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Quirky Folk - April 2008

Furry Figurines

April 30th 2008 21:00
Do you remember these figurines from the eighties? Going home to visit my parents one weekend, my sister and I cracked open a box which had our childhood figurines. It was like instant nostalgia. I hadn’t seen these things for about 20 years. I couldn’t believe we used to collect them. But man, they are so damn cute, especially the giraffe.



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Horses and Number Eight

April 29th 2008 21:00

Nickel de Vives
Photo by Didier.tresse. Used in accordance with the terms of Wikimedia Commons’ GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.



When I was about eight or nine I went through a horse phase. I was crazy about horses, especially just having seen National Velvet on TV. My dream was to become a jockey.

My parents had bought my sister and me a set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. I had picked up volume eight (or number eight as my sister called it) and was trying to look up the horses section. I found an anatomical sketch of horse. Ugh. It showed what a skinned horse looked liked so you could see all its muscles. Gory. I then flipped past it and stumbled on the human anatomy section. This was far gorier than the horse illustration. There were anatomical drawings of humans and skulls. Terrified, I slammed the volume shut.

My sister soon found out about my aversion to number eight. She discovered that the best way to bribe into doing (or not doing) something was to threaten to open up number eight to the human anatomical sketches. Even though she was younger than me, for some reason the anatomical drawings didn’t bother her.

Years later, when I was an adult I opened up number eight out of curiosity. I still didn’t like the horse or human anatomical drawings. There was something so sinister about them. Even though they were black and white, they were very realistic drawings. My dream back then was to become a doctor. Ditto my sister. For some reason, we both wanted to do autopsies. My sister would continually mock me about wanting to be a doctor when I couldn’t even cope with looking at X-rays or number eight. She had a point there but my doctor says it’s natural to have an aversion to looking or thinking about dead bodies and as a medical student, he was slowly introduced to anatomy so he had time to get used to dealing with dead human bodies.
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Cool Animal Names

April 28th 2008 21:00


Airedale Terrier
Photo by Jane Harvey. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

I was travelling to my parents’ house by train one weekend. It was a three hour journey so I wanted a chunky book to read. Digging around my library, I found my copy of the Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank. I hadn’t read it in over a year so I decided this was a good selection.

I’m not a big fan of chick lit but this book was different in that the main character Jane didn’t necessarily want to get married and have babies. Plus it was funny (and this is coming from someone who doesn’t find most humorous books funny). Bank comes up with very cool and apt names for the characters’ pets. There’s Pepper the schnauzer, Cinders the horse and Jezebel the poodle. (Although for some reason, every time I read about Jezebel I keep picturing a white terrier like the one in the My Dog commercials.) Then there’s Atlas the Airedale. That name makes me picture a strong, solid but not aggressive dog like a black Labrador or Staffordshire.

What about you? Have you across any cool animal names in books?
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The Panda Cam

April 27th 2008 21:00
You’ve heard of web cams and baby cams. Cat Fancy magazine even mentions kitty cams…Now there’s the panda cam!

My sister sent me this link to a panda cam after watching a documentary called Birth of a Panda on TV. The baby panda Tai Shan was so cute. Even cuter was when his fur started to turn pink from being licked by his mother. I wish I could see a panda in real life. The Panda Cam is second best. I went on it today to have a look and at first I saw a panda sleeping. Half an hour later it was sitting down eating bamboo.
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The Sheba Cat

April 24th 2008 21:00
My neighbour and I love this cat. Not only is it so sleek and graceful, it is also such a beautiful and gentle looking thing. Just thinking of stroking or being around it instantly relaxes me. I keep copies of the ads and postcards. I gave one of the Sheba postcards to my neighbour and she loved it so much she used it to cover an old address book of hers.

Another cutie is the My Dog white terrier. Another neighbour has a silky terrier called Georgie. Georgie lets me pick her up. She feels so light but like a cat, wants to be supported properly in my arms, else she will panic and wriggle about.
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The Dangerous Dogs of my Parents’ Neighbourhood

April 23rd 2008 21:00
Staying at my parents’ house one night, I found it hard to sleep. The cicadas were buzzing noisily in the air and then there were the sounds of two dogs barking. The German Shepherd next door would bark first followed by another bark of a distant dog. On and on it went. The two dogs kept taking turns barking. It was like eavesdropping on a canine conversation.

