OK, call me kooky. But, aren't cats outdoor naturally? Aren't they kindof the type that likes to patrol an area?

THIS!!!!

nods so hard, head falls off

I mean, granted The Cat Daniel has been housebound for more than a year now, what with us living in Bangkok on the 18th floor, but in principle YES - cats should get to go outside, if outside is an option, without people screaming 'Cat Abuse! Cat Abuse!' That is just infuckingsane.

Meanwhile, Vortex should totally buy the shoes (it was shoes, wasn't it?), and MemFault should get the new tattoo, and Juliana should get the Superhero Boots. Bigtime.

And Mr Reason killed me with the shoe-design and -giving. Good job, LoomyBob AdorablePants!

Meanwhile, I am All Macced Up!

...although I stopped off in the 'net cafe on the way home to check in with y'all, rather than trying to do the WiFi thing straight off the bat.

Excitingly, there were no Instructions/Idiots' Guide To MacUse available from the iStudio Store. Or at least, there were, but they were in Thai.

sighs

Still, it's very shiny. I need to give it a name.

I live in the Northern VA suburbs, just 20 minutes outside of Washington, DC (traffic permitting). DH was walking our dogs one morning just before dawn and saw a cat being pursued by a coyote. We figure that explains a lot of the missing cat posters in our neighborhood.

DH was walking our dogs one morning just before dawn and saw a cat being pursued by a coyote

blinks

...did the Coyote have a stick of dynamite with ACME written on the side, by any chance?

Wait. Whuh? There are coyotes in the DC area?

I thought it was getting a little too predatory a few years ago when there was a bald eagle killing all the squirrels in front of the building where my office was. (Just about every morning, the eagle would be on the lawn, sitting on top of a newly-killed squirrel, while several other squirrels sat nearby, looking and trembling. It was kind of interesting, but a bit more of nature in action than I needed to see at 9 every morning.)

...did the Coyote have a stick of dynamite with ACME written on the side, by any chance?

No such luck. Then the cat could have simply dropped an anvil on him.

Wait. Whuh? There are coyotes in the DC area?

Yes. They've been sighted as close in as Falls Church, VA, where a coyote approached a person walking a small dog. The person scared the coyote away.

In a recent radio news story I heard, animal control experts were recommending that pets under 35 pounds not be left outside without direct supervision. Coyotes can run in excess of 40 mph and jump 8 foot fences.

That's ... incredibly freaky. I think I'd just assumed that coyotes were only in the southwest.

That's ... incredibly freaky. I think I'd just assumed that coyotes were only in the southwest.

I've read that their range covers the entire US now.

One walked into a restaurant in downtown Chicago last summer.

Aw, who's a cute widdle predator: [link]

My cat Bogey, was an indoor cat until we moved to this quite, residential neighborhood. Then I started letting him out once in a while--we have a six-foot privacy fence around the backyard. But there was a craxy cat lady down the street with a million cats that had the run of the place (her back door was always propped open and there were always at least three cats on her stoop). I suspect she had more than she could get adequate veterinary care for and Bogey would sometimes get into disagreements with these cats.

I suspect to this day that he picked up his feline leukemia from one of those cats. He didn't have it when we moved in because we had him tested for it yearly. After he started going out, he was infected and it was too late to do anything about it when we found out he had it.

Ozwald only goes out into the backyard when we're out. He doesn't seem interested in scaling the fence at all so I'm less worried. Also, craxy cat lady was evicted two years ago.

Deena, how did your babies get to be KIDS??? Oh, so adorable ones at that!