North Carolina County Bans Gas Chambers - Perhaps Reluctantly -More work needs to be done!

Hooray for Stokes County, North Carolina. They decided not to wait any longer for state legislators to decide about ending the use of gas chambers to euthanise homeless pets. Instead the county put its own ban on the cruel practice.

Earlier in 2009 the North Carolina Coalition for Humane Euthanasia put pressure on state politicians to review their policies for euthanising animals. This led to two bills that were introduced to legislators.

The first was House Bill 6 or Davie’s Law which was introduced by Rep. Cary Allred. It prohibited any animal from being killed in a carbon monoxide gas chamber. Davie’s Law was named after a shelter puppy that survived a gas chamber killing and was rescued when a couple heard him crying from inside a garbage bag in a dumpster in Davie County.

The second proposal, Bill 27 was a watered down compromise that banned gas chambers for most pets, but allowed the procedure for wild or dangerous animals. Feral cats were among those included in this category.

For a little while there was a flurry of activity as animal advocates reported horror stories about terrified animals forced into gas chambers and their lingering inhumane deaths.

Unfortunately legislators also heard from animal control officers and even the North Carolina American Veterinary Medical Association that the use of gas chambers could be considered a humane method of euthanasia, if it is done properly.

There was even a political scandal during the hearings with Rep. Allred that eventually led to him stepping down from his office.

Ultimately all of the debates, statistics and scandals didn’t matter in the end. According to the Animal Law Coalition, both NC Bills “were defeated and the legislation is dead for this session.”

The good news is that most of the state’s animal shelters have made the decision to toss out their gas chambers even without a statewide law and now Stokes County has joined them.

Phillip Hanby, the director of the Stokes County Animal Shelter said, “We knew eventually we would go to injections; it’s just taken time.”

It isn’t clear from his statements if Hanby is a wholehearted supporter of the new policy, but he is moving in the right direction. In an interview with Stokes County News he explained that the workload for his staff has increased because of the ban and because his staff must now give individual injections to the 30 cats and dogs euthanised every week, but “it’s something that needed to be done,” he said.

To decrease the workload for his staff Hanby is working with local organizations such as the Stokes County Humane Society and Stokes County Animal Rescue to place adoptable pets and educate pet owners about having their animals spayed and neutered. (Yes! Mimi's note.)

The shelter has also linked their website to Petfinder.com and their new Facebook page has helped find homes for cats and dogs from as far away as New York and Pennsylvania.

Mona Triplett with the Stokes Country Humane Society is pleased with the efforts made. She said, “I’m so proud of Stokes Country because they’re placing value on our pets. The Animal Shelter is making great strides in the community.”

There are still 31 animal shelters in North Carolina that use gas chambers to euthanize homeless pets.

Click here to read more about the subject: Animals Continue to Die While Politicians Debate

Forrest is doin' the Tuesday Q just fur you!

This is my first "doin' the Q". Do you think I should have done a bold-italic-CAPITAL or is this regular font OK?

PURRING TO STOP POUND SEIZURES - A life of love and a death of miserable abandonment

Imagine - imagine you were a puppy or kitten adopted by a loving family but somehow got lost or for one reason or another your family made the decision to place you in a shelter hoping that they would find you a new home. Now, imagine that after days, weeks or months of hoping for a new home someone comes along and takes you out of your cell and out the front door. Imagine your excitement - you were going HOME!

Now, imagine being placed in a cell again only this time your savior was not a savior, it was someone who would operate on you and inject you and spread toxins in your eyes and on your body. Imagine not only the physical pain but the emotional pain. But still, each day you hope and each day you wag your tail or purr at the sight of your torturous jailer. And then, just when you thought that peace was at hand - you lost your last breath.

This is what happens to the animals that are seized from shelters by medical laboratories - all for the sake of us, the human being - or at least that is what we have been told. This blog doesn't have enough space for me to detail all of the horror. Do your homework. Do your research. Look on products when you purchase them. Most will say if they have been tested on animals. Be a wise consumer and be a LOUD consumer. If something you have purchased for years you now know was tested on companions animals SCREAM at the company to stop their barbaric practice.

Usually I put photos with my posts but today I cannot. I cannot because I cry too hard when I look at them and I've cried too much the past 24 hours because a sweet dog I know has passed into the Heavens. So I will leave you with this. Imagine dropping bleach or nail polish remover into your kitten's eyes and then walking away - unfeeling - as it screams in pain and paws at it's eyes. Imagine...

