Author Archives: catzandalldatz

Do cats have memories of the past? You can teach animals new tricks through either positive reinforcement (i.e. giving them a treat when they do something right) or negative reinforcement (punishing them when they do something wrong). Study after study shows that positive reinforcement works much better and creates better memory than negative reinforcement. And this is true of humans too! If you want to really change and influence behavior reward those behaviors that you want to see and people will keep doing them. But I digress.

Very often in this new world we’ve created we don’t take the time to look back. We don’t have the time to reread old journals, look at old pictures and remember the good and bad times and how far we’ve come. I was cleaning out my email a bit and I found my stash of poetry I had from my college days. It took me back to so many memories and allowed me the perspective to see where I’ve come today.

You have to know where you come from to be able to know where you are going. It’s ok to change direction. Maybe where you came from was to the east and now you want to go west. You can change. Don’t disparage where you came from either. It allowed you to be in the position you are today. If Roxie had never been found in that bush, she wouldn’t have been in the shelter to tap me on the leg and to keep me up at night because she’s mad at me.

And there were lots of things that went on last year. Azeena has been pressuring me to blog but I keep forgetting that I can blog through email. That’s much easier for me. So recently, Roxie went to the vet. She’s a natural born trouble maker but we still love her anyway. Roxie will always get herself into trouble whether it’s running outside and down the street but all we can do is try to protect her best we can and help her get herself right when she does get into trouble. However, she will be getting health insurance ASAP!

Both of the cats are extremely different (which if you’ve been reading this blog you can tell). Jean-Claude is relaxed and chill and very smart. He can go outside and will merely knock on the door when he’s ready. He’s also a loving cat, but likes to do his own thing. Roxie on the other hand has a need to be around her people. She follows me and my mom through the house and at night must be snuggled in bed next to either CCL or Azeena (depending on whose house she’s at).

We haven’t talked about it on the blog, but recently both CCL and Azeena started new businesses. We’ve both been navigating through the ups and downs of taking on the new challenges a business creates. It’s a great experience for learning both about yourself and about other people. to make a business successful ultimately it comes down to what can you give your customers and has nothing whatsover to do with you.

Burmese Cat Filmed on black velvet

I saw this watching Big Cat week on National Geographic.  This tiny lion cub touched me.  His tenacity, his unwillingness to give up.  In the end, he had to be left, but I wish that I had more of junior’s drive. Rewatching this video moved me to tears for sure

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/wild/community/blogs/inside-wild/

Big Cats are going away and you can help them at – causeanuproar.org.

An easy way to donate is to text “lions” to 50555 and you can donate $10 to help save the Big Cats