Rusty Occupies His Doghouse

Hey, Rusty here.  I've seen Occupy the Couch and Occupy the Toys postings around Blogville recently.  I am Occupying My Doghouse!  Yes, my doghouse!  I am an honorary dog with outdoor pen privileges.  The others are afraid of the doghouse, so I claimed it and it's mine.

So what's the problem?

The first thing Jan saw this morning through the open bedroom door was Sam moving something across the kitchen floor as he licked it. Jan hollered.  Sam disappeared.  Jan got up to investigate.  And then she really hollered, SAAAAAAAM!  It was the butter dish with what had been a fresh stick of real butter in it. It was now a long, short stick.  The top half was in Sam's tummy.  

Sam claims he's been framed.  That he didn't steal it off the table, one of us kitties knocked it down, the lid fell off and ... well, what's a guy to do when presented with something edible and tasty before breakfast?  I will neither confirm nor deny Sam's allegation one of the kitties knocked it on the floor.  I don't tattle.  I'll just stick to the known facts.  Sam was caught eating the butter.  The lid was under the table. 

Jan wants him to reimburse her for the butter he ate but Sam doesn't have any cash or credit.  She refused a well-chewed stuffie toy as payment.  Now Jan wants me to move over or vacate my doghouse so Sam can squeeze in. 

Let Jan find another jail cell to for Sam.  This one's mine.  Um, I mean, this doghouse is mine.  

I am blocking the doorway and I refuse to budge. I will not move over and I will not move out!

 

Uh, Sam, you need to look a little more penitent.  Jan isn't buying your sad face. 


The Google Privacy policy will be changing soon.  If you have a Google account and would like to clear your web history and stop Google from saving it, we recommend you read this article and follow their directions to clear / stop the collection of your web history, which is on by default.
 
We did it.  It's very easy.  Just follow the directions. After everything is cleared, it should tell you your history is empty and it's been paused. 

How to delete your Google Web History.

Jenny and Squillion Day

I don't believe I know any of you.  I'm Jenny, one of the founding Funny Farmers. I passed away in 2007 at age 17.  I never got to meet Rusty or Sam, but I hear they fit right in and help keep Jan unsteady on her feet and searching for her reading glasses.  They even helped hide Jan's slippers for an entire month and had her convinced she was losing more than a pair of slippers, if you catch my drift.

Well, as you can see, I'm not really Jenny.  I'm a Missy You VSquillion Jan and my siblings adopted in my memory a couple of years ago.  It's nice to know I'm still remembered.

I'm here to celebrate Squillion Day with Derby and Ducky. and also the Cat Bllogosphere, which as far as we know is still in exile (on Blogger) since the CB Wordpress blog was hacked Saturday.  Now Derby & Ducky and KC have real squillions but we are virtual ones JFF adopted from the VSquillion Shelter.

 

Above is the banner displayed at the bottom of this blog.   (Left to right)  Angel Crystal and then Missy You Crystal. Many of you knew my handsome brother Crystal.  Next is our sister Grayce.  We were together for 13 years, even moved cross country together, but Cotton is the only surviving furry of JFF who was privileged to meet her.. There I am to the left of Viola.  Viola was the first virtual Funny Farmer.  They adopted her from the VShelter because even a virtual squillion needs a home. 

It was nice to meet all of you.  Thank you for coming by and helping us celebrate today.  Perhaps the next time the VShelter holds an adoption, you'll consider giving a VSquillion a home.  A literal one is always nice to have but we don't know how to adopt one of them.

Here's the graphic for Jimmy's auction, if you'd like to use it for your blog.

Jan finished the graphics for Furriends of the CB auction for Jimmy of Criz Cats Sanctuary.  Marg expects to open the auction sometime today., Tuesday  Stop by and check it out.  New items will be added periodically.

Criz lost Jeremy and Jerry to the same thing Jimmy is being treated for.- FLUTD (feline lower urinary tract disease).    Mama Jessica survived it.  Jimmy has spent the last few days at the vet's and Criz hopes to have him home soon. 

Criz lives in Malaysia and helps feral cats whenever he can, plus takes care of his own furry J Family..  


We received this email yesterday and even though we weren't interested, it raised some red flags so we did a search and found a lot of bloggers are receiving this message and the consensus of opinion is it appears to be a scam. The email address is from purebloggerss, with a double ss on the end. If you receive this message and are tempted to respond, research it well before visiting. We don't want to send anyone to their site by posting the link, thus we divided up their url.