At about midnight the two dogs must have barked a goodnight to each other as the neighbourhood was finally quiet.
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Lucky the Dog Runs Away

April 22nd 2008 21:00
Having Chinese relatives means that I am confronted by their culture. Part of their culture is the emphasis on luck, wealth and success. So every time one of my relatives or their friends got a pet they called it Lucky. So it was Lucky the dog, Lucky the cat, Lucky the goldfish. I told my parents this was stupid as if any of their pets were lost, it would make it harder for them to locate.

My uncle had a Jack Russell called Lucky. When his daughter Suki was two, she used to try to choke him. My parents were given a puppy one day and they also called it Lucky. My father tied it the house so it wouldn’t run away. He then went to work.
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A Cocker Spaniel Saves Daniel’s Life

April 21st 2008 21:00
Standing around the printer one morning, I was showing my workmate Daniel pictures of cats when we started talking about dogs. He told me he had a cocker spaniel when he was a kid. “That dog saved my life,” he said. Interested, I asked, “How?” Daniel said, “I was walking and there was a snake in the grass. I couldn’t see it but the cocker spaniel saw it. The dog wouldn’t move but pointed his paw at something. I couldn’t see anything so I pulled on the leash but he still wouldn’t move. It pointed again. Then the snake came out and the dog wouldn’t move until it had passed us. I would have stepped on it if it wasn’t for the dog.”

This reminds me of a short story called Mahgy by Mary Beninghoff which I read in a book called More Stories of Cats and the Lives They Touch. A woman was having problems with her diabetes medication. On two occasions she woke up to find her blood sugar level was dangerously low after her cat batted her furiously in her face and chest with her paws. The idea of being punched in the face by a cat is pretty funny but I shouldn’t laugh as in this case, the cat also saved her owner’s life. The woman’s doctor said if it wasn’t for the cat waking her up, she could have fallen into a coma. The doctor concluded the cat must have sensed her breathing was different and acted accordingly. The story ends with the woman adjusting her medication and having no problems with it since.
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Sooky Brett

April 20th 2008 21:00
My friend Brett is pretty sooky. By sooky I mean he avoids confrontation at all costs. He’s very easygoing but that’s part of the problem; Brett likes to bottle things up and his anger does a slow burn so it could be weeks before he will finally explode and you find out that you’ve done something to pee him off. But there is a good side to his sookiness: he is scared of harming his cats, Butterscotch and Gingersnap. This is an issue as Brett is too terrified to trim their claws in case he draws blood. My neighbour has offered to show Brett how to do it but so far he hasn’t taken her up on her offer. In some ways, I can’t blame him. It can’t be easy trying to hold a squirming little furry bundle long enough to trim its claws without getting scratched in the process.

Still, Brett’s cats are easier to hold than my neighbour’s. Higgins and Miggins are a large build and are timid. If I pick them up, I can only hold them for at most, a minute before they start wriggling around, signalling they want to be put down. In contrast to this, Brett’s cats are very friendly. They love people so they have no issues with being picked up and held, although Butterscotch is more feisty than his brother, Gingersnap so Butterscotch will start wriggling around far earlier than Gingersnap. Gingersnap doesn’t mind being held for long periods of time. I can walk around the room with him before he starts to signal. Each time I get to hold them I am amazed how light they are compared to Higgins and Miggins, and how long they will let me hold them.
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RSPCA Had to Put Down 170 Cats and Kittens

April 17th 2008 21:00


I felt very sad when I read this story:
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Allan is Adopted by Lenny the Cat

April 16th 2008 21:00
Have you heard that saying about how a cat chooses you and not the other way around? I have and I had put it down to a myth until my colleague Allan told me that was actually how his cat became his pet.

Seven years ago he found a scrawny grey and white cat underneath his house. Once he realised it was here to stay, he decided to start feeding it. At first the cat wouldn’t come out if he or anyone else was around so he had to leave food outside and go back inside so the cat could eat. Eventually he started to leave the food closer and closer to the house. It got to the point where the cat trusted him and his family enough to eat when they were around. Then Allan left food in the laundry and that was how the cat made its way into Allan’s house.
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Do You Think Animal Hoarders Need Professional Help?

April 15th 2008 21:02
Kos8
Photo by Mykenik. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
I was watching RSPCA Animal Rescue one night and they had a story about two women who kept dozens and dozens of cats. (I think the presenter said there were about 60 of them.) The cats’ living quarters were absolutely filthy, with cat faeces everywhere. I was quick to condemn the women. As far as I was concerned, there was no excuse for this kind of cruelty and I was horrified to see the RSPCA didn’t fine them.

