Book Blast for A Cat Taught Me That

Blurb: Catnap often. Don’t be a stalker unless food is involved. Despite the rumor, it is okay to be curious! A Cat Taught Me That is filled with humorous advice and the wisdom of elder cats that includes information on how to get more out of life, and how to avoid common pitfalls along the way. Cat lovers will enjoy the adorable photographs and cute illustrations throughout.

Celebrity cat ‘Awesome Louie’ provides insight with his gritty cat interviews, as well as sage advice with his “Mewsings” column. Short essays from the cat-lady author will bring smiles to the faces of
readers who have learned that “Not All That Glitters is Gold” and “To BeKissed By a Cat” can have unintended consequences.

Excerpt:

“A Little Indulgence is Okay”

I’m Louie and I’ve been told I have a problem with cat treats. Of course, a problem is in the eye of the beholder. In my eyes, loving cat treats isn’t a problem unless I run out of them.

After I was rescued, I learned three things about my caregiver and new best friend. First, food was readily available day or night; I would never be hungry again. Second, I was now living in a house that was warm and cozy; freezing outside in the winter was highly unlikely. Third, I learned about this tasty food called “snacks”. I would come to love it when my caregiver announced the magical words with enthusiasm – “Kitty treats!”

When I was first introduced to this fabulous dining experience, the flavors included turkey, beef and chicken. Eventually catnip and dairy-flavored treats entered the scene. Once I tasted those little
nuggets of goodness, I was hooked.

I perfected the sad kitty face, which is subtle and very effective when done properly. The trick is to look longingly at your target and try not to blink. Raise a paw in a slightly pathetic manner towards the treat container as the caregiver opens it – a classic move.

While my owner swears that she may check me into a clinic for cats with food addictions, she is more purr than hiss. I know that the next time she comes home from the pet store with kitty snacks, she’ll rattle the bag because she knows I’m listening. I’ll come racing into the kitchen like a furry, 16 pound bowling ball on steroids, and she’ll loveme for it. And give me treats.

Take it from me, you can never be too furry or have too many treats!

Buy Links:

Amazon Createspace Barnes and Noble

About the Author:

Charlotte Gerber began her writing career penning content articles on the Internet. Her articles have appeared on LoveToKnow.com and the New York Times/About.com Disability site, as well as numerous other outlets.She is also the author of Murder in Middleton and I Dream of Zombies
(Rose Lee’s Zombie Adventures series).

Charlotte lives in upstate New York with her husband Gregg, two teenage children, one dog and ten rescued cats.  She is a disability advocate, a supporter of animal rescue missions and the U.S. Military.

Connect With the Author:

Website
Twitter

Dog Aliens

I was given the opportunity to review this book for free in anticipation of the release of the second book.  As a dog lover, I was intrigued by the title and couldn’t pass it up.  

The author Cherise Kelly was very imaginative in allowing the story to be written completely from inside of the dog’s mind.  You are introduced to Clem, the dog whose mind you will be a passenger of for the remainder of the story.  Clem is a reincarnated alien dog from outer space.  He is on his 99^th life and is a 6 month old puppy.  He is from the planet Kax and there is an interesting back story.  

Clem has a bit of a rough start in this life and find himself in possession of some abnormal abilities.  There are distinguishing alien races between the large and small dogs and the inability to effectively communicate with cats.  This was a fun and light read and I could relate to many of the dog/cat interactions.  

The Kaxians (alien dogs from Kax) have come to Earth to spend their lives mining Jax.   Jax is also needed for the Niques (the small dog breeds).  This results in them being at odds with one another.  

The cons for me: What in the heck is Jax?  Having no idea what this was or what it would do for the Kaxians was really annoying.  All you know when reading is that it is very important and their life’s work but by the end of the story you are none the wiser.   There was a bit of jumping around in the story without cohesive flow between ideas.  The wolves for example are telling a story and then it shifts back to Clem and later back to the wolves and to an almost exact same dialogue.  As I was reading on my kindle I had to shift back and forth a couple of times to be sure that I was actually reading a new passage and not getting shifted back to an earlier part within the story.  There were too many loose ends at the end of the story and things to wonder about.  It didn’t feel like anything really got resolved by the end of the story.  It was apparent that another story would follow, but it shouldn’t involve every single issue from the first book (in my humble opinion).  Give your reader a tiny bit of relief or you will lose them.

