Monthly Archives: September 2017

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Ghost Cats now on sale

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Some cats won’t let a little thing like death separate them from their humans. ~ Dusty Rainbolt author of Ghost Cats

Ghost Cats was the winner of the Cat Writers’ Association Muse Medallion for the year’s best book on a miscellaneous topic

 

Ghost Cats: Human Encounters with Feline Spirits Revised Edition is now available.

Many cat lovers believe these amazing creatures possess mystical powers that reach beyond what we can see and touch. But can cats extend a paw from beyond the grave?

Award-winning GHOST CATS is an original collection of heartwarming, and sometimes heart-stopping, accounts of cats who connected with their loved ones for a final time—ghost encounters of the feline kind. From the chilling “Demon Cat of the Nation’s Capitol” to the comical “Phantom Litter Box” to the reassuring “Grungy’s Greeting”, there are feline phantasms for everyone.

And if you believe you have heard, seen or felt your very own departed kitty, author Dusty Rainbolt, one of the country’s leading authorities on animal apparitions, offers reasons why your best forever friend breeched that tenuous veil to reach you again.

ABOUT GHOST CATS

People who have spent a lifetime observing and interacting with cats will say that these amazing animals seem to possess powers – supernatural, psychic, or otherwise – that we can only begin to comprehend. But are they able to return from the grave as well?

In Ghost Cats, the strangely heartwarming tales of cats who have refused to let death part them from their human companions are recounted in vivid and captivating detail. From the chilling “Demon Cat of the Nation’s Capitol” to the delightful “Phantom Litter Box” to the touching “Poor Puss” of Stonehenge, there’s a plethora of phantasms here for everyone. And what if you receive bedtime visitations from your very own dearly departed kitty? Author Dusty friend explains all the signs of a haunting and offers reasons why your friend has come back.

A thrilling read for the cat and ghost lovers among us, and a consolation for those who have lost a beloved pet, this collection of stories confirms that these wonderful, whiskered creatures capture our imagination as much as they do our hearts, long after they have purred their last.

OVERCOMING GRIEF

Do you still feel your cat’s presence? Have you heard him meow or the jingle of his collar bell? You are not alone. Many bereaved cat owners and some bewildered non-owners have experienced the patter of paws or felt the presence of paranormal pets.

People coping with the loss of a pet (or human), know the grief can feel overwhelming. The 70 plus encounters shared in this book have encouraged the inconsolable and given hope to the hopeless. We will see our beloved cats again.

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING ABOUT GHOST CATS

“Decades of tending rescue and foster cats and kittens make Dusty Rainbolt the cat companion’s go-to expert on feline health, happiness, and behavior. And that includes stunning examples of cats’ extra-sensory sensitivity we all glimpse and often too easily dismiss. Ghost Cats will make you wonder if any of our cats are ever really ‘lost’ to us.” ~ Carole Nelson Douglas, author of the Midnight Louie Feline PI Mysteries

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A former card-carrying skeptic, Dusty started investigating paranormal phenomena after her recently passed foster kitten named Maynard returned for a brief one-time afterlife experience. Dusty Rainbolt is an award-winning cat writer who has worked as a professional freelance journalist since the late 1980s.

Dusty is the author of the just-released book that helps rectify feline inappropriate elimination, Cat Scene Investigator: Solve Your Cat’s Litter Box Mystery (Stupid Gravity Press), as well as Kittens for Dummies and Cat Wrangling Made Easy: Maintaining Peace & Sanity in Your Multicat Home. She also penned the award-winning paranormal mystery, Death Under the Crescent Moon (Yard Dog Press). Her scifi fans know Dusty for her comedy novel All the Marbles and as well as the outrageous The Four Redheads of the Apocalypse fantasy series she coauthored with Linda L. Donahue, Rhonda Eudaly and Julia S. Mandala. She’s past president of the Cat Writers’ Association, and three-time recipient of the Friskies Writer of the Year. She is editor-in-chief of AdoptAShelter.com, past product editor for the Tuft’s University publication, Catnip and Whole Cat Journal. Over her career, over 1500 of her columns and articles have appeared in magazines, books, newsletters and websites.

Dusty’s a member of the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants. She and her husband share their unhaunted home with their living, breathing cats and a Pug-mix. Involved in kitten rescue for over three decades, she has successfully raised over 800 orphan kittens. Unfortunately not all of the bottle babies made it. One in particular changed her life.

Check out her website at DustyCatWriter.com. She’d love to hear your cat, dog, and horse ghost stories.

 

News

The Hemingway cats are safe after Hurricane Irma #HemingwayCats #HurricaneIrma

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Grace Kelly checks the list to make sure all the Hemingway Cats are safely inside. (Photo from Hemingway Home Museum Facebook page.)

