Rusty Rambles

Hey, Rusty here.  Happy Monday to you.  It's rainy, cold and dreary and but we're sacked out in front of the heaters trying to "unchill."  Yes, I'm aware there is no such word but it's descriptive so I'm adding it to the Funny Farmer dictionary. 

We're sending out some purrs and woofs to Jan's minister who is having (or has already had) partial knee replacement surgery this morning.  I was going to say how lucky we are not to have knees to need surgery, but Jan ruined my day by saying cats and dogs have 2 knees and knee pain is a common cause of lameness in us furries.  Before you gush about how brilliant Jan is she only learned this three minutes ago.

I can't figure out whether the number of cats lost in transit by airplane is climbing or if the numbers remain the same but lost animals are getting more publicity.  We were glad to read that at least one airline takes a missing pet seriously!  When Wenty's empty carrier arrived in Seattle without her, Alaska Airlines didn't drag their feet and lose valuable time.  They went to great lengths to help find Wenty.  And Wenty was found! 

"Using everything from *Karma’s nose, high power spotlights, a search camera, an amplified listening device, and digital wildlife cameras, MPP conducted a detailed “area search.” Alaska Airlines gave the team unrestricted access to the baggage area and the tarmac area."  (*Karma is a Missing Pet Partnership cat detection dog.)

You can read the rest of  "Alaska Air Stops at  Nothing to Find Lost Cat'" on Mousebreath.  After some of the horror stories we have read on lost cats entrusted to an airline, this was a breath of fresh air.  Missing pets should be taken seriously.  Kudos to Alaska Airlines!


On a different subject, this title is a mouthful but we suggest you read it, especially if you are a newbie to blogging. There are a lot of folks out there who are anxious to take advantage of bloggers. Our Reading Lists, Hijacked By Spammers, Who Have Conned The Owners Of Blogs That We Follow.

Don't be conned by spammers.  They are numerous and they are sneaky, so we furries need to be on our paws and remain smarter than they are.


Cat curiosity aroused: We've had a couple of contacts in the past few months asking if we take text ads on our blog and when we ask for more information, we're told all we have to do is to put their ad link in a post or two for them - not a new post, a prior post. This doesn't make any sense to us and doesn't seem particularly legitimate, so we've turned them down. But our whiskers are twitching to know why anyone would even ask. There must be some advantage to someone wanting to pay to have an ad placed in a "used" post or two, but we can't figure out what they get out of it. So we thought we'd ask our more knowledgeable readers if any of you know why someone would want to pay to "hide" an ad in an old post.

That's all the news I have for today.  We have photos and a post or two to catch up on but Jan hasn't downloaded them from the camera yet.  Perhaps by spring?

I'm going back to my blankie in front of the gas heater now and catch some zzzzzzzs.

Rusty