Pros: Very imaginative.  Quick and easy to read, very good for a light read.  If you are an animal owner (especially dog or cat) you should be able to see something of your own pet within these characters.  There is now a sequel so that hopefully some of the unanswered questions will bear fruition within the second installment.   It is very fun to read from inside the mind of an alien dog.  

All in all I recommend it for a filler book, I give it 3/5 starts.  It doesn’t have a lot of re-readability but the story is intriguing enough to want to continue on with the series.

Hilarious YouTube Videos Part 1

I would like to drudge up some of the goodies but oldies that may have been missed or Ito brighten up your day with the awesomeness that is the comedic venue otherwise known as YouTube, I mean sure there is all kinds of music and educations and wannabe song re-makers out there, but let's face it, the majority of us spend more time clicking from one hilarious video to another.   I will occasionally showcase some that I have found to be worth sharing :)  Enjoy

In case you missed out on the hilarious perverted awesomeness that is the Tug Toner (the improved version of the shakeweight) here it is for your viewing pleasure!

What to say about the awesomeness that is "Where Is My Goat?"  well for starters I think it is a highly under-rated "music video"  It's one of those videos that the more than you watch it the funnier it gets and so you end up looping it and laughing hysterically...  ok so maybe that is just me, but you should definitely check it out in case you have never seen it before.  

 I definitely couldn't leave out the sad cat diary, which is both sad and hilarious at the same time :)

Then of course we have "Gaming With My Mom" which is too great for words, just watch it and enjoy :)  You will never look at video games the same way again.

 Last but not least, I had to throw in a College Humor video.  One of the greats:  Sensual Harassment.  Just thinking about it make me laugh.

Technology for Your Pet Part 1

Tonight I want to share with you some of the technology that is out there for your pets.   Unfortunately most of the gadgets that I came across were more geared towards owners of dogs and cats, but some of these items could easily be used with other more exotic pets.

CAT LIFELOGGING

Sony currently has a cat Twitter collar, which will automatically tweet about 11 different things to a cat's twitter page based on their action with the device attached to their collar.   It is equipped with a camera, an acceleration tacker and a gps device.  However, this device looks quite bulky and I can't imagine the majority of cats allowing it to stay attached to them all for sending a tweet.  It can send messages such as "This tastes good" when the cat is eating or licking something.






PUPPY TWEETS

No need to be jealous if you are a dog owner because there is also a device called Puppy Tweets.  The puppy tweets collar analyzes your dogs movement and sends one of over 500 pre-generated messages to their twitter account (this make sony left WAY behind with only 11 statuses embedded for the cats).  This device is made by Mattel and can be purchased on Amazon for under 10.  You can get it in blue or pink.






TAGG
Then of course there is Tagg the pet tracking device.  This sends you e-mails and texts about where you dog is at all times and if it has traveled out of the designated area that you can specify, this can be great if your pet gets lost as it is a GPS enabled device.  It will cost you about 100 and then the service is about $8 a month after the trial period has ended.  For that price it also comes with proactive health monitoring services, such as the ability to attack the short term and long term activity levels of your dog.  Due to it's size it is only intended for dogs over 10 pounds.  The device easily attaches to your dog's collar. 

DOG-O-MATIC

Now we come to what seems to me to be a horrid invention.  It is a washing machine for your dog or pet.  You select a wash cycle put your pet into it and then sit back while your animal is cleaned for the next 30 minutes and they can't escape.  It is advertised as being humane, but I just couldn't bring myself to put any pet into their myself.  It horrifies me.  It was designed in France and is advertised as a car wash for your dog. 





COFFEE TABLE CAT HAMMOCK
Now this is an awesome thing!  I want one for myself.  It is a spectacular hammock that hangs under a stylish coffee table.  My biggest complain is the outrageous price tag at $2,400.  This must be one of those things for rich old cat ladies :)





ICPOOCH

Now I think this is a wonderful device created by a teenager.  It was designed with dogs in mind (mostly because they will come when called) as opposed to cats who may or may not ever show up when you call.  It is a video chat screen that stands up so that you can video chat with your dog and then you can also remotely dispense a treat to them for coming over and talking with you.  What an excellent device if you have to be away from your pet so that you can check on them and see that they are ok.  However if you have a hyperactive dog I could see them knocking the device over and ruining the point.  Although not currently released, it is an awesome plan, I just wonder if you can dispense more than one treat, as in give them another treat at a later time.  Wonderful idea however! 


