, address, email addy, and your shoe and shirt size.  Every day, Ryka randomly draws names to give away 50 free pairs of shoes, and 50 free t-shirts.

Flippy and I won free tennis shoes about six years ago, via some promotion.  I think you just went to some website and asked for free shoes and then they sent them to you… ah, the wild and crazy youthful days of the Internet.  We found out about the current contest because one of Flippy’s blog buddies has already won some cool Ryka shoes, so c’mon… I need one of my blog buddies to win shoes, too!

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 09/29 at 01:00 AM
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Thursday, September 27, 2007 , late at night

Your cat’s inner-artist

The company called ”Art-casso” was at SuperZoo, but somehow I missed seeing them.  It’s hard to imagine that their display of artwork, painted by dogs and cats, wouldn’t have caught my eye!  Check out Kitty-Casso and Pup-Casso on their website - each are kits which allow your cat or dog to paint, with a minimum of mess.  You can see a tiny (3) selection of paintings in the… ahem… Petropolitan Museum of Art.  Wouldn’t this be a great fund-raising item for a shelter?  You could have each cat or dog “paint”, and then display their painting near their enclosure.  Adopt a cat, adopt their painting too.  It’s a lot easier than adopting those painting elephants.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 09/27 at 11:34 PM
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Communication with your pet is in the cards

I don’t know why it took someone so long to come up with this idea.  A perky and cheerful woman named Angelica del Mar created a special “oracle” deck of cards, similar to a tarot card deck, and the cards are designed to help you communicate with your pet.  The deck is called, “Messages From Your Animal Companion”.  The process is clear and simple and so easy to learn that even an idiot (or me!) could learn how to do it in less than five minutes.  You just ask your pet a question, pull a card or two from the deck, and the cards will give you the answer you seek.  The answer might be a simple “yes” or “no”, or it might be something more complicated, like, “My ears are bothering me so please take a look at them to see if something is wrong”.  The deck features 55 cards with 55 different scenarios, and is designed to be used with any companion animal, whether you’ve got a dog or a tarantula.  Here’s a picture I took of the deck I purchased (feel free to click it to see the larger version):

card_deck

Obviously this sort of product has to be considered a “toy”, and you should never use it in lieu of veterinary advice, for example.  But you know that.  So, think of how much fun you or a friend could have with a product like this; if you already talk to your pet all the time, now your pet will finally answer you back!  I played around with it a bit with Dante and got a couple of very accurate answers, but haven’t used it with the other pets yet.  I should ask Bing how she feels about having Greg and Spiderman in the house… I hope there’s a card with cursing on it to help interpret her answer.

Flippy and I have decided we’re going to start selling these cards as a fund-raiser for Wee Paws.  I truly do think the cards make an awesome gift, and I love how original they are.  It’s a rare gift for both owner and pet (that is, until I tell you about those awesome “Cheese Please” snacks, which I’ll do in a few days, yummy).  They’re available in only one other place online that I know of, and I’ll try to keep the costs down and make ordering as simple as possible.  I’ve written an entry and put up all the instructions on how to purchase the cards at WeePaws.org, but to summarize, the cards are $30 per deck, and that includes shipping.  Elsewhere online they’re selling for over $42 once shipping is figured in, so I think our price is fair.  If you want to know more, read my entry about the companion animal cards on Wee Paws, or you can just click here to order them!

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 09/27 at 05:35 AM
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The case of the hyperactive mouse

SuperZoo gives awards for the best new product of the year, and this year, the winning product was a toy for cats called, “Mouse in the House”:

Mouse_in_the_House_cat_toy (1)

Mouse_In_the_House_closeup

It’s made by the same company which brought you the ”Cat Dancer” toy, and I think Flippy and I have got one of the few which exist in the whole world… the others are still being manufactured in China, and won’t be available until next year (I believe that was the date mentioned).  We’re so cutting-edge when it comes to toys which involve plastic furniture.  The toy has a few programmable features, such a delayed start, and the cat can even turn it on itself.  If your mice get lost, replacements are inexpensive.  It’s also nice and safe, as it runs on voltage so low you could bite through the cord yourself and not feel a thing.  We want to upload our own video of our cats using it, but while you wait for that to happen, there’s a cute video on the manufacturer’s website: video of Mouse in the House.  Now when we go out, our cats will be able to stay home and solve the mystery of “who let that mouse into the house, and whose tiny house is that, anyway?”