If you live in MICHIGAN, like I do, go to THIS SITE and sign the petition to ban pound seizures. The Anit-Vivisection Society has a list of all states that still allow this inhumane practice. Find your state and GET INVOLVED!

The American Humane Association has some excellent information about the Michigan legislature and about other states that either are, or need, to get involved. 

There is a lot to read here but READ IT - READ IT ALL! Our ignorance is killing our companion animals without mercy.

Below you will find excerpts from Confucius' blog posting today:

Atrocities are not less atrocities when they occur in laboratories and are called medical research.
--George Bernard Shaw

Pound Seizure. Two innocuous words but together they mean something horrific: animal shelters or humane societies-places that are supposed to protect animals and find them good homes- selling household pets for use in testing and research. With this practice some die quickly. Many others are subjected to tortuous and agonizing long-term laboratory studies. I won’t even go into all the gut wrenching details of what these animals are subjected to or that some suffer vivisection while still alive. Just looking at the information online for purposes of this post took mum’s breath away and made her physically ill.

I abhor vivisection with my whole soul. All the scientific discoveries stained with innocent blood I count as of no consequence. --Mahatma Gandhi

www.Care2.com has recently highlighted a heartrending story of a pet dog named Koda whose family was having a hard time and gave him up to a local shelter in hopes the shelter would find a good home for him. Instead, he was sold to a dealer and resold to the University of Michigan where he was deliberately inflicted with traumatic injuries as a subject in the University’s Advanced Trauma Life Support Class. Ultimately he was euthanized.

Koda’s story has led legislation proposed in Michigan to ban pound seizures in that state.

Although it has been proposed there is no Federal statute against this practice. I was only able to find 13 states that have outlawed pound seizure: Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and West Virginia. Some states actually mandate pound seizure, i.e., mandate that shelters must sell pets to dealers on demand. These include Minnesota, Oklahoma and Utah. Elsewhere it is up to local counties and municipalities to decide whether to mandate or to prohibit pound seizure. For more information see www.Americanhumane.org

This issue is even more crucial in this time when shelters are critical to the protection of animals. More and more are being made homeless due to the fact the deployment of their humans in the military or due to the fact that their humans have lost homes to foreclosure or weather incidents.

Week 16 of Purrs 4 Peace details are as follows:

* Week sixteen’s appointed time is Sunday, September 27, 2009.
* Participants should purr for three minutes commencing at 12 p.m. EDT (U.S.) which is 5:00 p.m. (17:00 hrs.) BST in the U.K.
* The cat’s human staff should assist their cats with the project by stroking and nuzzling the cat at the appointed time.
* Please post your cat name and the country you purr in at www.confuciuscat.blogspot.com as a COMMENT if you are participating in this historic project. (posting a link to your own website-if you have one-is encouraged.) Or let me know by message on twitter or facebook.
* Posting purrs on facebook ( Acolytes of Confucius Cat or as friend to Alley Mason) and twitter (@ConfuciusCat) is encouraged, since it inspires purring in others, but not required. On twitter please use #purrs4peace in your tweets.

This week we will purr to stop this barbaric practice of pound seizures. Purr to pursuade. Purr to protect. Purr for peace.

As long as people will shed the blood of innocent creatures there can be no peace, no liberty, no harmony between people. Slaughter and justice cannot dwell together.
--Isaac Bashevis Singer

SEND THIS POST TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW WHO LOVES ANIMALS. TELL THEM TO SUPPORT THE ANIMALS THAT THEY LOVE SO MUCH!

♥Make sure you don't have potatoes growing in your ears!♥

Check your ears for potatoes when you take a shower!

♥SMOKEY♥ - Cat Survives 13 Shots to Head and Still Finds Way Home

Jon Hargest/Newspix/Rex USA

A furry gray cat named Smokey strayed from his home, was held down by a heartless thug and shot in the head 13 times—and survived.

In a tale of sickening cruelty and remarkable spirit, 9-year-old Smokey turned up at the doorstep of his home in Carisbrook, Australia, one morning, several days after disappearing. His owner, Liz Dunn, burst into tears when she saw him; little Smokey’s face was battered and bleeding, and his left eye appeared shredded.

After taking him to her local police station, Dunn learned what most likely happened to Smokey—he was either caged or pinned down and repeatedly shot in the head with a pellet gun, either by a lone attacker or a gang. "I was just really shocked that someone could take an animal and literally hold them down and just keep shooting them," Dunn told Australia’s ABC.net. "The police said that they have to keep reloading the slug gun, it's not a process that automatically goes bang, bang, bang. Smokey had been either contained or held because all of them were in his head and nowhere else in his body was injured. I was just shocked and horrified.”

