Funny cute cat photos - what more do you want?

I found this website which was created by Ben Huh, a journalism graduate from America, who after interning at a several newspapers decided he would have a more lucrative career path in: funny cat photo captions.

Huh, 31, is the big cheese behind www.Icanhascheezburger.com, the enormously popular blog revealing the inner feelings of felines.

His company, Pet Holdings Inc. of Seattle, is a burgeoning media empire with 27 other sites and counting.

Pet Holdings has been profitable since its founding in 2007. With a bare-bones staff of 22, it generates millions in annual revenue through advertising, merchandising and publishing.

The company's first book, a collection of so-called LOL - or laugh out loud - cat photos with captions, sat on the New York Times Bestseller list for 13 weeks.

I really recommend checking this website - you really will be in stitches.

Friendly cat gets cosy with policeman

Check out this video of a very cute cat begging for some attention from a police officer who is trying to carry out a traffic stop in Taylor, Texas, US.

The black kitty was captured crawling up and down in a friendly display towards the cop on the patrol car's dashboard camera.

Taylor police officer Keith Urban is seen being patient with the cat, then finally gently booting the kitty away.

The Taylor Daily Press reports Urban had pulled over an SUV in the driveway of a farm lot. The video shows the cat scampering up and down on Urban, making its way to the officer's shoulders.

Police chief Jeff Straub says Urban never mentioned the feline encounter until he became concerned that the cat might have been injured when they parted ways.

Straub says the video shows "incredible patience on the part of the officer."

The collar-wearing cat fled.

Cat rescue earns goalkeeper a booking

Saw this on BBC Sport:

Goalkeeper Ivan Banovic was booked after rescuing a pitch-invading cat during a top-flight match in Croatia.

Medjimurje Cakovec's Banovic picked up the wandering feline after it strayed on to the pitch 20 minutes into his team's match at Sibenik.

He placed it safely near a scoreboard but was then booked by the referee for leaving the pitch without permission.

Media reports said the official's actions annoyed fans, who barracked him for punishing Banovic's kind deed.

If the moggy was a home fan, it would been left purring as Sibenik won 1-0 to go second in the table.

Hello Kitty: The coolest cat turns 35

I love Hello Kitty! I have Hello Kitty stationery, Hello Kitty car fresheners - even Hello Kitty seatbelt pads!

And now the Japanese creation is cool, quirky and cute and has reached the grand old age of 35 - now what is that in cat years?!

Just look at the docile little creature with red bow and yellow button nose. Who doesn't love her?

At her inception in the 1970s, few could have known that the cute cartoon would become a global phenomenon complete with a theme park, TV series and restaurant featuring an image of her sweet whiskered face baked into bread.

Indeed, Ms. Kitty has come a long way from her Japanese homeland. Christian Dior, Cynthia Rowley, Betsey Johnson and Kimora Lee Simmons have all hopped on the Hello Kitty pop icon bandwagon over the years, whisking the kitten around the world in high style.

Hello Kitty was created in Japan, in 1974, by Shintaro Tsuji as part of his greeting card company Sanrio.

After an in-house design contest, the little Sanrio kitten was born, and Hello Kitty quickly became popular, boosting Sanrio's sales in just two years and bringing her cute "kawaii" style to coin purses, diaries, stationery and notebooks.

The childlike Sanrio cat quietly made its way to the United States in 1976, only two years after she was invented, and remained relatively dormant until the 1990s.

As Hello Kitty matured into her late teens she was given her first boyfriend, Dear Daniel, an equally enigmatic fellow kitten with a spiky pompadour. Daniel tends to wear blue and, like Hello Kitty, he embodies the Sanrio values of sharing and friendship.

By 1995, the Sanrio star's fans were growing up along with the fetching feline, and not without frisky behavior: The New York Times that year noted that the kitty was popular in the rave scene.

Hello Kitty fans in their late teens and early 20s took to wearing such Hello Kitty merchandise as barrettes, watches and backpacks equipped with supplies for all-night parties.

In 1997, Hello Kitty was suspected of having a naughty streak (going feral, maybe?) when a licensee introduced a Hello Kitty shoulder massager that ended up being a popular item on adult store shelves.



The massager was taken off the market after a couple of years, but Hello Kitty's introduction into sexuality was born. By this time, Hello Kitty had blown up in the U.S. with the help of Grammy-winning darling Mariah Carey and other seductive celebrities who were captivated by the critter.

At the start of the millennium, Hello Kitty pitter-pattered into adulthood with an assist from top designers, who helped her develop into a regal, elegant icon while keeping her youthful charm.

For Kitty's 30th anniversary, the bouncy Betsey Johnson designed a flashy, three-tiered pink dress in honor of the kitten, while the chic Cynthia Rowley created a simple yet classic Hello Kitty design for an Airstream trailer.

But nowhere has Hello Kitty's foray into adulthood been more present than in her collaboration with Kimora Lee Simmons, which began in 2004.

"I thought how can we make this bigger and better than just some little notepad?" Simmons says.

Simmons, designer for Baby Phat and Simmons Jewelry Co., crafted a line of high-end jewellery featuring Hello Kitty's face plated in diamonds and platinum, selling the top-dollar designs at tony stores such as Neiman Marcus.

To those unfamiliar with the lure of the brand, the success of the jewellery has been surprising, but not for the model-mom-mogul.

"Who doesn't love Kitty? Everyone from Paris Hilton to me, to Kelly Ripa, Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, Tyra Banks, Iman. I mean everybody loves Kitty," Simmon says.