Hello, someone liked your blog at http://jansfunnyfarmfair.blogspot.com and sent you an invitation to http:// purebloggers .com . Pure Bloggers is a social-network for bloggers and companies. Need more traffic? Want to sell Bannerspace or links? Offer services at your blog? Want to get more readers? Or just share experiences with other bloggers? Get in touch with 1000s of Companies and Bloggers! http:// purebloggers .com is the right place for you. Sign up for free now and join the biggest blogger and companies network!

Testing, Testing, Pipes Work

Good morning, Cyndi here.  I want to show you how rudely I was wakened from a sound sleep today.  My nerves are still jitterbugging and my eardrums ringing. 

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to find a quiet place to soothe my jangled nerves with a whole pot of catnip tea.. 

Buddy, TCC and Sebastian

Hey, Buddy here.  It's my turn today.  I'm ignoring the howls and meows of the other Funny Farmers' protests cause I want to share a dog almost as smart as I am.  He's almost as generous too.  Yep, we could have been best buds if he hadn't gotten caught and imprisoned.  Good thing he got released or I'd have to swim the Atlantic Lake and rescue him. 

Here, see for yourself. 


If the video doesn't play, click here.


Sebastian of Sebastian The Sensitive Soul blog  (@SeabassCat on Twitter) is in need of prayers and help for his family.  They are alive and together but they lost everything when a fire burned down their apartment building.  Other tenants did lose pets.

A fire story and video.can be found here. 

George the Duck set up a Chip in for the family. George explains how you can help in other ways too. Also Cathy Keisha has written a good post on the situation, as have others.


And now I'm going to go rest on my laurels for the rest of the day.

** Cotton:  Um, Buddy, you don't have any laurels.  Are you sure you don't mean rest on your butt the rest of the day?**

Dog vs Cat, TCC and Dr. Seuss

Hey, Merci here with today's post.  I don't know if it's my turn yet but the typing chair was empty when I came by so I hopped on and here I am. 

I have a funny video for you today.  We all just love it.   Dog versus cat. Which do you think won?

This doesn't happen around here.  Sam does leap and bark at us cats to try to make us run so he can chase us but we've never paid attention to him.   Well, as long as his one-ton brick paw doesn't land on any of us.  That would be hard to ignore.


If the video doesn't play, click here.


The Tabby Cat Club (TCC) is having a Sisfurs and Brofurss~Love ‘em or Leave ‘em. Or something like that. Rusty and Percy are members, so we'll try to come up with something.  Stop by there tomorrow and check it out. New tabby members are always welcome.


We are so grateful to all who have responded positively to any blogger's suggestion to turn off word verification. We noticed Blogger has now taken out the black background behind the non-word but it still took us half a dozen tries on one blog this morning so we could let them know they had wv on. We were sure we got it right the first time. We were absolutely positive we had it wrong on the last try but it posted. It would be so much easier if all blogs had an email contact in the profile or in the sidebar so we could avoid dealing with wv.

If any blogger can't find the hidden word verification off button, we posted the directions on Monday.

We are going to try to remember to accept Zoolatry & Amber's Dr. Seuss Day Challenge on March 2nd. Actually, we're going to try to remember a lot of things, but since we inherited Jan's memory, don't count on it.  sigh

Well, Jan wants to use the computer and threatened to sit on me if I don't move, so I guess this is it until next time I find the chair empty and manage to get in a post. 

Tags, Broccoli and WV Update

Hey, happy Monday to you all.  It's Cameron here again.  The other Funny Farmers chose me to do today's post.  Guess they don't mind I called myself the handsomest dude the other week.

Oh, wait, I get it now.  We were tagged by two bloggers - Katie Isabella and Austin - and we ... um, one of us has to answer some questions.  I'm not very good at answering questions. Maybe one of the others would like to answer these?  Hey, where'd they all go?  Never mind.  I can do this. 


1. Describe yourself in 7 words:
Handsome, dapper, trim, loveable, loving, intelligent, and mellow.

2. What keeps you up at night?
Nothing I can think of, but I did keep everyone up the night I accidentally pushed a dish drainer full of artillery onto the floor.  Jan shouldn't keep such dangerous weapons lying around the house.  "Silverware and pots," she claimed, but I know we were under attack.

3. Who would you like to be?
A horseback rider.  To add a little excitement to my life.  Wait, right now I'd rather be a magician so I could make the other Funny Farmers appear and answer these questions too.