Dunn took Smokey to a vet, who sedated him and removed 11 of the 13 pellets; the two others are still lodged in Smokey’s face. Vets also stitched a small white button just above Smokey’s badly-damaged left eye to shore it up. According to experts, there’s been an upswing in violence against cats—known as “moggies” in Australia—and other animals, much of it committed by bored, unemployed men. "Almost certainly these will be young males around about the age of 18 to 20 who have done this,” said Dr. Hugh Wirth, state president of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. “It’s a pattern that we see throughout Australia and there's only one way to deal with it and that's jail."

Police have launched an investigation to identify Smokey’s attackers (many states in Australia have laws banning and punishing animal cruelty). Meanwhile, the sweet-natured cat is back home with Dunn and her children (above), who marvel at Smokey’s resilience—he not only survived the horrific attack but somehow managed to find his way back home with only one eye. Police say Smokey is expected to recover from his injuries.

♥Gone to Miss Sweet Praline's Sleepover PURRthday PAWty♥

The exciting day and night is here for me, Miss Aurora Katrina! I can't believe my momma is lettin' me go alla' way from home all by myselfs to Miss Sweet Praline's PURRthday PAWty, but here I am an' I am so happy! I've brought my favorite blankie and teddy (who is already in a drunkin' nip stupor an' sawin' logs) but I've saved a little fur me - let the PURRty begins!

Momma says that a good guest always helps wif the refreshments so I've brought along a picnic basket loaded with ham, Alaska salmon, fresh strawberries 'n whipped cream, some 'niptini's an' an extra PURRthday cake just in case Miss Sweet Praline has extra guests who happen to drop by!

I've brought along some of my favorite CDs to watch after dark when we is all cuddled into our blankies after a furry festive day an' evening of playin' an' eatin' an' swingin' from the lampshades! Fur PURRthday gifts I is givin' to Miss Sweet Praline some warm yarn fur her momma to make her a new blankie, some fuzzy pink slippers, a fresh pot 'o 'nip and a cheese mousie filled with the finest Cuban 'nip ever!

I wanna thank Miss Sweet Praline fur her wonderful PAWty an' invitation to help her celly-brate, an' wanna thank my momma, too, cuz it is furry mucho funs to be somewhere specials wifout the rest of the gang.

CRUSH VIDEOS - DOG FIGHING - ANIMAL ABUSE: Are animal torture videos free speech?

Interesting piece from the Chicago Tribune, previewing an animal rights/free speech issue that the Supreme Court is expected to tackle next month:
A tiny white kitten squeals in pain as a flame from a lighter burns his fur. Another terrified kitten cries in agony as it is crushed by a woman's spiked heel. Another video clip shows pit bull dogs viciously ripping into the neck of a trapped pig.

The Supreme Court has often said freedom of speech includes ugly and foul speech, but this fall, the justices will be looking at some of these video clips to decide whether selling films of dog fights or the torture of helpless animals is protected from prosecution under the First Amendment.

The dispute, due to be heard in October, has driven a wedge between traditional free-speech advocates and the defenders of humane treatment of animals.

What do you think? Read the rest of the story here. Here's the New York Times' take on the issue.

Photo of sweet kitty from Katie Tegtmeyer's photostream on Flickr.

Fambly kittens recommend: Homer's Odessey, a story of courage, optimism and love

I have NO interest in the proceeds of this book. I don't know this woman. I can't even tell you how I found out about the book being published, BUT I can tell you this, I have ordered the book and I will read each and every word with a cat (or two) on my lap.

Several years ago I had the honor, and privledge, of adopting a blind dog, Prince. That dog was one of the most precious additions to my home until he left this earth for a better place. If I had the opportunity again, I wouldn't hestitate to adopt a "handicapped" animal, because once you live with one - you find out that it was YOU that was handicapped, not the animal. I think we handicap ourselves when we think that if someone, or an animal, isn't just like us there must be something wrong. That thought couldn't be further from the truth.

A great gift idea for Christmas - for someone else or for you!

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Once in nine lives, something extraordinary happens…

The last thing Gwen Cooper wanted was another cat. She already had two, not to mention a phenomenally underpaying job and a recently broken heart. Then Gwen’s veterinarian called with a story about a three-week-old eyeless kitten who’d been abandoned. It was love at first sight.