She adds that though she is a woman in her 30s she adores the timeless inner youth that the Sanrio icon represents. Simmons even designed a blue pendant of the kitten for Vogue's editor-at-large André Leon Talley.



This isn't the first time the moon-faced creature has made an impression on Vogue.

Christian Dior featured his collection in Japanese Vogue in 2008 with the stubby white feline as a model for his designs.

Further confirming Dior and Simmons' view of the pop icon as fit for grown-ups, a Hello Kitty-themed maternity hospital recently opened its doors in Taiwan.

The hospital chose the cartoon theme hoping to ease the stress of childbirth and increase business. The facility features Hello Kitty baby blankets and nurses in pink uniforms with kitten-themed aprons, proof that a whimsical world follows the feline along with her maturing fans.

The wave of celebrations including a sushi workshop, karaoke night and a Halloween party over the last few days suggests that Sanrio's little kitty has come a long way from her early years as a schoolgirl obsession.

As for the adorable Japanese kitten's future in 2010? Her popularity shows no signs of slowing.

Lady Gaga was recently shot by famed photographers Markus Klinko and Indrani swathed in a remarkable gown of stuffed Hello Kittys.

Janet Hsu, president of Sanrio Global Consumer Products, expects to keep welcoming up-and-coming designers to the Hello Kitty family, and knowing the little Nov. 1 Scorpio, there will be some mischief along the way.

Source: Los Angeles Times.

Cat catches swine flu in America

Reuters are reporting the first case of swine flu in a cat in Iowa.

The 13-year-old short-haired cat has tested positive for H1N1 swine flu, the first time a cat has been diagnosed with the new pandemic strain, the American Veterinary Medical Association confirmed.

The animal likely contracted the virus from its owners, veterinarians say, since two of the three family members living in the cat's household had recently suffered from influenza-like illness.

The cat, a 16-pound orange tabby, began acting lethargic and lost his appetite.

He is the only pet in the house and never goes outside. The cat, described as "large framed but not chubby," stopped eating and drinking and stopped cleaning himself.

He also rested by hunching on all four feet, rather than sprawling out on his side as usual, a sign of respiratory discomfort. A few days earlier, two out of three family members in the home had developed flu-like symptoms, with fever and body aches.

His owners brought him to Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine for treatment.

The family mentioned to the vet that they had also recently battled illness, which led to testing the pet for H1N1.

Pigs are the original source of the H1N1 virus and it has been found in several herds, as well as in a pet ferret. Ferrets are especially susceptible to human influenza viruses.

"Two of the three members of the family that owns the pet had suffered from influenza-like illness before the cat became ill," Iowa Department of Public Health Veterinarian Dr. Ann Garvey said in a statement.

"This is not completely unexpected, as other strains of influenza have been found in cats in the past." Both the cat and its owners have recovered from their illnesses.

It's not yet clear how vulnerable cats, dogs and other household animals may be to the new virus, but the Iowa cat's case reinforces just how different H1N1 is from seasonal flu viruses.

Although some household cats and certain wild cats in zoos have gotten ill with avian influenza, and dogs have their own canine version of the flu virus, pets don't normally get sick with the regular human flu.

"There has never been a report of human seasonal influenza affecting cats or dogs." says Dr. Julie Levy, director of Maddie's Shelter Medicine Program at the College of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Florida.

It's possible that the Iowa cat's case may be a bellwether of future pet disease, but it's also possible it was just a fluke event.

At the cat's advanced age, its immune system may not have been as adept at fending off influenza as that of a younger animal - similar to the vulnerability seen in aging humans.

Dr. Ann Garvey Garvey notes that despite nearly 25,000 cases of positive, lab-confirmed H1N1 in people reported in the U.S. since last spring, the Iowa cat is the first pet to be documented with the virus.

But before pet owners start suspecting Fido and Fluffy of being H1N1 hotbeds, Garvey stresses that so far, no cases of influenza of any kind in pets - including cases of bird flu - are known to have moved from animals into people.

And even among the animals, the virus does not appear to spread easily, which may further suggest that pets are not ideal reservoirs for influenza.

That's good news for pet lovers and flu worriers.

And so is the fact that the cat seems to be recovering well from its bout with H1N1.

As for anyone else who is worried about spreading H1N1 flu to their pets, wash your hands frequently, cover your coughs and try to avoid close contact with your furry friends until you're well.

Tiny is the official cat of the Wookey Hole Witch

This moggy from Edgware, London has been awarded the most sought after job for a cat of its class - the official cat of the Wookey Hole Witch.

The nationwide competition launched earlier this month when pet insurer, Petplan, specified a strict witchy criteria to separate superior felines from the cat-pack.

The Halloween job hunt saw Tiny beat stiff competition from 12 other magic moggies to see his portrait take pride of place at Wookey Hole and be her apprentice cat of choice.

Tiny walked into his owner's life three years ago, as if by magic, just after her previous cat had passed away. He boasts a cauldron black shade of fur combined with moonshine yellow eyes and pitch perfect meow.

The Wookey Witch said: "Tiny caught my eye immediately as he chose his owner, with a single minded loyalty befitting of a witch's cat.

"Competition was fierce but Tiny pipped the others to the role due to his ability to catch almost anything and guard his territory so fearlessly."

Tiny's owners receive a £250 donation to their animal charity of choice, a £100 animal gift hamper, a framed picture of Tiny in his new role as a witch's cat, plus transport and entry to Wookey Hole to view his portrait in its pride of place at the Wookey Hole caves.