I’m ashamed to say that I don’t know which product came in second in the best new product competition.  But above this entry, you’ll see who came in third.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 09/27 at 05:14 AM
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What’s new in cat litter?

There weren’t very many cat litter vendors at SuperZoo.  I saw a booth for Dr. Elsey’s, (my personal favourite), a booth for SWheatScoop, and a booth for this unfortunately-named litter from China:

Woody_Balls

I think there may have been two or three booths featuring cat litter from China, but they seemed to be big on “fashion” and not on functionality.  In other words, one booth had cat litter in about two dozen designer colours, but that didn’t give me any indication that that stuff would actually clump well and absorb odors.  The American vendors were stressing “green” too, but the environmental kind.  Here’s a photo of two new brands I was able to bring home to sample, ”Good Mews”, and ”Close to NatureNow”:

two_new_cat_litters

Good Mews is a pellet litter made of recycled paper.  You fill the litterbox, scoop the solid chunks every day, and then dump out and replace all the litter at the end of the week (or whenever your nose tells you to).  The manufacturer claims that it’s dust-free, doesn’t track, and that the pellets not only absorb three times more than clay, they also keep their form and don’t crumble.  I’ve never used this sort of litter, because my litterboxes are large enough to hold Christmas trees and it’s just impractical to completely empty them once a week.  However, I’m certainly not opposed to the concept, and I’d be willing to try this litter out in a small box.  I think a trial-run will have to wait until our next set of bottle-babies, but this litter will be perfect for them because it’s safely ingested and totally non-toxic. 

I was able to try Close to NatureNow as soon as we brought it home.  It’s a scoopable, flushable litter, and the manufacturer recommends you let your cats adjust to it by filling your litterbox with 50% of your current litter, plus 50% of this new litter.  I could do that, so one of the downstairs litterboxes is now a mix of Dr. Elsey’s and Close to Nature Now.  The litter is organic and all-natural, made from a mix of soybean meal and potato starch.  It smells a bit toasted, and looks like cornflake crumbs or panko crumbs, the type you’d use for breading.  It does seem to clump nicely, although the clumps look a bit odd with the little flakes all over them—they are not a delicious dessert treat, even if they remind you of toasted coconut.  I’d be curious to see how a litterbox filled with just the Close to NatureNow litter performed, because the flakes seem very delicate, and I’d worry about the lumps crumbling when scooping.  I’ve seen no evidence of this yet, so don’t quote me.  I’d definitely try this litter in the rest of my litterboxes if it was easily accessible and inexpensive.  The product rep said that the company would work with rescues to give them large-quantity bags without all the fancy packaging, so that might make this litter very reasonably priced if you can get that sort of discount.

I didn’t bring home an SWheat Scoop because I’ve used it a few times and know now it performs.  I’ve used it for bottle-babies just learning to use the litterbox, because it’s safe for them to eat, but I find it a bit rough and it seems like it would be uncomfortable for the kittens to walk on.  However, it smells pretty good (just a fresh, wheat-y scent, no deodorizers), it clumps well, and it doesn’t track too badly.  I looked at a very large bag of it at Petsmart and thought about buying it for the adult cats, but it’s a lot more expensive than Dr. Elsey’s, and I don’t have any real need to change.

When I did an informal survery about cat litter last year, a few folks seemed fond of World’s Best Cat Litter.  I’m seen in it stores, but it’s so much more expensive than the Dr. Elsey’s that I can’t justify buying it.  The World’s Best people had a nice large booth at SuperZoo, but wouldn’t give me a sample to bring home to test, so it will still remain the great unknown.  As for the crystal-based, absorbing litters, I didn’t see booths for any of them that I can recall.  Perhaps that concept is falling out of vogue?

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 09/27 at 03:56 AM
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Sunday, September 23, 2007 , the wee hours

I survived SuperZoo 2007!