Everyone warned that Homer would always be an “underachiever,” never as playful or independent as other cats. But the kitten nobody believed in quickly grew into a three-pound dynamo, a tiny daredevil with a giant heart who eagerly made friends with every human who crossed his path. Homer scaled seven-foot bookcases with ease and leapt five feet into the air to catch flies in mid-buzz. He survived being trapped alone for days after 9/11 in an apartment near the World Trade Center, and even saved Gwen’s life when he chased off an intruder who broke into their home in the middle of the night.

But it was Homer’s unswerving loyalty, his infinite capacity for love, and his joy in the face of all obstacles that inspired Gwen daily and transformed her life. And by the time she met the man she would marry, she realized Homer had taught her the most important lesson of all: Love isn’t something you see with your eyes.

Homer’s Odyssey is the once-in-a-lifetime story of an extraordinary cat and his human companion. It celebrates the refusal to accept limits—on love, ability, or hope against overwhelming odds. By turns jubilant and moving, it’s a memoir for anybody who’s ever fallen completely and helplessly in love with a pet.

FROM THE AUTHOR:

I was twenty-five years old, newly single, and flat broke the day my veterinarian called to tell me about the kitten in need of a home.

An orphaned, four-week-old stray had been abandoned at her office, she said, after a virulent eye infection had required the surgical removal of both of his eyes. The couple that had originally brought him in no longer wanted him nor did any of the people on her adoption list, not even the ones who had expressed a specific interest in adopting a handicapped cat. Nobody, it seemed, wanted to face this particular handicap. I was her last call, the last possibility she could think of, before…

She didn’t finish her sentence, and she didn’t have to. I knew there was almost no chance that an eyeless kitten would be adopted from a shelter before his time ran out.

I had two cats already. The three of us were sleeping in a friend’s spare bedroom while I tried to put my life back together, having moved only a few months earlier from the home I’d shared for three years with the boyfriend I’d just broken up with.

It was, to say the least, far from being an opportune moment to consider adopting a third cat—especially one with special needs who might, for all I knew, require a level of care and attention more intensive than what I could realistically offer.

Still, I hung up the phone having agreed to meet him. Truth be told, I was in tears by the end of my vet’s story. Although I was sure I knew that ultimately I’d have to say “no,” I didn’t have the heart to say it right then.
The following afternoon found me at my vet’s office, standing in an exam room and looking into a small, lidless plastic box that held the kitten. He’s so tiny, was my first thought. Both of my cats had been almost this young when I’d taken them in, but I’d forgotten how absolutely tiny a four-week-old kitten is. He couldn’t have weighed more than a few ounces. He had curled himself up into a miniature sphere in the farthest corner of the box, a fuzzy softball that would have fit easily into the palm of my hand. His fur was all black, and it had that static-electricity fluffiness that very small kittens have, as if their fur has actively rebelled against the notion of lying flat. Where his eyes had been were two tiny stitches, and around his neck was one of those plastic cones they put on pets to keep them from scratching stitches out.

“Hey there,” I said softly. I scrunched down a bit, so my voice would come from the kitten’s level and not sound too booming or scary. “Hey, little guy.”

The black fuzzball in the corner of the box uncurled itself and stood up hesitantly. I tentatively reached a hand—a hand that suddenly seemed monstrous in its size—into the box and lightly scratched the bottom of it. The kitten walked slowly toward the sound, his head bobbing uncertainly under the weight of the plastic cone. His nose bumped against one of my fingers, and he sniffed it curiously.

I glanced up at my vet, who said, “You can pick him up if you want to.”

I lifted him carefully, cradling him just below my chest with one hand supporting his bottom and the other around his chest and front legs. “Hi, little boy,” I whispered.

At the sound of my voice, he turned himself around and reached up to my left shoulder with his front paws; they were so small, they sank between the cables of the light cotton sweater I was wearing. He tried to rub his face against mine, although all I felt was plastic against my cheek. Then he started to purr. The cone funneled the sound until it was so loud, he sounded like an improbably small motor.

I had expected that, having no eyes, he would be incapable of conveying much expression—and it occurred to me that this, perhaps, was the secret fear of the people who’d refused to adopt him. A pet whose face couldn’t register love, couldn’t reflect emotion, might always feel like a stranger in your home.
As I held him, though, I realized that it isn’t the eyes that tell you how someone is feeling or what they’re thinking. It’s the muscles around the eyes, which pull the corners up or push them down, crinkle them at the edges to convey amusement or narrow them into slits indicating anger.

