shachiko-blog1 - Tumblr blog

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unpopular opinion (apparently???): there isn’t one definitively right way to own a dog. if the dog is happy and loved and all it’s needs are being met, the dog is being owned the right way 

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Our community cat Nicky. She's so cuddly and polite and so comfortable with me. You'd never know that she's feral with everybody else. She's also the most dominant female in the area. Also, she was in a bonded pair that took care of their kittens together, so she's real special. Life and work gets in the way of us doing TNR on every cat so she is not fixed yet and just got pregnant. After the kittens are done nursing she WILL finally get spayed... I wish we could keep her inside, but unfortunately she's just not that tame. If she's out and about on her own terms we get less conflict for our cat and dog and risk her getting freaked out and running off to an unfamiliar place or getting hit by a car...

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The Media: flexible people are Sexy ;)

Actual hypermobile people: check out this gross thing I can do with my arm

Normal people unfortunately anywhere in the vicinity of the aforementioned hypermobile people: I will pay you $10 to stop doing that thing with your arm immediately

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Pokemon are only good if you use the best nature and IV breed and EV train and-

no.

STRONG POKEMON. WEAK POKEMON. THAT IS ONLY THE SELFISH PERCEPTION OF PEOPLE. TRULY SKILLED TRAINERS SHOULD TRY TO WIN WITH THEIR FAVORITES.- Elite Four Karen

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Double chin. #ryer #riverotters #riverotter #otter #otters

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Somnang (lucky in Khmer) was just a year old when she had her first litter. One refused to nurse and was having difficulty being hand fed... unfortunately she did not live to adulthood, but the rest did. The sweet Jino, who crawled on my shoulders all the time, went to live at the Cambodian temple when he kept stopping some younger kittens from nursing... the temple cats are very well loved and cared for. Sadly, the temple was nearly entirely destroyed last year, by a fire. My neighbors said it was because a cat knocked down a temple. In Southeast Asia the practice of having cats at Buddhist temples is very common and feeding them is something that gives one good kamma. In exchange they keep the temple free of pests and provide companionship to the monks. The monks at the temple in Oakland clearly love their cats who are well fed and healthy (I visited to try and see Jino but he wasn't there).

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Pictures of my cat photo dump 🐱❤❤

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I love weird and unique cats but it really concerns me how breeders in many breeds keep heading away from nature and towards deformity... like with the oriental shorthair/longhair and the modern Siamese. Please just let them be cats!

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Hello! 😀🐸 Voigt is Biggest Frog at the Stickyfrogs’ house! She is about 80g of Voigt! She has the biggest most glorious stomach which fits Most Number Of Treaties, and she is also winner of Biggest Smile!

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This treatie is for Voigt! Tiny does not want it! By Voigt!

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A Beautiful Lady has appeared on the rock! Today Bonk is wearing her Eyes of Expectation and her Striped Sleeves of Splendour!

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My little Somnang, who taught me a ton about having cats, especially challenging, semi-wild ones. The reason I use that term is because her relationship to humans was more akin to a wild animal who's used to a couple people. My neighbors in Oakland found her when she was a small kitten. They don't seem to understand the concept of spaying and neutering but they also just couldn't afford to do it most of the time. They're Cambodian immigrants and are actually, despite all that, VERY good to the cats. They give them home-cooked human-quality food, and raw meat as well (mostly offal, which is great for cats!). They get all the parts of the crabs and snapping turtles and skates that are safe to eat but just not things people are into eating (extras from cutting, small bits inside shells, etc) Including raw shells and bones which cats actually would be eating in the wild. They also treat Herpes in the kittens, give the moms safe places, etc. Anyway, their landlady hated cats and forced them to surrender all the ones that were friendly to people. She did not reduce the number of cats because just removing them *does not work*, period. You have to introduce them to a better place if ABSOLUTELY necessary but I really the only thing that works is to do TNR and feed that limited population which *if done consistently* deters other cats from coming around. Now there's not really an established family group there and it's chaos with different males coming around and fighting with the established females... cat society is complex. Anyway, since I was thoroughly bonded to this cat (she would follow me around and bounded to me whenever she saw me), and she was also pretty much wild to most people, all I could do was adopt her from the shelter after she was spayed (she had two litters, of which only one kitten died, which is impressive because she was young and tiny). She was very happy with me and with our house, she loved our cat and then the one cat we found and fostered until he just... wandered off, possibly to his owners? Who knows. He was pretty clean, he probably just got a little lost, he was only with us a week. ANYWAY. Somnaang was tiny, she was always tiny. She was also super loving to me and her "grandpa," the patriarch of the family across the street, as well as the younger grandchild there named Amy who is wheelchair bound. She just kind of ignored other people for the most part. She played with our dog. I really wanted to keep her inside but she was very restless so I just kind of let her sit in our front yard and eat grass every day. I thought it was fine, and it seemed fine, because she would absolutely never go further than our neighbor's bushes, and I made sure nobody was using any pesticides, all of that. And she was fine for a while, then we had a gardener at the house and she was just sitting in the garden watching him when he accidentally cut an extension cord which caused a big "pop," and then... we couldn't find her. I looked for weeks. I think, after the mysterious death of our older cat, my mom just didn't have the energy to help, and that made a big difference. I found a lead but then lost contact because it was a foster child who wasn't there for a while, so I just told myself that was dead, until I came back and found her at somebody else's house, and she told me she'd been feeding my baby and petting her and letting her stay in her group home's garden until she just found her dead in a gutter... I think. I never saw the body, and my TV/comic book based brain tells me that means she's out there, but... it's unlikely. I mean, it could be. She was always very brave. In any case, she was very strange, physically. Despite being tall in shape she was only maybe ever 6 pounds. She had tall ears that sat right on the top of her head and actually curled back at the tips with tufts. Her feet were long in shape in a way that did not match a house cat to me. And my neighbors, who have firsthand experience with Asian wild cats in Cambodia, thought she had to be significantly mixed with one of those. I believe it, for one big reason: she did not and could not meow. Her purring was very quiet and low. She would only yowl if she stubbed her toe or something or if you grabbed her when she didn't want to be grabbed. She could "peep" like a little swallow and sometimes she'd make a breathy sound that seemed like it was an attempt to make a more human-range sort of vocalization. Anyway, whatever she was, she was one of a kind, and meant the world to me. She taught me a lot about the fact that you just can't know some things even if your cat is extremely well trained - they can be startled. She also taught me to never give up on an animal. To have a bond with an unusual cat especially one more on the "wild" side is special but it also takes a lot of work, more than just a regular house cat would, because you may not really be able to get them to be indoor cats so you HAVE to figure out a safe way to give them outdoor time and then BE STRICT AND CONSISTENT with that. It's hard because I'm used to the two extremes, wild animals who tolerate people and completely tame ones, but Somnaang was straddling the line with her enormous feet and sadly I was not prepared. Her sudden death though is PROBABLY due to someone using rat poison, because the same happened to our older cat. He was just there, bloodless, dead, as was another cat I didn't recognize across the street... which to me reads "poison." And it probably would not have been something like antifreeze because cats aren't attracted to sweet stuff... I dunno. I wouldn't put it past a lot of our neighbors. Feral cat populations are an ecological problem but the only way we know to deal with them is through population management - spaying and neutering, monitored feeding, adopting out kittens, that kind of stuff. Rat poison endangers the entire food chain, not just the cats but the native birds who'd eat their remains, the native predators... etc. it's very bad.