I survived SuperZoo, but just barely.  Over two days, Flippy and I walked the convention floor for a total of 12 hours.  That’s more exercise than we normally get in months smile On the final day, we were able to pick up some amazing deals and freebies, and we ended up needing to carry about 300 lbs. of stuff back to our car.  I’m not kidding… we brought home 160 lbs. of raw, frozen, dog and cat food, plus about six full cases of dog and cat canned food, plus about 20 lbs. of cat litter, plus a ton of other stuff I’ll eventually write about.  Our car was filled to the max, without a nook or cranny left for any more free cases of Dog-Wa or Back to Naturenow organic cat litter.  It’s sad to turn down those sorts of things, especially the cat litter… I could have had enough free litter to keep our cats smiling until sometime next summer.

We met many wonderful people and saw many new and exciting products, and I’ll write an entry listing them all soon.  For me, my two best memories will be of finally meeting the wonderful people from Wild Kitty Cat Food, and of being given carte blanche to take any books I wanted from the Bowtie Press display at the end of the show.  W00t!  Guess who now finally has her own copies of Herbs for Pets and Hobby Farm: Living Your Rural Dream for Pleasure and Profit?!  The former book has been on my Amazon wishlist for months, but I’d never purchased it because it was too expensive.  I never imagined I’d be given a brand new copy at no cost, and the book has already been helpful.  Dante, our Anatolian, has a chronic irritation with one of his ears.  It clears up, it comes back, and it just never goes completely away.  My new book suggested that I clean the ear with Witch Hazel, so I gave it a try, and there’s already been noticable improvement.  Speaking of Dante, one of the other books we were given was from a collection of books about rare breed dogs, and it was specifically about Anatolian Shepherd dogs.  The exact title was Anatolian Shepherd Dog: A Comprehensive Owner’s Guide (Kennel Club Dog Breed Series).  At first browsing, I liked the book because it had photos of a variety of Anatolians, not just the staple fawn colour.

Not only did SuperZoo give me tons of potential blog content, the generous vendors at the end of the show really helped us with our pet food bills for the next couple of months.  The folks who sell frozen pet food can’t really keep packing the same bags up and shipping them back and forth, so they’d just dump the food in the trash if no one came by offering to take it from them.  With almost all the show attendees being from out of town (there were tons of Canadians there), Flippy and I were two of the few folks who really could safely take a crate of frozen food and get it home in under an hour.  We received donations of so much frozen pet food I had to toss out frozen people food just to make room in our freezer.  Thanks to Wild Kitty Cat Food, Primal Pet Food, and Stella and Chewy’s for all the wonderful goodies for our dogs and cats.  I know the pets will love it all, and I’ll love not having to grind any chicken for the next few weeks.  Oh, a special thank you must go out to Doug from Stella and Chewy’s, as he helped us carry a lot of our heavy packages to the parking lot.  I think he did it just because he’s a nice guy, but there’s a chance he was just trying to make sure we didn’t start crying.  We’d just about reached our limits by 3pm on Thursday afternoon.

Over the next few days I’ll write about the cool new products we saw, tell you which vendors were naughty and which ones were nice, and do some reviews of the new pet foods and treats on display.  One is a cheese treat which is made for dogs, but humans can eat it, and mmmmm… the dogs can rip it out of my cold, dead hands.  The new trend in treats is single ingredients, for example, freeze-dried salmon, salmon jerky, freeze-dried liver, liver jerky, etc.  The fanciest treats feature chicken wrapped around a piece of apple, or a piece of sweet potato.  If there was any wheat gluten at the convention, it was pretty invisible.  The Chinese were almost invisible, too.  There were three or four booths from China featuring dog beds, dog furniture, dog bowls, etc., and just one booth selling dried chicken-based dog snacks.  The same kind of Chinese-made snacks which were recalled by Petsmart last week.  I didn’t ever see any buyers at the latter booth, and on the final day, Flippy wondered if that booth was gone because she tried to look for it and couldn’t find it.  Even the booths just selling dog beds seemed pretty empty… there’s obviously some lingering resentment.

And speaking of lingering resentment, I’m proud to announce that the Fromm Family won my “unfriendliest vendor award” for the second year in a row!  Merrick is making a run for that position, though, so next year should be a close and unpleasant race.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 09/23 at 01:28 AM
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