From the Fusspot……..

R.I.P. Pompuss
7/5/1994 – 1/1/2013

A beautiful, wilful, egocentric, exhibitionistic feline.    A cheat, a liar and dissembler, he will be greatly missed.

I knew that Pompuss had been ailing for some time.   Food seemed not to give him much pleasure, he lacked his usual bounce and he had started to have little accidents which upset him terribly, though mostly he had the grace to choose the bathroom tiles.

i took him to the vet before Christmas and was told what I already knew, namely that he was nearly 19 and  that there was no cure for the old boy’s ailments.   The vet offered to ‘keep’ him at the clinic but I decided to give him one more summer of sunshine.

I knew the end was near as he wasn’t in the least interested when the grandchildren arrived and dug 7 baby rabbits  out of a burrow.  These became the centre of attention, housed in a makeshift hutch and syringe-fed on kitten formula but Pompuss merely took one look then went to sleep on a garden chair.    The Pompuss of old would have kept constant watch and the moment no-one was looking he would have prised open the hutch and helped himself.   After which he would have denied all knowledge and assumed a air of injured innocence.

On New Year’s Eve after the children had left and the rabbits had been taken for a swimming lesson Pompuss plodded round the house inspecting every room and then curled up  in his basket with his Teddy.     We went out and on returning at 1 am found him fast asleep.    Later that morning when he had not appeared at breakfast time I checked his basket again and found that he had gone.

We buried him on the cliff edge looking out to the Tasman Sea and planted a lemon verbena cutting  on his grave.

P.S.   Pompuss died as he lived and when 7 baby bunnies prove to be a superior attraction, he knew it was time to leave.     The Duvet Denier has a different story.   He admits that he told Pompuss that he had been to see “The Life of Pi” and that just as ‘Pi’ was a shortened form of ‘Piscine’, so ‘Po’ should be a short form of ‘Pompuss’.     Perhaps the thought of that indignity was more than Pompuss  could bear.

Driving Dogs………..are still just dogs……

Videos of  rescue dogs learning to drive cars in New Zealand have been shown around the world (Sniffs) so I thought it was time I posted one of the clips.  (Sorry about the unavoidable human stuff before you get to the fleascratchers)

http://www.3news.co.nz/Driving-dogs-Porter-and-Monty-show-off-their-skills/tabid/367/articleID/280035/Default.aspx

Okay, I’ll admit these mutts are smart….BUT….I  wouldn’t have one of them as my chauffeur.

The Only Good Rabbit……………

One down and hundreds more to go.

It saw me and dropped dead.

A Stark Choice….. African Lions vs Savannah…….

 

African savannah has shrunk in extent by 75% in the last 50 years.   During that time  Africa’s lion population has declined from about 100,000 to approximately 32,000.

This loss of numbers is so rapid that the US Fish and Wildlife Service is considering adding lion to the endangered species list which would mean that trophy hunting would be affected as trophies could no longer be imported to the US.

It’s a conundrum.   Trophy hunting provides a livelihood for some local communities and if it were stopped there would no longer be any incentive to maintain the open savannah where lions live.    Eventually  humans would spread out over African plains and lion habitat would be destroyed.    At present, trophy hunting helps preserve lions.

Which to save?      My big cuzzies or a patch of grass?

Related articles

• Lion Numbers Plunge as African Wilderness Succumbs to Human Pressure (newswatch.nationalgeographic.com)

The Vanishing Parsley Plant………….

Every weekend it shrinks and becomes smaller and smaller…….

and try as I might I can’t catch the culprit.

Politician Abandons Cats…….Was Mr GT one of them?

Some politicians  pretend to care about people or animals but in fact their “compassion” is only a way of stroking their own egos and telling the world how great they are.   However from time to time they are caught out.

Yesterday the SPCA collected two ginger unneutered male cats from a house previously occupied by John Tamihere.   The cats had been left for 11 days with no food or water and were euthanased as they were found to be suffering from feline Aids.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10124140

After reading that link I think that at last we have discovered what Ginger Tom has been doing – and it’s not a pretty tale.

Shame on Mr Tamihere and RIP Mr Ginger Tom if you have finally met the Great Cat.

I’m Not a Prude…..But……..

Mr G.T really gets around and doesn’t care where he goes.

 

I have to say he does look rather pleased with himself.

He’s Here Too……….

Mr Ginger Tom is upping the ante.

Not content with inserting himself into classical well known paintings he’s also selling himself to modern commerce and impersonating Rudolph.

What does he think he’s doing.   It isn’t  December yet so there’s no excuse for appearing in a silly hat.

Useful…..But Fat…….

(A big thankyou to Geekosystems and an equally big apology to King Phillip IV and Diego Velasquez.)

This is not a job after which I hanker.    I’ll leave this one to Mr GT.    Not that I’ve got anything against royalty but it does look like hard work……

Mr Ginger Tom Again……….

You’ll remember that I’ve long been concerned about the Rake’s Progress of Mr Ginger Tom.    He first appeared in my blog after a cyber chum sent me a portrait showing him clutched to the bosom of the Mona Lisa.   (I was green with envy).   Next thing I knew, Mr Ginger was in the news for busking in the street at Covent Garden, masquerading as a lion in an Essex meadow and strutting his stuff somewhere in Germany.

Always eager to know what he will be doing next  I’ve tracked him down to his personal lair.   At Geekosystems he has managed to insert himself into several other famous paintings and  I want the  assorted airbrushers there to know that they’ve got the wrong cat.

It definitely should have been me.   Not this imposter:-

The birth of Ginger Tom – apologies to Sandro Botticelli