This kitten didn’t have his eyes anymore, but the muscles around them had been left intact. And I could tell, from the shape the muscles were taking, that if he’d had eyelids they would have been half-closed in an expression eminently familiar to me from my other two cats. It was an expression of utter contentment. The ease with which he slipped into it suggested that, despite everything he’d already been through—despite every reason he’d had to expect the opposite—in the depths of his kitten-y little soul, he’d always known there would be a place where he could feel completely warm and secure.

And now, at last, he’d found it.

“Oh, for God’s sake.” I put him gently back into his box, then rooted around in my purse for a tissue. “Wrap him up, I’m taking him home.”

Occasionally, somebody will ask me why I decided to adopt Homer. Most people assume it was because he was blind and helpless, because if I hadn’t taken him nobody else would.

But the truth is, I saw something that day in an eyeless kitten—I saw an innate optimism and happiness, a willingness to greet new people with joy and warmth—that I would never have expected to see in anyone who’d been through the ordeals he had. And I adopted him because when you think you see something so fundamentally worthwhile in someone else, you don’t look for the reasons—like bad timing or a negative bank balance—that might keep it out of your life. You commit to being strong enough to build your life around it, no matter what.

I decided to name him Homer.


Gwen Cooper is the author of the novel Diary of a South Beach Party Girl. A Miami native, she spent five years working in nonprofit administration, marketing, and fundraising. She coordinated volunteer activities on behalf of organizations such as Pet Rescue, the Miami Lighthouse for the Blind, the Miami Rescue Mission, and His House Children’s Home. In conjunction with Hands on Miami and Barnes & Noble, Gwen initiated Reading Pen Pals, an elementary school-based-literacy program in Miami’s Little Haiti. Gwen currently lives in Manhattan with her husband, Laurence, and her three perfect cats—Scarlett, Vashti, and Homer, who aren’t impressed with any of it. You can visit Gwen Cooper’s website at www.gwencooper.com.

World Wide PURR 4 GENEROSITY OF SPIRIT DOESN'T HAVE TO WAIT FOR CHRISTMAS

I wondered a little about Confucius' choice for this week's PURR. I wasn't sure what I would blog about or exactly what was on his mind with this particular topic. But then I went over to his blog and took the time to read and re-read his intent with the subject, which, now, is PURRfectly clear. It's what I have felt all my life and how my parents raised me - the more you give the more you get. Love isn't love until it's given away and so on. I've lived my life like that. Sometimes I think it was a bad thing for me to do because I would have more - right this minute- as I sit here in my kitchen. But, as I look back, I don't know how I could have lived any other way. Whenever someone has needed something - I gave, even if it meant that I would be without. What was so magical is that I was without only momentarily and not permanently.

So Confucius here's to a furry wise cat. And, Confucius, this one's for you:

 On Giving

An excerpt from "The Prophet" by Kahlil Gibran
Then said a rich man, "Speak to us of Giving."
And he answered:

You give but little when you give of your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

For what are your possessions but things
you keep and guard
for fear you may need them tomorrow?
And tomorrow, what shall tomorrow
bring to the overprudent dog
burying bones in the trackless sand as he follows the
pilgrims to the holy city?
And what is fear of need but need itself?
Is not dread of thirst when your well is full,

the thirst that is unquenchable?

There are those who give little
of the much which they have-
and they give it
for recognition and their hidden desire
makes their gifts unwholesome.
And there are those who have little and give it all.
These are the believers in life and the bounty of life,
and their coffer is never empty.
There are those who give with joy,
and their joy is their reward.
And there are those who give with pain,
and that pain is their baptism.
And there are those who give and know not
pain in giving, nor do they seek joy,
nor give with mindfulness of virtue:
They give as in yonder valley the myrtle
breathes its fragrance into space.
Through the hands of such as these God
speaks, and from behind their eyes
He smiles upon the earth.

It is well to give when asked, but it is
better to give unasked, through understanding:
And to the open-handed the search for
one who shall receive is joy greater than giving.
And is there aught your would withhold?
All you have shall some day be given:
Therefore give now, that the season of
giving may be yours and not your inheritors`.

