Friday Cat Blogging

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Friday Cat Blogging

Feline Memories Found to be Fleeting

Fortunate for Creme Soda's people.

Creme Soda, a Maine Coon cat, waits with a Cowboy hat before competing in the South Central regional cat show sponsored by The International Cat Association in Waco, Texas August 19, 2007. REUTERS/Larry Downing (UNITED STATES)

From LiveScience.com:

A new study has measured just how long cats can remember certain kinds of information—10 minutes.

The research was designed primarily to compare cats' working memory of their recent movements with their visual memories, and found that cats remember better with their bodies than their eyes when they have encountered an object placed in their path by say, an annoying owner or experimenter.

When a cat steps over a stray toy or shoe left on the floor on the way to its food dish, it has to coordinate the stepping action of its front legs with its hind legs.

"Animals, including humans, unconsciously keep track of the location of objects relative to the body as they move, and this tracking is largely dependent on signals associated with movement of the body," said researcher Keir Pearson of the University of Alberta in Canada.

Though researchers were aware of this association, they wondered exactly how kitty remembers to bring her hind legs up after her front legs have cleared an obstacle.

To test cats' coordination, the researchers looked at how well they could remember having just stepped over a hurdle. The researchers stopped cats after their front legs had cleared an obstacle, but before their hind legs went over.

They then distracted the animals with food and lowered the obstacle to see how the tabbies would respond. The cats remembered having stepped over the hurdle for at least 10 minutes, bringing their hind legs up to clear the object, even though it wasn't there.

To compare this working memory to the cats' visual memory of the obstacle, the researchers repeated the experiment, this time stopping the cats just before they made their first step over the hurdle.

Turns out the cats weren't so good at remembering what they had seen but not yet done: when the obstacle was removed this time, the cats forgot it had even been there in the first place and continued on their way.

"There's not high-stepping at all," Pearson told LiveScience.

"We've found that the long-lasting memory for guiding hind legs over an obstacle requires stepping of the forelegs over the obstacle," Pearson said. "The main surprise was how short lasting the visual memory on its own was—just a few seconds when animals were stopped before their forelegs stepped over the obstacle."

Research with horses and dogs has shown similar results, Pearson said.

Similar memories may play a role in humans' ability to navigate objects in the dark or remember where they parked their car in the morning.

By actually walking from your car into your office, you solidify the memory of what space your car is in and don't spend half an hour looking for it—well, not usually.

Friday Cat Blogging

Mystery Cat Takes Regular Bus To The Shops



London's Daily Mail reports:

Bus drivers have nicknamed a white cat Macavity after it has started using the No 331 several mornings a week.

The feline, which has a purple collar, gets onto the busy Walsall to Wolverhampton bus at the same stop most mornings - he then jumps off at the next stop 400m down the road, near a fish and chip shop.

The cat, nicknamed Macavity, has one blue eye and one green eye

The cat was nicknamed Macavity after the mystery cat in T.S Elliot's poem. He gets on the bus in front of a row of 1950s semi-detached houses and jumps off at a row of shops down the road which include a fish and chip shop.

Driver Bill Khunkhun, 49, who first saw the cat jumping from the bus in January, said: "It is really odd, the first time I saw the cat jumping off the bus with a group of passengers. I hadn't seen it get on which was a bit confusing.

"The next day I pulled up on Churchill Road to let a couple of passengers on. As soon as I opened the doors the cat ran towards the bus, jumped on and ran under one of the seats, I don't think any of the passengers noticed.

"Because I had seen it jump off the day before I carried on driving and sure enough when I stopped just down the road he jumped off - I don't know why he would catch the bus but he seems to like it. I told some of the other drivers on this route and they have seen him too."

Since January, when the cat first caught the bus he has done it two or three times a week and always gets on and off at the same stops.

Passenger, Paul Brennan, 19, who catches the 331 to work, said: "I first noticed the cat a few weeks ago. At first I thought it had been accompanied by its owner but after the first stop it became quite clear he was on his own.

"He sat at the front of the bus, waited patiently for the next stop and then got off. It was was quite strange at first but now it just seems normal. I suppose he is the perfect passenger really - he sits quietly, minds his own business and then gets off."