4. What are you wearing right now?
A tuxedo.  Do you think I should ask Jan for a top hat to go with it?

5. What scares you?
"Silverware" bombing the floor at 3 am.

6. The best and worst of blogging?
The best is meeting so many nice bloggers.  The worst is losing so many to the bridge.

7. Last website you've visited?
That's easy.  This one, of course - Blogger posts.

8. One thing you'd change about yourself?
I don't know.  Do I need changing?  Jan says I'm perfect as I am. 

9. Slankets, yes or no?
 I have no idea what a slanket is, so my answer is yes or no. 

10. Tell us something about the dog, cat or person that tagged you:
Katie Isabella is the hug bug who moved in to comfort her new mom after Admiral Hestorb sailed to the bridge.  She's beautiful and regal.. 
Austin is a handsome tuxedo cat (like me) and very self-assured (also like me).  See, I moved in without being invited and Austin's mom posted, "We took him home because he told us to!"

I'm not sure how many I'm supposed to pass this on to - 4 or 7 - and I can't remember which blogs have already participated, but I'll pick 4 and if they've already played, they don't need to play again unless they want to.

Puddles
Asta
Animal Shelter Volunteer Life
Zoolatry


A canine hero protecting  the humans from a broccoli invasion has been caught on tape. The hero is a 7-week-old Pomeranian.


If the video doesn't play, click here.

We'd like to add to our Saturday post on word verification,  Some who have not turned on word verification or in the past had turned it off are finding it is on their blogs.  So we again suggest if you have a Blogger blog, check your settings. Blog owners do not see WV on their own blogs.

Some are having trouble finding where to turn WV off.  Turning it off is easy.  Finding it is the hard part.  We wrote this out and shared with a couple of bloggers over the weekend and they were able to decipher our directions, so we'll post them here in case any bloggers would like to turn off WV but can't find where Blogger has hidden it.  Our guess - and we stress the word guess - is that when we are all switched to the new interface, we won't be able to turn WV on any more.  Hooray!


On your new interface -
There is a gear icon upper right below the name of your blog. On the drop down menu, click on "Old Blogger interface."

When it switches to old interface, click on
Settings.
Comments
Scroll down to Show Word Verification for Comments? and switch to "No."
Scroll to bottom of page and click Save Settings.

Scroll to top of browser page and click on Try the Updated Blogger Interface to the left of your blog name.

That should take care of it. And heartfelt thanks to each of you for turning off WV - from all of us and a huge host of other WV frustrated bloggers.

Piggy Buddy and Verification

Hey, everyone, I'm finally here.  Blogger kept loading a little x-box with no photo but it finally loaded the real me. I have lots to say today, so I'm going to get right to the news. 

We've had some questions about where we got the blue section bowl Buddy our ravenous pig ... um, our too-rapid-swallow-whole eater has his nose in.  We got the bowl from a review we did in 2008 on DogPauseBowls.  We had questions and posted on How the DogPauseBowls Work shortly after that.  They are made by a company called -- big surprise! -- DogPause.  Buddy doesn't recommend it for the obvious reason that it slows down his eating but Jan likes it for the same reason.

We are sorry that Jaime of Thoughts for Paws has lost another beloved pet to cancer.  This time it was her sister's Basset Hound Henry the Peanut. We send purrs, woofs and pawhugs to the family.

Bitey & Beau

We were aware that River the Beagle's brother Beau died January 17 but we didn't know Beau's birth brother Bitey died on February 2, just two weeks later. We had so hoped this would be a happier year for River's family after their losses in 2011.  We send purrs, woofs and pawhugs to his family also.


We have written on this subject before but this time we are so frustrated we were seriously tempted to delete all blogger blogs with word verification from our bookmarked list and Google Reader.  Why?  Because blogger word verification  is unnecessary and time wasting!  Blogger has had a good spam filter for a long time now and many are not taking advantage of the filter. 

It seems like a week ago already but we think it was Thursday blogger suddenly changed their word verification process and many bloggers (including us) are already fed up with trying to leave a comment on any blog using it.  It is putting up one word and one totally unintelligible non-word with a dark background that a computer program can't decipher but neither can we.  And that crap it has about if we get it wrong, not to worry, we can just keep trying and getting rejected?  Forget it!  No one has time or patience to play innumerable stupid word games. 