You often say, "I would give, but only to the deserving."
The trees in your orchard say not so,
nor the flocks in your pasture.
They give that they may live,
for to with-hold is to perish.
Surely he who is worthy to receive his
days and nights, is worthy of all else from you.
And he who has deserved to drink from
the ocean of life deserves to fill his cup from your little stream.
And what desert greater shall there be,
than that, which lies in the courage and the
confidence, nay the charity, of receiving?
And who are you that men should rend
their bosom and unveil their pride,
that you may see their worth naked and their pride unabashed?
See first that you yourself deserve to be
a giver, and an instrument of giving.

For in truth it is life that gives unto life-
while you, who deem yourself a giver are but a witness.

And you receivers- and you are all
receivers - assume no weight of gratitude,
lest you lay a yoke upon
yourself and upon he who gives.
Rather rise together with the giver on his gifts as on wings:
For to be overmindful of your debt, is
to doubt his generosity who has the
free-hearted earth for mother, and God for father

Kahlil Gibran's book, published in 1923 is especially relevent and helpful

for these times and is a wonderful gift for yourself or a loved one.

Week 15 of Purrs 4 Peace details are as follows:

* Week fifteen’s appointed time is Sunday, September 20, 2009.
* Participants should purr for three minutes commencing at 3 p.m. EDT (U.S.) which is 8:00 p.m. (20:00 hrs.) BST in the U.K.
* The cat’s human staff should assist their cats with the project by stroking and nuzzling the cat at the appointed time.
* Please post your cat name and the country you purr in at www.confuciuscat.blogspot.com as a COMMENT if you are participating in this historic project. (posting a link to your own website-if you have one-is encouraged.) Or let me know by message on twitter or facebook.
* Posting purrs on facebook ( Acolytes of Confucius Cat or as friend to Alley Mason) and twitter (@ConfuciusCat) is encouraged, since it inspires purring in others, but not required. On twitter please use #purrs4peace in your tweets.

Jon Gosselin Ditching Dogs; Kate Won't Take Care of Them

I imagine that the article speaks for itself. I had read about the abuse of his dogs a while back. All I have to say is that I certainly hope the breeder finds better homes for these two animals. My heart is so totally aching right now. And, yes folks, these are the same "adults" who are raising eight children.

Watch as he loads them up to give them away. He doesn't show any concern for animals that have given him all their love. He's a poor excuse for responsibility, if you ask me.

Credit: INFphoto.com

Jon Gosselin says estranged wife Kate is in the dog house — because she won't take care of his German Shephard puppies, Shoka and Nala. So he is returning them to the breeders. "It's not fair to the dogs to not be wanted in their own home," Jon says. See a photo of Jon playing with his dogs

The dogs belonged to Jon, and he was in charge of feeding, brushing and caring for them. He didn't explain why he won't just bring the dogs with him to New York City – where he rents a  two-bedroom bachelor pad — when it is not his turn to stay at the family's $1.1 million home in Wernersville, Pa.

Earlier in the summer, the Humane Society of Berks County, Pa., received about a dozen complaints from animal activists around the country after Gosselin said his eight kids "beat" the dogs, "climb on them, pull their tails, bite at them, drag them around."

He later denied animal cruelty claims, stating: "We understand the responsibilities of being good dog owners."

♥Surf 'n Turf 'Nip Kitty Kookies♥ Nothin' says l♥vin' like somethin' from the oven

I don't bake much in the summer but during the fall and winter, especially during a blizzard, I like to heat up the kitchen baking. Living alone, I can only bake so much for myself, friends and family so one day I decided it was high time I baked for my critters. This recipe has always been a big hit around my place. Now that fall is in the air, I thought it would be a good time to share one of my feline's favorites with you. Have fun making them! Your furry friends will l♥ve these!

Ingredients

1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 heaping teaspoon catnip
1 large egg
1/3 cup milk or half and half
2 tablespoons wheat germ
1/3 cup powdered milk
1 tablespoon molasses
2 tablespoons bacon drippings

Directions

Preheat oven to 350F. Mix dry ingredients together. Add molasses, egg, oil and milk. Roll out flat onto oiled cookie sheet and cut into small, cat bite-sized pieces. I usually use a pizza cutter for this. Or, every now and then I will use my fish shaped cookie cutter (it's furry tiny). Bake for 20 minutes. Let cool and store in tightly sealed container.

Miss Camille Suzanne - Consumer RePURRter

Miss Camille Suzanne, consumer rePURRter, on the job for your safety and security. Her first assignment was generic in nature.

Rosemary JOY! Can a lady have some privacy, please?

Miss Camille Suzanne - A couple of words on Thursday

♥It's all about moi♥