BOWLINGUAL & MEOWLINGUAL
In case you couldn't tell by the title, these devices were created to help translate your animals speech so that you can better understand them.  The Bowlingual is an actual device which runs for about $222, whereas the meowlingual is currently just an app that you can get on your phone.  The bowlingual is advertised as being able to work with over 50 dog breeds and 6 mix breeds.  IT can store up translations for up to 30 days.  However the major downside is that it was created in Japan and currently only translates into Japanese so then you would need to translate the Japanese.  The meowlingual app is a little more helpful in that it translates into English. 

Screaming Animals

I was looking through news articles this evening in hopes of blog inspiration when I was lead to a hilarious animal video.  That being said I thought I would share some funny videos with you all.  Somehow screaming animals became the theme.  Enjoy

First I will share with you the hilarious video of Cody the dog who screams instead of barks/howls.  There's not much more to say for it, but I am sure it will have you laughing, check it out

Now we come to some hilarious goats screaming.  Goats have got to be some of the most hilarious screamers in the animal kingdom.  Enjoy!

Here is a great compilation of screaming animals.  I have to say that the frogs are the funniest part of it all (you also get to revisit Cody).

Due to the hilarity of the screaming frogs, I found an entire video dedicated just to them.  I have to say that "Tarzan" is my favorite one :)

I leave you with a great animal compilation with some repeats, but a pug that is so hilarious that he whole video is worth sharing.  Enjoy and let me know if you see any other screaming animals while you go about your daily life.

Contemplations of The Adventures of Milo & Otis

Milo & Otis

I have wanted to write a blog about the movie Milo & Otis for quite some time now.  In case you have never heard of it, The Adventures of Milo and Otis is a 1986 movie about two animals, Milo (an orange tabby cat) and Otis (a pug) who go on an adventure and interact with an assortment of other animals & sticky situations.  When I was a child I thought this was a fantastic movie.  I actually ended up re-buying it a few years ago before I ever had my son, thanks to a wonderful $5 movie bin.  During my entire life, I would have bet money that Milo and Otis spoke during the movie.  You can imagine my devastation when finally watching this movie in adulthood that there is actually only a single narrator (Dudley Moore) that tells the story and voices all characters throughout the movie.  I was highly impressed by the excellent story telling skills that had me convinced as a child that these characters were brought to life in my imagination.   From Milk & Otis hatching an egg, to traveling downstream, interacting with a bear, riding on a turtle’s back, meeting mates,  making it back home and many other little anecdotal adventures along their journey. 

Just a few weeks ago I got my son into Milo & Otis and we were watching it together.  I again saw this movie with a new set of eyes.  I started paying more attention to how amazing it was that the film maker had actually caught all of these animals on camera doing these amazing things.  There are a few moments of possible staging, but overall, it appears that the filming of Milo & Otis took quite some patience in following their journey throughout the movie to be able to catch such amazing animal interactions.  I began to look at the movie in a whole new way.  This brought about the question of whether these animals were set up into staged scenarios, and whether or not they were trained.  Then I began to wonder if any animals were harmed, especially since there are several scenes showing a black bear interacting with the main characters that could easily result in harm to the animals.  Keep in mind that this was originally a Japanese movie that was created in the early 80s and later translated into an American film and narrated by Dudley Moore.  No matter what the circumstance, it is still amazing to see the animal interactions and wonder at the man hours to capture all of this on film.  If you have never seen Milo & Otis, I recommend watching it at least once just for the sheer awe of 80s animal adventure cinema.  If you have seen it before, I invite you to revisit the film to see how a new set of eyes might view the story.  I still love it to this day and have been happy to have the opportunity to share it with my son. 

Please view this movie trailer to pique your interest or bring you back to memory lane.

*Disclaimer: this is a video borrowed from YouTube, I am not the owner nor do I have any rights to this video, this is for entertainment purposes only.

*According to Wikipedia, the entire movie was comprised of roughly 40.3 hours of film shot over a period of 4 years.

Now that is dedication if you ask me.