And don't be fooled by thinking if visitors don't want to play word games, they can just use the audio.  Have you tried the audio?  We did, in total desperation.  And the background noise is so loud we couldn't make out the mumble of the numbers we were supposed to be typing.

We don't want to tell anyone what to do, but we strongly suggest if you'd like visitors to read your blog posts AND leave a comment that you turn off word verification. 

Anonymous comments are generally but not always spam comments.  We have friends who don't blog so we hated to turn off Anonymous comments but we did so Friday and switched to Registered Users (includes Open ID) to see how that works. If it causes you any problems, please let us know..  Our goal is to make your visit easy and fun.

We already had comment moderation turned on for older posts only.  That is where our spam was being left.  Blogger was tossing it into the spam file but it does waste our time deleting it and blogger's time saving it for us to delete. We (ir)regularly check our spam list to be sure blogger has not accidentally relegated any friends' comments there and then delete.

Blogger does do a good job of filtering.  If you ever do get a spam comment, don't just delete it from the post.  Go to the comment list to find it, check the box in front of it and tell blogger it's spam by clicking the spam button.  It isn't hard to train the filter to tell the difference.

If you don't know how to turn off word verification, ask us or another blogger.  We'd be happy to help if we can.   You can not see word verification on your own blog when signed in, so perhaps you've had word verification turned on so long you no longer realize you have it on.  Check your settings.  If you don't know how to find them, ask someone.  We're all here to help each other.

Of course, if you don't want to turn off word verification, we'll still visit you and so will many others, but we won't be able to leave comments.

PS - We just read  Little Cat Feet's post Word Purgatory and just love the way they described the new wv audio.  Stop by and read it.  It's short.  :)

Oh, and PPS - Frankie Furter has found the good in this new trial and error wv frustration.  And he's right.  Outta EVERY.. BAD THINGY...  You get the idea 

Handsome Hound Review

Hey, it's Buddy the handsome hound today.  We enjoyed participating in Pillars of Strength on Valentine's Day.  It was heartwarming to see so many posts dedicated to KB and K, thanks to the Thundering Herd's dad, floofy helper Khyra and ... Actually those are the only two organizers we can name.

Last month we got to taste test Canidae dog treats in The Three Droolateers.  Today I want to tell you about the Canidae food we've been sampling lately.  Well, actually we all sampled it, as the photos will attest, but since I'm the "problem child" with food, I'm the one who has been eating the rest of it.

 

Here we are waiting for an okay from Jan.   Notice my bowl is divided into four sections.  It's a special bowl for piggy eaters ... um, for dogs that wolf down their food.    It slows me down enough Sam and Merci often get to finish their own meals now. 

(How do you like our new photo logo under my feet?  That's me and our late brother Crystal napping together.)

Here we are digging in. It's Canidae Lamb meal and rice formula.  Canidae is committed to supporting local independent stores and their products are not sold at big chains like Walmart, Petsmart and Petco. It also isn't sold in our area but the local Petsmart manager was nice and brought a bag back with her from Griffin when she was there.  Just so we could try it.  Thank you, Francie!

Well, we're almost finished.

And sadly so is the bag.  Almost finished, I mean.  I have been doing well on it which makes Jan happy but it isn't something she can afford to purchase and keep me on.  She says my stools aren't as loose as they were. Why would she be happy about that?  Oh, yeah, because she has to pick up after me in the yard and on our walks. 

The food has things like lamb meal, cracked  pearl barley, rice bran, peas, millet, canola and sunflower oils, flaxseed  meal, alfalfa meal, cranberries and some things we can't spell or pronounce but they're supposed to help my gut.  I'm a dog.  All I care is it tastes good.

Merci is the smallest so she got the least and finished first. But Sam and I were right behind her.

Jan was really interested in this page because ... well, as I said, I'm her "problem child." : Canidae includes 10 skin and coat conditioners. Balanced Omega-3, -6 and -9 Fatty Acids help to prevent moisture loss from cells that causes flaky, dry skin and coat. EFA’s may also help to avoid skin inflammation, hot spots, hair loss and allergy problems caused by flea bites and repeated licking.

Canidae Pet Food sells cat and dog food.  Some are grain free.  

Note: Canidae provided a voucher for the bag of food.  But we were not paid for this review, nor influenced in what to say. 

Pillars of Strength 4 Valentines

Okay, we realize the title probably doesn't make any sense, but hang in with us and it will.

