Ladybugs in my bathroom

I painted and gave out some ladybug rocks for Valentine's Day and one was forgotten in my bathroom.

A ladybug house-guest happens upon a ladybug rock

Rat empathy: Chipping away at the notion that humans are more enlightened than other animals

A rat allowed to roam around eventually figured out how to set free a trapped cagemate. Rats didn’t offer the same courtesy to stuffed animals, suggesting the creatures have empathy for one another.

“As humans, we tend sometimes to have this feeling that there’s something special about our morals.” 

-Christian Keysers, neuroscientist

In a recent study, University of Chicago researchers put a rat into a small cage and allowed another rat to roam free amongst the caged rat for an hour each day. The free would rat immediately attempt to free the caged rat by digging and biting at the cage. After about seven days of this, the free rat would figure out how to open the cage. The two rats would then celebrate with "a frenzy of excited running" (quote from this article).

23 of 30 rats learned to open the cage for trapped rats, but only 5 of 40 rats opened the cage if it was empty (the same went for cages filled with a stuffed animal).

“They are affected by what the other is experiencing"

-Matthew Campbell, psychologist

Researchers also presented free rats with both a caged rat and 5 caged chocolate chips ("These rats adore their chocolate." -study coauthor Inbal Ben-Ami Bartal). When presented with the option to open the cages, half of the rats freed the caged rat first. And some "hero" rats even shared the chocolate with their newly freed friends -- on purpose. “It’s not like they missed a chocolate,” Bartal says. “They actually carried it out of the restrainer sometimes but did not eat it.”

What does this say about the view that humans are the only moral creatures? Or that humans are the only creatures with the capacity to think? Are we actually higher on the scale of beings, or are we just different in the same way deer and fish are different from one another?

I find that the notion of humans being above animals is widespread in our culture, even among animal lovers. I frequently hear loving pet owners teasing themselves for "the things I do for these animals." The belief behind this statement is that pets are really not worth the effort it takes to prepare their meals from scratch (in the case of illness or food allergies), spend money on daycare to prevent them from being alone for several hours at a time, etc. However, these are things that any good parent would unquestionably do for his/her children. Are human children more deserving of a good life than animal dependents?

I think that in general, humans are naturally inclined to have stronger attachments to other humans than to animals, so it makes sense that we would prioritize our children over our pets. However, I think that animals are equally as deserving of care, love, and consideration as humans are.


"The pathetic, objectionable truth about our humanity is that all we are is bipedal, potty trained, grave-making animal fuckers who shave their fur off and think that somehow we're above all else that crawls on the land we've dynamite blasted flat."
-Casey Rocheteau, local poet

Cat cafés: Eat among cats!

Today I acquired some life-altering information:

There is such a thing as a cat café.

"Excuse me, please stay out of my tea."

You go, there are cats there, you can buy food, you might need to pay an hourly fee.

There are about 100 cat cafés in Japan. Apparently their popularity stems from most landlords in Japan refusing to allow tenants to have cats.

As far as I can tell via Google, there are no cat cafés in the United States.... yet. Should I take a break from college and start one in MA? This is a real consideration. I imagine that there would be a huge market for this around here. I would definitely go to one!

Notice the cat furniture in the window inviting cats to display themselves to passersby

I think the attentiveness of the cats may be a bit exaggerated here.

Very similar to the above photo, but the cats and humans have swapped roles.

"Some cat cafés feature specific categories of cat such as black cats, fat cats, rare breed cats or ex-stray cats."
-WIKIPEDIA 

If I decide to open a cat café, I would like it to be basically a normal café (with great vegetarian food) that just happens to have cats. And there would be no hourly fee unless problems arose. Anyone interested in being my business partner?

Cognitive development inducing dog treats

We feed Henry these fancy treats that are "Formulated with DHA for Cognitive Development." This is ridiculous, right?

"Thanks guys!"

My boyfriend shows me ridiculous things

Here is a picture that Nate showed me recently. He knows what kinds of things I get excited about.

Baby pig with rain boots

The silent meow

I was at the library the other day when my friend showed me this page in a book about cats. It was in a list of all the different noises cats make.

My cat Abigail does this all of the time, but I never realized it was intentional. Like the author of this book, I find it adorable and endearing.

Abigail on my bed

Other endearing things cats I know do:
-Wink a lot
-Meow like, "Eh eh eh" when they see birds
-Knock things off from tables on purpose
-Be really soft
-Stretch dramatically & roll around seductively
-Lick each other and small dogs and people
-Play with string
-Chase laser pointer lights
-Purr
-Excitedly watch animals out the window



 Credits: Abigail, Little Man, & Simon for contributing to this list

What it would be like to live in a house boat

Ducks would swim up to your window.

I saw ducks at Sheep Pasture on Sunday and they looked like they were having so much fun! I love them.