 

The Hemingway cats are safe!

It’s no secret Ernest Hemingway loved cats. In 1928 on one of his Caribbean adventures, the author became the proud owner of a white polydactyl cat (a cat with extra toes) named Snowball. Ship’s captain, Stanley Dexter, gifted Snowball to Hemingway after the author admired all the cat’s extra digits. (Some articles mistakenly say the cat’s name was Snow White.)

Jump forward 99 years.

Today, 54 descendants of Snowball, many of them multi-toed, manage the Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West, Florida. Last week before the arrival of Hurricane Irma, officials issued a mandatory evacuation for residents of Key West. But 10 courageous staff members at historic museum decided to brave the storm for the sake of the equally historic cats. Jacqui Sands, the manager and caretaker of the Hemingway Home even refused to leave the property despite a plea from Hemingway’s granddaughter Mariel to evacuate.

Hemingway Home and Museum “took extreme precautions to protect the Hemingway Cats. (Photo from Hemingway Home Museum Facebook page.)

 

Museum curator David Gonzales told CNN, “We’ve made extreme preparations. We’ve boarded up the place. We’ve stocked up on cat food and water. Our veterinarian came by on Wed and made sure we had plenty of medications for the cats who need those.

When asked if it wasn’t smarter to take the cats and leave, Gonzales answered, “On the news programs you’ll see the gridlock happening on the highways exiting the entire state of Florida. Imagine putting 25 cats in each of two vans.  You’d have to drive out of this state, out of Georgia and into the Carolinas, then westerly from there…If you think about the stress of a cat being locked in a van in a kennel for who knows how long, 20, maybe 24 hours, trying to get out of here, that may not be the best thing for them.”

Gonzales explained the house, which was built in 1851 of 18 inch blocks of limestone, had endured dozens of hurricanes, and “never had any damage whatsoever. It is a solid fortress.”

Hurricane Preparations

On September, Father John Baker from St. Mary’s Star of the Sea Basilica visited the Hemingway Home to bless our staff, cats and home. Pauline Hemingway was a member of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Key West in the 1930’s. — with Nicole Navarro, Elizabeth Ritter, Father John Baker and Sand Blast et Peinture Jacques Ruest. (Photo from Hemingway Home Museum Facebook page)

 

The night before Hurricane Irma made landfall in Florida, the Hemingway Home and Museum Facebook page posted a picture of a brown tabby and white cat reading a list of names.  ‘As our staff member, Nicole Navarro was confirming all cats were accounted for, the cat Grace Kelly took over roll call.’

Fortunately Key West experienced high winds and heavy rain during the hurricane, but the island was spared the damage that occurred at the hurricane’s eye. Several trees on the museum property fell and debris landed on the grounds, but the landmark emerged otherwise unscathed.

How did you feel about the staff staying with cats rather than evacuating? Post your thoughts in the comments sections below.

Behavior, Feline Health

The American Association of Feline Practitioners Revises Position on Declawing

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The American Association of Feline Practitioners (AAFP) Strongly Opposes Declawing of Cats

Hillsborough, NJ (September 6, 2017) – The American Association of Feline Practitioners (AAFP) has revised its 2015 position statement on declawing cats to “strongly oppose declawing (onychectomy) as an elective procedure.”

Scratching is a normal feline behavior. It is the obligation of veterinarians to provide cat owners with education on normal scratching behaviors and options for cats to exhibit appropriate scratching behavior in the home. The AAFP’s position stresses the need for veterinary teams to educate cat caregivers as many are unaware that declawing is a surgical amputation of the third phalanx (or ‘toe bone’).

This is exciting. It is believed that most cats suffer from pain, not only from bone fragments left behind after the amputation, but also phantom pains.

The AAFP has been the leader in the world of feline medicine and veterinary care.  It is appropriate that our organization has taken the lead with this strong position statement opposing the declawing of cats,” states Dr. Marcus Brown, Chair of the AAFP’s Welfare Committee.

The AAFP supports a path of change that focuses on educating veterinary teams and cat caregivers in an effort to help them learn and understand in order to make a future impact that sees lasting results. Veterinary teams will be supplied with a toolkit of resources to assist them in educating cat caregivers about why cats have claws, why cats scratch inanimate objects, best practices for living alongside a cat with claws, ideal scratching surfaces, training cats to scratch appropriately, and troubleshooting inappropriate scratching in the home.

Dr. Nancy Suska, co-author of the statement, explains, “With proper client education from the initial veterinary visit and onward, our clients will be able to provide their kittens and cats with the essential means to exhibit this natural feline function.  The American Association of Feline Practitioners has produced many resources, for both owner and veterinary team, to educate about natural feline scratching behavior and alternatives to declawing.”