First we'd like to wish you all a Happy Valentine's Day with our homemade card.  We worked very hard on motivating Jan to make it.  It was a losing battle until we received a few ecards from friends.

The lovely Miss Asta whose family recently moved to Budapest. 

And sweet Miss Gracie. We just know there is at least one mancat who would love to be her Valentine.

And the happy quartet Scylla, Socks, Artemisia & Fenris.

Now for the strange post title. 

We are dedicating our Valentine post to KB (the human) and K (a canine) of the blog Romping and Rolling in the Rockies. KB posts beautiful scenes of hikes, bike rides, wildlife and life in general in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. One of her favorite subjects is K, her gorgeous "unofficial service dog" (KB has spinal problems), heart dog and best trail buddy.

K is currently undergoing chemotherapy treatments for osteosarcoma. Her next treatment will be Friday the 17th.  They are on a scary journey as some of you who have traveled it with a beloved furry or human already know.  So a group of KB's friends conspired to be KB's Pillars of Strength and we join with them as well as others worldwide today to offer our love and support..

KB and K,  we admire how you continue to live life to the fullest measure K's illness allows.  We are hopeful of many happy and adventurous tomorrows.  And thank you for sharing K's journey with us.

Cyndi Intros Fred and Eleanor

Good morning, Cyndi here.  We don't know about you but we're cold, so we decided to do a post to wake us up and warm us up.  We advise you, though, to not try this at home.  Broken bones could result, especially if you're Jan's age.

Yes, we know these are human dancers but we didn't have time to learn these steps and then teach Jan how to film us so we're actually dancing in the video and not off camera.

So join us in waking up and warming our blood with Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell from 1940.


If the video doesn't play, click here.
 
Have a good day and stay warm.

Rolling in Snow

Hey, Cameron here, and I have a protest!  A couple of posts ago, Percy introduced himself as the handsomest dude on the Funny Farm.  Excuse me, but who elected him? Buddy, Sam, Rusty and I don't remember any ballot, so scratch Percy off as the handsomest.  He has competition!  Tough competition.  Enough said on this subject for now.

I have a fun video for you today.  I lived outside for a while as a kitten but it was summer so I've never played in the snow.  And that's okay.  I moved in here in the fall because I didn't like living outside.  I wanted friends and family.  Well, actually I packed my bags and moved in because of Merci.  She used to drag Jan over to visit me on their walks and tell me how great the Funny Farm was.

Buddy, Merci and Sam are wimps.  They don't like to go outside in the rain, cold, heat, or snow.  Unless they have to walk Jan.  Getting her wet is fun. 

So I was kind of surprised to find that some animals actually like playing in snow.  Even a baby elephant.  Here, see for yourself.


If the video doesn't play, click here.


' Figuring out where to send an animal rescue/welfare donation, and/or deciding where to spend your valuable volunteer time may pose a difficulty for some animal-lovers… With ‘this blog’ purporting “this” about “that darn Humane Society,” and another news outlet claiming “that” about “those nut-jobs at PETA,” how in the heck are you supposed to know if a group is genuine, trust-worthy and sticking to the rules?'

The above is quoted from a post, What are reputable animal welfare organizations in the US? by Jaime Lynn Smith (of Thoughts for Paws blog) post  You might agree or disagree with her assessment, but it does pay to do some research on an organization before donating.  Just click the link to read the rest of her post.

Jaime's article is on a pet social site (not a blogging pet social site) called PetBytes.  We had an email from PetBytes a while back inviting us to sign up but we haven't been able to spend time checking them out to see what they're about.  We wondered if they're on the line of Dogster/Catster since we noticed they give points.  We wonder if any of you know anything about the site, perhaps have even joined?  Is it worthwhile joining or just reading some of the posts, such as Jaime"s?  We'd be interested to hear from our readers on this.

And don't forget to check out Coco's auction at Furriends of the CB, if you haven't already.  At least once new item has been added since yesterday.  Coco looks so cute in her fashions, Jan had some fun with the graphics.

Hope you all have a great weekend.  Jan is kicking us off the computer again.  Says she has lots to do.  Uh-huh, as if we don't! 

Funny Words, Purrs and Bum Knee

Hey, Cotton here.  Jan chopped off the top of my head in this photo but it's me.  It's been rather tense around here the past couple of weeks, so I decided it's time to have some fun.  I looked up some recent keywords used to find our blog.  

janschihwawas - We have no clue what Jan did with her chihwawas.  We weren't even aware she'd ever had any. 

sam s farm - No, this is not Sam's  farm. We're the funny farmers and we all own this virtual farm.

modkat siberian  - We didn't realize a litter box can have a nationality.

modkat peeing on lid  -  We have a modkat but there has been no peeing on lid allowed or attempted.

blinking photos of dog - What about blinking photos of cats?

logos that don't translate well  - This would be an interesting topic, but perhaps we better move on.

pets love twix - Well, we'd love Twix too but it's a chocolate candy bar and we aren't allowed to have chocolate.

funny farm cards by Hallmark - And we're not getting royalties?

goat breakaway collar  - We have posted on goats, but they climbed trees sans collars. .

Rusty is awesome- This was a popular one and Rusty's head is about 2 sizes larger now.

Clydesdale donkey  - A new breed of Clydesdale?  We have a little trouble imagining donkeys replacing the awesome Budweiser Clydesdales. 

melted kettle on stove  - Did someone else melt a kettle on the stove or has word spread about Jan's?.

missing bear poster examples - Seriously, how man times have we posted on a missing bear?  We keep ours in the closet so he'll never come up missing.

bell shaped rabies tag silencer - We remember a post about bell-shaped rabies tags, but with a silencer?  We just mentioned they didn't hold up for the 3 year life of the rabies vaccinations.  We never threatened to shoot anyone over it, with or without a silencer. 

funny sombrero - Only kind Jan wears.  She doesn't allow sad or angry sombreros in the house. 

We are thinking of Poppy Vic and Ann of Zoolatry today and tomorrow, as he undergoes a procedure called TACE to treat his cancer.

"Studies show TACE has better results, less side effects, and is easier on the patient, and safer in general.  RFA uses radioactive substances which have on occasion "spilled over" into surrounding areas (not good) ... and after RFA no hugs or close contact with anyone for several days as you're radioactive!

It is "trans aerterial chemo embolization"; they go in through arteries in the groin area; guided imagery; and inject a variety of drugs (including chemotherapeutic drugs) directly into the core of the tumors in the liver, and some of this "cocktail" of drugs is also targeted to surrounding tissue.  The cocktail serves to cut off the blood supply to the live cancer cells, in effect killing them, preventing their continued growth and spread.

He has five active tumors in the liver to be treated.  The tumors present in the lung will still require standard chemotherapy; but that will be postponed until sometime after this procedure." 

We are keeping them in our thoughts and prayers and we know you are too.

Jan has finished/posted the new auction graphics and the auction for Coco's patellar luxation surgery will begin sometime today, just as soon as Marg is finished posting the items. (That's a lot of work!)  You can grab the graphic for your sidebar to help spread the word.

Teri of Curlz and Swirlz has made a special page describing Coco's "bum knee" journey.  Stop by the Furriends of the CB Auction sometime today and check out the items as they're posted.


And now I better close or Jan will sit on me.  She's antsy and wants - says she needs the computer back.  I don't know why.  She'll just forget what she wanted it for.  But if we don't humor her, she'll forget to feed us.

Funny Human Day and Bridge

 It's about time I got another turn.  In case you've forgotten what I look like, I'm Percy, the handsomest dude on the Funny Farm.  I'm happy to announce that today is Funny Human Day ...

**Excuse me once second, please.  Cotton, it is too Funny Human Day!  How do I know?  Because I just made it up, that's how!**

Where was I?  Oh, yes, I have a special video to prove how easy it is to fool humans. Furries, you can't do this same trick, but you can hide their glasses under the couch, move the bath mat into the kitchen, drag the food lady's purse into a different room than she left it - You know, things we can handle with out opposable thumbs.

Now enjoy a little crazy grandma fun. We can't picture Jan doing anything like this. What about your human?  Jan would be afraid someone would think she's gone gaga. Really?


If the video doesn't play, click here.

 Graphic by KC of the CB

Sweet Yuki of the Kazoku Neko blog has gone to the bridge after a health battle with her kidneys.  We send a pawhugs to her sad family.

 Graphic by Ann of Zoolatry.

Our Rainbow Friends is a brand new blog where -- You get the idea.  Each month they will publish those submitted that were lost the previous month. 

The following information is from Amber DaWeenie's 2/3/12 post: Our Rainbow Friends will be accepting notices of January 2012 losses until the end of February. The post will be published the first week of March. Thereafter, the deadline for submissions will be the 10th of the following month with the post being released by the 15th of the month.