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Help this woman get her cats back!!!

Eduardo Serio of BJWT STOLE this girl’s two Savannah cats. He sent her a video where he KICKS one of them who is clearly angry and he calls her (the owner) crazy.

As someone who fell in love with a mystery hybrid baby (I will talk about her later) and lost her due to a combination of factors including that I (and more so, my family) just wasn’t prepared for the needs of a semi-wild animal I understand why she would send them to a sanctuary where she thought they’d be happier. I would do anything for my babies.

This woman spent thousands of dollars trying to help her cats and now Serio REFUSES to release them to her! This is theft. The A1 Savannahs organization who founded the breed personally vouched for this woman and was afraid that this man might be dangerous to the cats.

PLEASE PLEASE SPREAD THIS and DO NOT LET HIM GET AWAY WITH THIS, it’s been an entire year. I will never get to see my baby again but HERS ARE ALIVE. Though they may not be for long because BJWT has an ATROCIOUS record of animal deaths.

PLEASE HELP!!!

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Exploiter with victims...

Papa Bear with kids😍

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Why is this turtle being mobbed by fish?

A few months ago while researching in Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary, NOAA diver Mitchell Tartt caught this turtle on camera. Although they may seem like paparazzi swarming this green sea turtle, the yellow tang here are actually doing the turtle a favor.

Over time, turtles and other marine animals accumulate algae and parasites and small invertebrates. But to the yellow tangs and other fish, those parasites are something entirely different: a meal.

These fish gather throughout Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary in what are known as “cleaning stations.” When the sea turtle swims up, the fish surround it – it’s dinner time!

This relationship is just one example of a type of symbiosis in the ocean, called mutualism, in which animals of different species form relationships that benefit them both. Many sea creatures depend on symbiotic relationships to survive, from sea anemones and clownfish, to corals and zooxanthellae, to remoras and sharks.

What’s your favorite example of symbiosis in the ocean?

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"Sanctuary" is such a broad term. There are organizations called sanctuaries that are for retired animals from circuses, "pet" environments and bad zoos, and there are organizations called sanctuaries that are basically private zoos/roadside zoos. It really depends on the facility, and it depends as well on the zoo. And more funding unfortunately doesn't necessarily mean better care and enclosures. Look at the SF Zoo vs the Oakland Zoo, especially their big cat facilities. I don't know if SF is accredited but their big cat enclosures have only gotten marginally better and they were really at a 1930s level as late as 10 years ago.

hey i was wondering how you feel about zoos and aquariums? ive been seeing a lot of people (idk if theyre vegan) trying to support them by saying theyre non profit, accredited animal rehabilitation centers, & that makes them okay? i have a problem with this cos most zoos i know definitely arent for that purpose, they just seem to cage animals up&like ones with zoos r killing polar bears cos its not their natural habitat, & i know many actual rehabilitation centers tht never call themselves a zoo

Hi there fruitkink! 🐙

I totally agree with you on that, Zoos are businesses! Sanctuaries, Natural Reserves, National Parks and such are truly for conservation and nature’s well-being. 

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5/26/17 - Beautiful photos of celebratory breaches after a successful elephant seal hunt!

Photos by Jodi Frediani