The RSPCA officer then explained the reason why they weren’t being fined was because they were cat hoarders. The two women then spoke on camera, saying how they loved cats and started providing homes for strays but they couldn’t stop their cat collecting hobby. What started off as providing a home for one cat soon became an out-of-control situation. When I saw how sad the women looked I started to feel some compassion. When I thought about it, at least those 60 cats had a home – albeit a filthy one – to go to. Else they could have been on the street, vulnerable to being run over by cars or getting into cat fights with other strays. On the other hand, because the two women could not adequately care for their pets, it made them more vulnerable to malnutrition and disease.
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I Have no People Skills (But Plenty of Animal Skills)

April 14th 2008 21:00
I’ve decided to sign up for assertiveness training with a life coach as I feel I have no people skills. I certainly don’t have conflict resolution skills. If someone is rude to me I normally flee as I’m left tongue tied. I don’t know what to say as I’m often shocked that someone could be so rude. I also don’t know how to deal with difficult people at work. I was talking to my workmate Catherine about this last night and we both agreed the on-and-off types are the worst people to deal with. You know, the ones who are really friendly when it suits them and then turn really nasty all of a sudden. There is a guy at my workplace who I had difficulties dealing with in the past. He always seemed surly and rude but funnily enough, I found him easier to deal with than a mercurial person. At least you always knew he would be grouchy when you approached him. My friend Fred can’t stand mercurial people. He once said, “Keep it consistent. If you’re going to be nice, be nice all the time. If you’re going to be surly, be surly all the time.”

Apparently I do have people skills. My very close friend Karina, who would never lie to me, told me I do have people skills and don’t require assertiveness training. She is wondering why I’m paying money to get a life coach to be rude to me so I can practise asserting myself. It does sound absurd. On the other hand, I don’t like being tongue tied. I need to learn how to deal with difficult situations and it’s better to be prepared than left speechless all the time. This is why I often feel I can relate better to animals, including the Grouchy Tuxedo Cat. Animals make life seem so simple. I also have more patience with them. Speaking of the GTC, I saw him this morning, curled up in the bushes outside the apartment he lives in. I would have stopped for a quick stroke but I was running late to work.
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Face to Face Ape Exhibition

April 13th 2008 21:00


Face to Face exhibition

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Cat Gets Thrown into the Pool

April 10th 2008 21:00
Wet_cat
Photo by Jamie Lantzy. Used in accordance with the terms of Wikimedia Commons’ GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.
I recently read in one of the local papers (Wentworth Courier 12/3/08) that a woman was arrested after she was caught throwing a cat enclosed in a cage into the Bondi Beach ocean pool. A witness retrieved the cat from the pool and called the police. Good on him. The poor moggy was treated for hypothermia and water on the lungs.

I wonder what has happened to the cat. He was probably sent to the local animal shelter. I hope he’s still alive and healthy. A follow up story in the Daily Telegraph hasn’t mentioned the cat’s fate.
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Would you let a Cockroach Crawl onto Your Body?

April 9th 2008 21:00
Photo by George Shuklin. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
Are you scared of cockroaches? Would it bother you if one was on your body?

I used to live with a flatmate who would squeal if one crawled onto her body or in her hair. Given that she had long, thick, wavy hair, that was easy for a cockroach to do. On the other hand, it didn’t bother me if it crawled on me. I would simply flick it off. The one time it did happen a cockroach had made its way up my leg before I realised what was happening. I flicked it off with my finger and my flatmate looked at me in horror. But I can’t bring myself to go as far as my neighbour as to squish them with my fingers. My neighbour hates cockroaches with a vengeance so she’ll kill them on the spot with her fingers. Watching her get cockroach guts all over her fingers makes me squeal and squirm. She thinks I’m being silly – she says all she has to go is to go into the bathroom and wash her hands afterwards but still! Why get your hands dirty if you can avoid it, especially when it concerns cockroach guts?
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The Grouchy Tuxedo Cat Tries to Scratch me

April 8th 2008 21:00
The first time I met the GTC he tried to bite me. That was enough for me to give him a wide berth and to call him the GTC. I avoided this cat for weeks until I read that I should let a cat sniff my finger before initiating any contact. I later tried this and it seemed to work. The GTC would miaow at me and let me stroke his back. He would then circle me before moving off.

My technique seemed to work until today. There I was, gently stroking the GTC’s back when he lay down on his side. I continued to stroke his back and all of a sudden a paw came up and I just missed being scratched. I looked at the cat. He didn’t look friendly. I then let him sniff my finger. I made a second approach. This time the GTC put both of his front paws up in the air and I realised he wanted to play. Each time I held my hand near his face he would raise his paws. I said, “No! Naughty cat.” I then decided to give it a rest and walked away. Maybe he thought he needed a rest, too, as I haven’t seen him for days. (I normally see the GTC every morning when I go to work.)
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Would you have Plastic Surgery in Order to Look Like an Animal?