Friday Cat Blogging

Things are not as they appear to be . . . .

Humans and Their Animals, and Friday Cat Blogging

Wisconsin Man Spears a 6-Foot Sturgeon:

The fish's long shadow slid under the ice, causing Darren Horness to blink. "I was skimming some ice off the hole, and all the sudden I thought I caught a little bit of movement, and I had to kind of take a step back," said Horness, 36, of Howards Grove. "The fish was actually coming up into the hole, I just could see part of it and could tell it was a kind of a nice fish, but I had no idea how big it really was."

The 102-pound, 72-inch sturgeon was nearly as long as he was tall.

He had cut a hole through the 16 inches of ice on Lake Winnebago, and the sturgeon arched through it, coming within six inches of the surface. Horness heard the fish's back scrape the ice on the bottom edge of the hole.

"I had to get down on my knees and I had to spear almost horizontal because it was so high up into the hole," he said. "I didn't know how good of a hit that I had on it because it was such a weird throw."

The spear lodged in the fish's tail, about two feet from the end. Within minutes, the female was tiring and had moved close enough to the surface for Horness to see what he'd caught.

"My knees just almost buckled because it looked so humongous in the water," he said.

It's Westminster Kennel Club Show Time Again:

Bill Cosby's Dandie Dinmont, Fineus Fogg, goes for Best in Show:

The Westminster Kennel Club competition is threatening to turn into the Cosby show.

It's no joke - comedian Bill Cosby's terrier could win Best in Show at the prestigious competition in Madison Square Garden.

Fineus Fogg, the contest's only Dandie Dinmont terrier, was awarded Best in Breed and Best in Category yesterday, qualifying him to compete against six other finalists for the grand title tonight.

"They were all beautiful dogs out there," Cosby's daughter Erinn Cosby told The Associated Press, "but there was only one."

Cosby wasn't there last night; the dog's handler said the star thinks he has bad luck, and didn't want it to rub off on Fineus Fogg, rated as the country's top dog.

But now that the dog, also known as Harry, has won, all bets are off.

I bet 'Harry' is Camille's dog:
Camille (Mrs. Bill) Cosby



The story of 'Fat Cat' 'Goliath' 'Hercules':

For four years the pudgy kitty was Earnest's constant companion. Earnest, 31, has cystic fibrosis, a genetic disorder that affects the mucus lining of the lungs and leads to breathing problems. In June, Earnest flew to Seattle for a rare double-lung transplant at the University of Washington Medical Center. A housesitter watched Hercules, but the cat disappeared and Earnest assumed his beloved pet was dead.

But Hercules, it turned out, was alive and well -- so well that last month he sneaked into a stranger's garage, snacked on food and got his ample frame stuck exiting through a doggie door. He landed at the Oregon Humane Society, which alerted reporters to the cat's escapades. His story was picked up by reporters, was aired on local television news and eventually spread worldwide.

One night in early January, while watching television, Earnest saw the fat cat's mug flash on the screen during a newscast.

That looks like Hercules, he thought.

Indeed it was.

These days, Earnest speaks to schools and community groups about twice a week, and sometimes his famous cat tags along. Earnest -- told at age 29 that he would die without a lung transplant -- talks about his own experience as an organ transplant recipient and encourages others to become organ donors.

In his talks, he's always sure to mention Hercules.

The way Earnest sees it, he and his cat have something in common.

"He came back from the dead like I did," he said.

Most days, Hercules can be found resting, more like dozing, on a towel draped on Earnest's bed or footrest. Every morning, Earnest puts his cat on a leash, and the pair head into the neighborhood for exercise.

Since Hercules has returned home, he's been placed on a diet. So far, he's lost about a pound, slimming down to a still-rotund 19.6 pounds. (According to his veterinarian, Dr. Joshua Horner, Hercules could stand to lose another three or four.)

Hercules may look, well, how to sensitively put this, big boned to the rest of us, but to Earnest he's perfect.

"He's just a big, big cat," he said. "I don't want to see him get any smaller."

Earnest and Hercules, Reunited.


American Cat Idol, anyone?: