Cats in Heraldry

The coat of arms of Benin, featuring
two natural leopards rampant.

Our subject today is a big one: heraldry, and specifically the use and symbolism of cats (mostly wild cats) in heraldry. The subject of heraldry can get complicated fast, but we’re sticking to some basics to keep it simple. First, we'll look at what heraldry is and where it came from, and then we'll explore what cats symbolize and some of the different positions they appear in. Finally, we'll start to explore domestic cats in heraldry.

An extremely brief introduction to heraldry

Heraldry has been around since the late 12th century, according to the website of English Heritage. Just think of knights in those metal helmets with visors that protected their faces. How could anyone tell which knight was which when their faces were all covered up? To solve this problem, knights started painting designs on their shields. Each design was unique to that knight, so people would be able to recognize him. They used different colors for the background, with shapes like crosses and chevrons (the shapes were called “ordinaries”) and emblems that could be shapes (stars, diamonds, crescents, etc.) or animals (birds, hares, deer, lions, etc.). The emblems were called “charges.”

The meanings of different cats in heraldry

The coat of arms of Jersey, with three
lions passant guardant, a position in
which they are known as leopards or ounces.

Not surprisingly, everything in heraldry means something. The cats most commonly used as charges seem to be the “big guys,” like lions and tigers, but smaller wildcats and even domestic cats have been used as heraldic symbols. Below are the meanings of different kinds of cats:

Cat, including wildcat and lynx: Liberty, vigilance, forecast, courage
Leopard or ounce: Valiant and hardy warrior who enterprises hazardous things by force and courage
Lion: Dauntless courage and majesty
Tiger:  Fierceness and valor; resentment; dangerous if aroused

The term “leopard” can be kind of confusing because often the so-called leopards you see in heraldry don’t have spots, and everyone knows a leopard can’t change its spots, right? Well, in traditional heraldry, a leopard was basically a lion in a certain position called “passant guardant.” That just means that the animal is walking (“passant”; the right forepaw is raised to indicate walking) and looking at the viewer, or “on guard” (“guardant”). In more modern heraldry, leopards are depicted with spots just as they appear in real life. A heraldic leopard is also sometimes called an “ounce” (tune in tomorrow to learn more about this word as it relates to cats!).

And while we’re on the subject of words that mean something different than you might think, a beast called a “tyger” has also been used in heraldry. This looks sort of like a lion but not quite. It has no stripes, and it’s sometimes called a “heraldic tiger.”

A tyger, or "heraldic tiger."

More terms used to describe attitudes of animals in heraldry

We introduced the terms “passant” and “guardant” above, but there are several more words you will commonly see and hear when it comes to the positions or "attitudes" of cats and other animals:

Rampant: reared up on the hind legs
Statant: standing, all four feet on the ground
Sejant: sitting on the haunches; the forepaws are on the ground
Couchant: lying down with the head raised
Regardant: looking over the shoulder

Domestic cats in heraldry

It’s easy to find lots of examples of lions and leopards used as heraldic symbols. Many countries feature these cats or other big cats in their coats of arms, as you’ve seen from the examples we’ve shown. But what about domestic cats? Well, we did find several examples. Here are some of our favorites:

The coat of arms of Sakvice, Czech Republic, has a kitty cat statant facing a lion rampant:

The arms of the family of Muyser Lantwyck (Belgium), with a cat that has caught a red mouse:

And the coat of arms of the municipality of Vaugondry (Switzerland) features a gray cat with its tongue out:

Now that you've seen some examples of cats in heraldry, maybe you'd like to create your own coat of arms featuring a cat or cats. This would be a terrific subject for Caturday Art! Just sayin'.