April 7th 2008 21:00
On 60 Minutes one night they did a story on a guy called Stalking Cat who had his face surgically altered so he looked liked a cat. He even went so far as to have artificial whiskers inserted in his cheeks and forehead. His upper lip was altered to resemble a cat’s. He said he also had his septum relocated, silicone injected in his upper cheeks and down in his chin to create a cat-like profile.

Watching Stalking Cat play with some kittens at an animal shelter was heart-warming and made me realise despite his unusual appearance, he is just like you and I. It made me wonder if I would change my appearance to resemble my favourite animal or pet. It took me about 2 seconds to think no! It’s not so much the anti-conformity that would hold me back but the pain. Like most people I hate needles and try to avoid them as much as possible. The other thing would be the cost. This kind of surgery (or body modification as Steve Haworth, the man who carries it out likes to call it) doesn’t come cheap. Another man who was interviewed, Lizard Man, who has a bifurcated tongue, tattoos all over his body, teeth filed down to points and Teflon implants in his forehead estimates his surgery cost about $250,000.
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Monty is Pleased to See me

April 6th 2008 21:00
My Doggy Friend
Here’s a pic of Monty, the dog who sits outside the hairdresser’s near my sister’s house. I haven’t seen Monty for months but he still recognised me. As usual, he licked my face before presenting me with his back. I didn’t know what he wanted so I took a guess and started scratching his back. That was enough to keep him happy for a few minutes before he turned around, licked my face again before putting his tongue on my arm. What a beautiful pooch.
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Giving Human Medications to Animals

April 3rd 2008 21:00
Rimadyl pill
Photo by Elembis. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
I cannot believe how some people can be so stupid. There was a story in the April 2008 issue of Cat Fancy about how giving human medications to a cat is a big no-no as medications such as aspirin can cause kidney and liver damage. Like, der! It’s just commonsense. Just because a certain medication works on us doesn’t mean it would work on a pet. And even if you could give your cat or dog human medications, how would you know what dosage and frequency? In the case of a cat, it may be a fraction of the human dosage but what if you had a horse? How many tablets would you give it? It all sounds very scary to me, even though my neighbour gives her cats Ural when they have urinary tract infections. She swears that it works just as well on cats as it does humans.

This reminds me of a tutorial exercise one of my tutors gave my class when I was studying journalism. We had to edit a story a student had written about how chocolate can kill dogs. It had the class in giggles. It sounded cute at the time but once I read the story, it made me realise what is okay for humans to ingest isn’t necessarily okay for an animal and vice versa. How else do you explain cat and dog food? Okay that was a bad joke…
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www.Messybeast.com: a Real Eye Opener for Animal Lovers

April 2nd 2008 21:00
Messybeast. What an intriguing web site name. It came up on a Google I did about feline deformities. The name conjures up images of…well, messy beasts and other monsters, not cats. But the depth of research on this site is just astounding, especially on he feline deformities section. For those interested in feline veterinary issues there is every deformity one can think of: fat cats, large cats, dwarf cats, one-eyed cats, cats with two tails, cats with two ears, conjoined kittens, winged cats and a whole lot more. Some of the pictures are purely heartbreaking and you can understand why a vet would want to put some of these cats/kittens down.

There’s also a section on the how wide spread cat eating is in the world. The author, Sarah Hartwell, argues that the revulsion Westerners feel towards certain countries’ practices of eating cats could be due more to “Western Imperialism” than by a desire to abolish animal cruelty. Citing the example of battery hens and other “efficient” Western farming practices, Hartwell argues Westerners are just as guilty of cruelty to animals as any other culture in the world. Not only that, she says some animals routinely eaten by Westerners would be considered taboo or sacred in other cultures.
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Would you Want to Cure Your Phobia?

April 1st 2008 21:01
King Cobra
Photo by Sujit Kumar. Used in accordance with the terms of Wikimedia Commons’ GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.

I’m not a big fan of snakes but I’m not scared of them either. A few weeks ago I was watching a show called the Zoo which had a story about a woman who was terrified of snakes and was trying to get her snake phobia cured by attending a program at Taronga Zoo that aims at helping people overcome this phobia. She was so scared of them just seeing one in a glass box was enough to make her anxious. I admit I’m not that bad even though I’m afraid of caterpillars, maggots and other larvae. At least I can look at them if they are in a tight container. I only get the willies if they’re actually in the same room as I am, free to crawl near or on me.

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