If the blog gets some more volunteers, others from 2011 or so might be added too. 

Sam, Jan and Champis

Oops!  I just went from no photo to 3 of the same photo of my handsome face.  Wonder why Blogger can't count?  I can.

Oh, sorry, I'm Sam.  And before I post the next photo - which I hope to only see one copy of - I want you to know it was not my fault.  I had nothing to do with it.  Jan has been known to call me Brick Butt, Stone Head, or a few other choice names that mean I am a very large dog of rock solid bone and muscle when I collide with something (usually her) but this is not a black eye and I did not cause it.  We got that straight?  I am totally, completely and entirely freaking INNOCENT!

Now, this is what Jan's eye looked like for most of a week. Icky.  Ugly.  And hard to see through.  So if she wrote anything strange or unintelligible to you, she was probably trying to hold a compress on her right eye with her left hand while she typed blindly. (It's hard to see with a compress over one eye and a hand over the other - or so she claims.)

She can see what mischief we're getting into now, so we assume her eye is better.  Sigh.  It was such fun to be able to get away with things for a week. 

We have a really fun video for any of you who haven't yet met Champis, the sheep-herding rabbit. He (she?) is ambitious and keeps those sheep moving.  Enjoy!


If the video doesn't play, click here.


We recently ran across a blog requesting donations to help their animals using a paypal account. What struck us was it was set up for $1 donations only.  A year or two ago we used to see a lot of private and non-profit sites asking folks or furries to donate just $1.  Thankfully, we haven't run across this practice for a while, but if it still exists, we urge you to not participate.  We're not knocking the sites or questioning their legitimacy.  What we do question is their sanity.. It is not a cost effective donation.

Yes, you read that correctly.  Paypal charges a fee in these transactions, approximately 3% plus 30 cents for each transaction.  That means the person or group you donate that lone dollar to receives only - lets see, multiply by .... - I think it's 67 cents on each dollar.  Paypal receives a third of your donation!  And if there are any other fees, such as Over The Border -  No matter how you slice it, that is an expensive one dollar donation!

Please note:  DO NOT PANIC! We are ONLY talking about a SINGLE dollar, a ONE dollar donation. You know, $1.00.  We are not even remotely referring to anything over $1 where the 30 cents + 3% becomes more reasonable.  

We are still horribly "uncomfortable" with a paypal donate button on our blog because of the number of accounts they have shut down over it, so we have made our own contribution graphic.    If one clicks on the mailbox, the magic email address will open.  :)

A Smile, Tear and Challenge

Hey, Rusty here with today's post.  Jan's rushing me so if I type anything in catspeak, just ask for a translation. I have a smile, a tear and a challenge for you today.  And if you think you don't need the challenge, remember our tea kettle meltdown last week.  Things happen when you're not paying attention.  Well, at least when Jan's not paying attention.

We enjoy Maru in a box videos.  This one had us laughing.  Maru didn't like his Kamakura house.  But then it was placed on his favorite chair.  And ... watch what happens. Yep, he's a typical cat.


If the video doesn't play, click here.

Graphic by KC of the CB

This is Ah Wong of A Desperate, Reluctant Housewife blog.  He was originally called "Orange."  He appeared out of nowhere on December 6, 2011 and ran into the house.  He had mange and serious health problems.  He was given a name, a home and medical care, but he died on January 22nd.  He was once someone's pet (neutered), then he was homeless, and then he was loved.  RIP, Ah Wong.


Last summer, as Hurricane Irene approached New York City and several coastal neighborhoods were evacuated, many pet owners were confronted with the issue of what to do with their pets. As a pet owner, do you have a plan for your pet if there is an emergency?

The Ad Council and the New York City Office of Emergency Management’s (OEM) Ready New York are campaigning to encourage individuals (including pet owners!) and families to Resolve to be Ready in 2012. Test yourself with Ready New York’s latest online tool, the Readiness Challenge, which takes users through a real-life emergency situation that forces them to make quick decisions at every turn. Once users have completed the scenarios, they can refer to various Ready New York resources to create an emergency plan.

We have been wanting to post on the NYC Readiness Challenge for a while but since we're not posting daily, we get a backlog and it keeps getting bumped from the list.  We don't live in NYC, however, it's a short but thought-provoking challenge, no matter where you live.  Check it out.

In an emergency, your furries depend on you, so be prepared.