Sources

American College of Heraldry: http://www.americancollegeofheraldry.org/achsymbols.html

"Lion (Heraldry)," Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_(heraldry)

Image credits

All images via Wikimedia Commons. Coat of arms of Sakvice by Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic [Public domain]. Arms of Muyser Lantwyck by Keghel [CC BY-SA 3.0]. Coat of arms of Vaugondry by Delta-9 [CC BY 3.0]. Coat of arms of Benin by Tinynanorobots, Fenn-O-maniC [CC BY-SA 3.0]. Coat of arms of Jersey by Man vyi [Public domain]. Tyger, or “heraldic tiger”: Image taken from A Complete Guide to Heraldry, 1909. [Public domain].

Cat Travel: American Museum of the House Cat

If you’re ever in the vicinity of Sylva, North Carolina (near Asheville in the southwestern part of the state), there is a brand-new museum that is worth stopping at. It’s called the American Museum of the House Cat, and in it you will find over 5,000 items that either depict cats or have something to do with cats. One of the most remarkable things about this museum is that its objects come from a collection amassed over more than three decades by one man, Harold “Catman” Sims. We had a chance to chat with Harold the other day, and we were eager to learn of the origins of his museum.

The exterior of the American Museum of the House Cat.
The museum is at the Old School Antiques Mall
in Sylva, North Carolina.
All photos courtesy of Harold "Catman" Sims.

“One cat led to another…”

It’s not surprising that the Catman has always liked cats. It’s also not surprising that this interest in cats turned into a cat-collecting bug, only instead of actual cats, Harold collected cat objects. His first cat find was over 30 years ago, when he was antiquing in Florida and came across a picture of a cat on a train. The cat turned out to be Chessie, mascot of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad. Then, as many cat people will understand so well, “one cat led to another,” and soon he had a growing collection of cat objects. When eBay came along, the pace of collecting picked up even more.

Creation of a no-kill shelter

One case holds beer steins and other glassware,
all with cats on them.

When he retired, Harold wanted to support a cat shelter, so he got involved with one that was opening in North Carolina, where he had moved after a long career in education in Florida. But he was horrified to learn that this was a “kill” shelter, where healthy animals could be destroyed when there wasn’t enough room for them. That wasn’t what he wanted at all, so he built his own cages and started rescuing cats. When he came into an inheritance that could either fund a cruise around the world or go toward building a cat shelter… well, you can guess what the Catman did. With some help, he spent about two years building a 1,000-square-foot “open” shelter in which cats can move around and be cats instead of being confined to cages. Currently, the Catman2 Shelter houses 65 cats and has a low-cost/no-cost spay & neuter program.

The object of the Cat Knock Down carnival game was
to throw balls and knock down the three stuffed cats.

Some of the art Harold had collected over the years was hung on the shelter’s walls, but he still had a lot of objects that weren’t being seen. He decided to put his collection to good use by starting a museum that would support the shelter. After he found space in an antique mall, he started getting things ready in fall 2016. The American Museum of the House Cat opened April 1, 2017. Harold reports that the museum drew over 2,000 visitors in May 2017, and he said there was a group of about 20 people touring the displays while we were talking.

Cat collectibles of every description

In the museum’s 1,000 square feet, visitors can expect to see all kinds of cat objects, from pictures to art glass, a Bad Cats pinball machine and other arcade games, and an impressive group of carousel cats (some from Europe). There is a group of beer steins with cats on them, automaton cats, clocks… To us, this museum offers proof that people will put cats on anything. There is even one actual feline… a petrified cat from the chimney of a medieval English house (although no one is sure how old the cat actually is), and this cat will soon be joined by a recently purchased a cat mummy that Harold expects to arrive next week.

If you want to see any sort of cat object, the American Museum of the House Cat is the place to be! 

Inside, the museum has case after case filled with cat-related art, advertising pieces,
and more. Some of the carousel cats can be seen on the right.

Details

A trio of figurines from the
American Museum
of the House Cat.

The American Museum of the House Cat is located at the Old School Antique Mall, 4704 Highway 441 South, Sylva, NC 28779.

Hours are as follows:

• Tuesday–Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
• Sunday from 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

A $5 donation is suggested for admittance. Profits support the Catman2 Shelter.

You can also follow the museum on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Note that the museum will close for the winter (January–March) because it’s just too darn cold!

If you can't get there in person just yet, this video from The Carpetbagger will give you an idea of what you're missing:

Now, don't you feel like planning a trip to North Carolina?

This post is part of our occasional Cat Travel series, which highlights fun cat-related travel destinations. Click here for more cat-related travel posts.

Do you know of a cat-related place that's worth a visit? Let us know!

Explore Cats at the Archives of American Art

Remember life before the internet? Back in the day when, if you wanted to show your friend on the other side of the country some silly thing your cat liked to do, you couldn’t just shoot off an email with a link. Oh no. You had to draw. A picture. On a piece of paper. And send it. In the mail. With a stamp. Remember that?

The Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art remembers, and that’s why “Cat Correspondence” is one section of the exhibition titled Before Internet Cats: Feline Finds from the Archives of American Art. The exhibition is on view at the Lawrence A. Fleischman Gallery in Washington, DC, but you can explore the items from the comfort of your own computer. We picked out just a few of our favorites to share with you here.

First up is an ink drawing of a cat and three mice, by Charles Green Shaw (1892-1974). Find this and other sketches in "Cats and the Creative Process."

Here is a photograph of Tuffy the cat, from the papers of abstract expressionist painter Hans Hofmann (1880-1966). Photographer and date unknown. Find this and other photographs, and even a 1958 Cat Fancier's Association registration form, in "Everyday Life."

And last, wouldn't you love to get this in the mail? It's a piece of "mail art" sent by influential fiber artist Lenore Tawney (1907-2007) in 1980. Find it and some other neat pieces in "Cat Correspondence."

Details

• Before Internet Cats runs through October 29, 2017.
• The Fleischman Gallery is located in the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture, 8th and F Streets, NW, Washington, DC.
• Hours are 11:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. daily.
• Admission is free.

Book Review: Star Trek Cats

Before we really start this post, please take this short quiz:

1. Do you like Star Trek?
2. Do you like cats?

If you answered “yes” to both questions, then have we got a book review for you! We were excited recently to discover the small book Star Trek Cats, by illustrator Jenny Parks. What it is, is a collection of illustrations of scenes from the original series, with cats standing in for the actors. Before you go off and start thinking this is weird, let me just tell you…Captain James T. Kirk is such an orange tabby!

We were a little bit disappointed to find that there is no actual story in this book, but we still have had plenty of fun looking through the pictures. Jenny Parks’s illustrations are so well done, it is hard to stop looking at them. We keep going back through the  book and finding details we missed the first or third time through. Cat lovers who are also fans of the show will enjoy recognizing certain moments: Spock’s mind meld, everyone falling down during a red alert, McCoy insisting he’s “just an old country doctor.”

And yes, there are tribbles.

Highly recommended for that segment of our readership who passed the quiz at the start of this post!

A note on the "Paws Up" system: Miss C gives either one or two paws up. One paw is for a good read; two paws is for a great read. She never gives three or four paws because that would require her to lie on her back...and Miss C does not do that!

The link below is an Amazon Associates link. If you purchase the book through this link, old SoLT and I could get some coin for our kibble account. Thank you!

Caturday Art: Aqua Acid Paisley

Today we're joining the Caturday Art blog hop, hosted by our friend Athena. Old SoLT kept it simple this week, choosing the first effect in LunaPic (Acid) that she liked and then hopping over to PicMonkey to add a frame. We like how Paisley's fur came out:

Here's the original:

Caturday Art: Wintry Paisley

This week for Athena's Caturday Art blog hop, old SoLT decided to try something wintry. Okay, in reality she had no plan at all; instead she sat at the computer wondering what she could do, and she basically lucked in to this effect by trying a lot of different things in PicMonkey.

She started with a photo of Real Cat Paisley that is out of focus and not something she would normally put on the blog. She cropped the original image in PicMonkey and then bumped the sharpness and clarity way up. Then she applied a Sketch effect, after which she went to Colors and played with the saturation and temperature until she had a greenish-bluish color that she liked. A Frost filter added the cooling effect around the edges, and a photo corner frame finished it off.

Here's the orginal:

Book Review: Revered and Reviled: A Complete History of the Domestic Cat

I cannot begin to tell you how excited we are to tell you about this new book by L. A. Vocelle of The Great Cat. We have been longing for a book just exactly like Revered and Reviled: A Complete History of the Domestic Cat, but nothing we’ve seen quite fits the bill. In fact, we were starting to think that we would have to spend years researching and writing to create a book just like this, but fortunately, Vocelle has done the hard work, and now we can all benefit from it.

Cats, from prehistory to the present

Revered and Reviled starts way back in time, with the ancestors of the first true cats. But don’t worry—you won’t have to read page after page of things that happened millions of years ago. The rise of the cat family is dealt with in just a couple of pages, and then it’s straight in to domestic cats, their characteristics and history. The chapter on cats in ancient Egypt is one of the best summations we have read on this subject—detailed but succinct, and we think most importantly, easily understandable. Egyptian culture is…well, let’s just call it complex. It’s easy to get confused about which god or goddess did what where when, but Vocelle manages to keep it straight for us.

Next, it’s on to one of old SoLT’s favorite topics, the early Aegean and Mediterranean. Most importantly from our point of view, we have been trying for months to find information on cats and the Phoenicians, and Vocelle delivers some—not a lot, but we suppose that is an indication of how little information there is. From there the book moves on to cats in Greece and Rome, and then into the Dark Ages and beyond. Along the way, the text describes how cats were depicted in works of art, and we learn how changes in religion affected how cats were viewed. We especially enjoyed the section on cats in Islam, a subject we knew very little about. Other interesting and informative sections cover cats in India, China, and Japan.

I won’t touch on every subject or time period Vocelle covers, so let’s skip a few centuries and move on to the 20^th century. Did you know that someone attempted to take a cat on an airship crossing of the Atlantic in 1910? (The word “attempted” is a key part of that sentence.) Or that a street cat became the first cat sent into space in 1963? Just some of the little tidbits you’ll take away.

Cat illustrations and so much more

If you’re familiar at all with The Great Cat, you won’t be surprised to learn that Revered and Reviled is richly illustrated. Cats have appeared in art from ancient times through to the Internet age, and through this book, you’ll learn at least a little bit about each period. Yes, you’ll even learn about cats in movies, music, literature…

The illustrations and quotes are terrific, but there is far more of value in this book. I am talking here of the supplemental information: a timeline covering cats in history from 20 million years ago to the opening of the first cat café (in 1998), a list of Theban tombs with cats (so useful!), a list of cat cemeteries in Egpyt, and a reference list (again, so useful!).

Our verdict

Except for some small subset of you, Revered and Reviled is probably not a book that you will sit down and read from cover to cover. Yes, it’s well written, and yes, it’s fascinating, but there’s a lot here to digest. Unless you’re a serious history buff, it can look overwhelming. I’d recommend that you start by dipping in and taking a look at the chapters or sections that most interest you. Do that, and I can pretty much guarantee that you’ll be turning the page to find out “What about this…?” and you’ll be staying up way past your bedtime (at least that is what happened to us).

As I said at the start, this is exactly the book we have been dreaming of. It will have a treasured space on our cat-history bookshelf for years to come, and you can bet that it will be well used.

Highly recommended!

A note on the "Paws Up" system: Miss C gives either one or two paws up. One paw is for a good read; two paws is for a great read. She never gives three or four paws because that would require her to lie on her back...and Miss C does not do that!

We received a free copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. We wouldn’t tell you it was good unless we really liked it!

The link below is an Amazon Associates link. If you purchase the book through this link, old SoLT and I could get some coin for our kibble account. Thank you!

Caturday Art

Can you believe it's already time for Caturday Art again? We have been having so much fun doing art for Athena's Caturday Art blog hop, and here is our entry for this week:

This image of Real Cat Paisley was created through the magic of LunaPic, using the Dreaming filter (I think. Someone whose name is mentioned in the next sentence did not take notes and...well, let's just say her memory ain't what it used to be.) Old SoLT also added a beveled edge. We think Paisley's colors are pretty neat in this one. She looks like she has stripes!

Here's the original photo:

Caturday Art: Mosaic Paisley

Welcome to our entry into Athena's Caturday Art blog hop. This week, old SoLT used a photo of Real Cat Paisley. She used Photoshop to do some adjustments to the exposure and contrast, and then she applied a mosaic filter and played around with the cell size to get an effect she liked. Next, she went to Selective Color and adjusted the sliders to make the candle (not a real candle, by the way!) look warmer and to add some fall color to the trees.

Here's the original photo:

Caturday Art: Tie-Dye Webster

Welcome to our entry into Athena's Caturday Art blog hop. Old SoLT has been having enormous fun with this picture of Real Cat Webster. This week, she tried out Luna Pic, adding a colorful tie dye effect and a blurred edge.

Here's the original photo:

If it looks familiar to you... first, thank you for paying attention, and second, that's because old SoLT as used it before, here and here.

Caturday Art: Webster Feels November

For Athena's Caturday Art blog hop today, we offer this creation by old SoLT. Don't even dream of asking her how she did this, because she made it several weeks ago and can't find her notes. Let's just say it involved a lot of Pic Monkey, Illustrator, and Pic Monkey again. It reminds us of November, so we have saved it for this week.

And here's the original photo of Webster resting among his little toys:

Caturday Art: Happy Halloween

If it's Caturday, it's time for the Caturday Art blog hop, hosted by Athena. This week, old SoLT played with a picture of Paisley in PicMonkey to make a Halloween card. She wanted to keep it kind of simple, so she only used a couple of effects. Well, she started out using only a couple, but then she found the spiders and witch's hat and all sorts of other things. I drew the line at pumpkins and made her take out the ghost and bats because they were making our composition too busy.

Here's the original photo:

Pumpkin Man Giveaway and Friendly Fill-Ins for October 28

 

The entrance to Berlin Creek Gallery. If you ever go
there, you will be welcomed like an old friend,
even if you're just some random person who
wanders in.

Pumpkin Man Giveaway

Last week, old SoLT was in Ohio to visit family, and one day she went to the Amish Country, where she visited the Berlin Creek Gallery in Berlin, Ohio. This is a little gallery that is packed with art by P. Buckley Moss, Thomas Kinkade, and others. Old SoLT’s grandmother has had many pictures framed there over the years, and they do a fabulous job.

Why am I telling you this? Well, old SoLT found a bunch of really cute prints by Diane Graebner of Millersburg, Ohio, and she got one just for you. It’s called “Pumpkin Man,” and it is a limited-edition print (no. 4 of 4). As you can see, this is a fall-themed print that includes a little black cat and a goose. We are offering it in our first-ever giveaway, which you can enter in the Rafflecopter below. Good luck!

The so-cute "Pumpkin Man" print by Diane Graebner.
One of you will win it in our giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Friendly Fill-Ins

"Mom and Kits" print by Diane Graebner.
Old SoLT's mother bought this one and had
it custom-framed at the gallery. The framing is
a work of art in itself!

And now for Friendly Fill-Ins from 15andmeowing and McGuffy’s Reader. They are a fun way to learn a little bit about the authors of the blogs you read. The first two questions, answered by old SoLT, are from Ellen of 15andmeowing, and the next two, answered by Real Cat Paisley, are from Annie of McGuffy’s Reader.

Old SoLT’s answers:

1. The first thing I check when I go online is The Cuddlywumps Cat Chronicles, to promote the latest post and to make sure there’s nothing wrong. It’s kind of my obsession right now.

2. My signature dish is 3-bean turkey chili. Sometimes it’s 4-bean or 2-bean turkey chili, depending on what’s in the pantry, but it is always tasty. I also make an awesome turkey-n-veggie sloppy joe (adapted from my grandmother’s “regular” sloppy joe recipe) and a cranberry-chili chicken that goes great with sweet potatoes or fall squash…And now I’m hungry!

Real Cat Paisley’s answers:

3. My Halloween night is usually awful. Too much doorbell ringing, too many small people in weird clothing. It should be made illegal, I think.

4. Trick or treaters … Please see previous answer.

Caturday Art: The Legend of Catnap Hollow

Here we are, all set for Athena's Caturday Art blog hop. With apologies to Washington Irving, old SoLT offers the following poster for another movie we would like to see, The Legend of Catnap Hollow.

This scene was created with a couple of stock images (Spooky background by auipuistock, via Adobe Stock; Headless horseman by Michele Paccione, via Adobe Stock) and cutouts of the Real Cats. It only took old SoLT one hour and a moderate amount of cursing to figure out how to separate the cats from their original background. Too bad she doesn't remember how she did it. Next came some spooky eyes and bats from PicMonkey. She finished it off with a frame. We think The Legend of Catnap Hollow would make an excellent movie...excuse me...film. It would make an excellent film.

Caturday Art: Night of the Living Vacuum!

There's nothing like a good scary movie to set the mood for All Hallows' Eve, and it is in that spirit that we offer the following entry for Athena's Caturday Art blog hop:

This image was created with a haunted house background from hitdelight, via Adobe Stock. To this, old SoLT added images of her very own vacuum cleaner and Real Cat Webster, using Photoshop and Illustrator. The bats and black cat were added in PicMonkey, as was the frame.

Caturday Art: A Paisley Autumn

Today we are joining Athena's Caturday Art blog hop. A little taste of fall has finally arrived in our corner of Maryland, so we feel like we can finally do some autumn-themed art. (I tried to work a third "finally" into that last sentence, but I just couldn't do it. Let's just say it seems like we've been waiting for autumn weather for a very long time!)

This week, old SoLT started with a picture of Real Cat Paisley in a box. In Illustrator, she used a Brush Stroke filter with Accented Edges, and then she pasted in some leaf images from Adobe Stock. Then she went into PicMonkey, where she added a Lens Flare effect, followed by a Posterize effect, and finally a frame. She is rather pleased with the result:

Here is the original photo:

An InLinkz Link-up

Book Review: Angel Catbird

I come to you today with mixed feelings. First, I am excited to be reviewing a new cat-themed graphic novel called Angel Catbird, written by Margaret Atwood, illustrated by Johnnie Christmas, and with colors by Tamra Bonvillain. I can’t wait to tell you about the story and the art. But…

Well, let’s leave the “but” for the moment and get straight to the good stuff.

The story

Angel Catbird is the story of Strig Feleedus, who is just your ordinary genius until—through a combination of tragedy, spilled top-secret serum, and genetic weirdness that could only happen in the comics—he becomes part human, part cat, and part owl. Suddenly he realizes there is a whole secret world of “half-cats.”  Yes, the half-cats are a combination of human and cat; some of them can appear as full humans, and others as full cats. They hang out at a place called Catastrophe.

This would all be well and good, if not for the rats. They’re controlled—and I do mean “controlled”— by one Professor Muriod, who also happens to be Strig’s boss. Muroid has an evil plot to use his rat minions to take over the world. Part of this plan involves destroying all cats and half-cats. Unknown to Strig and his new friends, Muroid also plans to capture our hero’s love interest and torture her until Strig reveals the secret to the serum that will transform the world’s rats into half-rats (and you thought your boss was a rat!). Obviously he must be stopped, and this is what Strig and company resolve to do. In true comic fashion, the end of the book leaves us hanging, waiting for the next episode.

The good

Okay, if you’re not into comic books, Angel Catbird is probably not going to be your thing. But if you are into comics, if you love the combination of words and bold art to tell a story, then give this one a try. We found the story line and art compelling. We wish we could run out today and buy the next book, because we really can’t wait to find out what happens.

Perhaps you haven’t thought about this yet, but Strig’s new existence as part cat and part owl leaves him with a dilemma: Are birds friends or food? And this brings me to the “but.”

But…the dilemma

In the introduction to Angel Catbird, Margaret Atwood reveals that she has read comics avidly since her childhood, and she’s even drawn a few in the past. She’s been a cat person for most of her life, but she’s also involved in bird conservation. Angel Catbird was born out of the tension between the cat and bird worlds, and the book carries a strong conservation message. The gist of this message is that pet cats should not be free-roaming, for both their own safety and for the safety of any birds in the neighborhood.

We honestly cannot argue with that. In her life of having cats, old SoLT has had two indoor-outdoor cats killed by cars, and another returned home one day with a rear leg so badly mangled that it had to be amputated. Today her cats are indoor-only, and that’s the way it’s going to stay.

Old SoLT is also a bird watcher. She loves birds. But the cat lover / bird lover combination (which is more common than you might think) puts her in an uncomfortable position, sort of like Strig’s “Should I save this little bird, or should I eat it?” dilemma. And it makes parts of Angel Catbird…well, let’s say awkward.

See, there are some numbers out there, repeated in this book, that are said to be conservative estimates of how many birds are killed by cats each year. In the United States, the estimate is in the billions. We’re not here to argue about whether these numbers are accurate. We’re not here to argue over the recommendation to keep cats indoors or let them out only in controlled circumstances such as catios and leash walking. The thing that gets under our skin is the unfortunate fact that some people read those numbers as license to kill free-roaming cats as pests. Some want to round these cats up and euthanize them; some are perfectly happy to put arrows through the cats’ heads. Even cats in well-managed colonies that aren’t near any kind of sensitive bird habitat could be targets, and we have a problem with that.

The verdict

I want to be absolutely clear and say that Angel Catbird does not advocate harming cats in any way. The message Atwood gives is one of keeping pet cats indoors for their own health and safety. That’s a message we happen to agree with.

 We enjoyed Strig’s story so much, and we want to read more of it, but can we wholeheartedly recommend Angel Catbird to our cat-loving readership? This is where we get stuck, because there are aspects of this book that many cat people just won’t be comfortable with.

So, we recommend Angel Catbird for its story and its art. But if you are a cat person, and especially if you disagree with the indoor-cat philosophy, be prepared to be challenged.

A note on the "Paws Up" system: Miss C gives either one or two paws up. One paw is for a good read; two paws is for a great read. She never gives three or four paws because that would require her to lie on her back...and Miss C does not do that!

The link below is an Amazon Associates link. If you purchase the book through this link, old SoLT and I could get some coin for our kibble account. Thank you!

Caturday Art: Paisley and Webster Go Old-School

Welcome to our entry into Athena's Caturday Art blog hop for this week.  Old SoLT was playing in PicMonkey again, this time adding some old-timey effects to a picture of Real Cats Paisley and Webster:

She started with Fancy Focus to sharpen the focus on Webster in the background. Then she added a Daguerreotype effect, followed by Dark Edges, a Smudge texture to get the sort of grainy papery feel, a Daguerreotype frame, and finally a Museum Matte frame.

Here's the original:

By the way, our winner of last week's Name This Space Thingy Caturday Art Contest was old SoLT's dear friend Carolyn, with her entry "The Hare of the Dog." Special mention goes to Alasandra, the Cats and Dogs, who suggested that the artwork looked like a Tribble. Thanks for playing!

An InLinkz Link-up

Caturday Art: Paisley Turns Purple

Today we're excited to join Athena's Caturday Art blog hop once again, this time with a picture of Real Cat Paisley checking out the new cat tree. She of Little Talent set herself loose in Photoshop, where she went a little nuts applying filters and effects to achieve this result, in which Paisley has turned purple. Old SoLT did not mean to turn Paisley purple and was not trying to turn Paisley purple, but she got pretty excited when it happened. 

This is the original photo:

Hop on over to see lots more Caturday art!