Tag archives for Cats
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Simon’s cat is a rather complicated book. It’s about… a man named Simon and his cat. Hey! I guess it’s not so complicated after all!
The book tells the story of Simon, a young man with a big cat, who finds a kitten in a box in his backyard. Feeling pity for the kitten, Simon brings it into his home. But without his knowledge, the kitten gets into quite some trouble. It begins to fight with Simon’s other cat, and destroys everything in the home! Yet Simon always comes at the wrong times- when it looks like his cat is the culprit. This sparks a lot of arguments and competitions between Simon’s cat and the kitten.
The kitten is constantly playing tricks on Simon’s cat and getting itself into dangerous situations, such as playing with the hedgehogs or releasing the rabbits. It also ruins the cat’s litter box, and rips Simon’s pants and shoes! The fights are endless! It seems like the cat and the kitten will never be friends! But towards the end of the book, the cat and the kitten learn to get along. They begin to get used to each other, and they even become friends.
I enjoyed this book. It really gives you an image of what the story is trying to tell! I would recommend it to anyone, even young children. Through silly pranks and stupendous surprises, the story of Simon’s cat and the kitten is truly a great one. And the greatest surprise yet? The entire book is in pictures!
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How did Holly the housecat find her way back to her home 200 miles away? Scientists aren’t sure. “Any animal that comes back to the right place after a long travel, or comes back to the same place again and again following a major movement, is amazing,” said Martin Wikelski, a migration expert at the Max Planck Institute.
There are plenty of animals who are very good at finding their way. The European eel, which travels thousands of miles from the place it was born to spawn. Mexican free-tailed bats fly up to 40 miles away from their home caves while they’re hunting for dinner, and are able to find their way back home.
Read about more amazing animal navigators on National Geographic News.
Get the facts on your favorite animals on National Geographic Kids.
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Something very special happened on Monday, it was my birthday! It was an amazing week of fun and celebration in Montenegro. We stayed in Perast, an old stone fishing village. After my chocolate covered birthday croissant we visited the little island in the bay. It is a manmade island built on top of hundreds of ocean ships and rocks. We toured the beautiful church and museum in honor of the Blessed Mary. Later in the day we went on a magical sunset boat ride through the bay and into Porto Montenegro. The water was so still it’s almost like a lake, but it is FREEZING!
On Monday we climbed up the old walls to the top of Kotor, a nearby town and looked down upon the stunning city. We visited Sveti Stefan which is the quintessential picture of Montenegro. It was once a little fishing village but is now a five star resort where we had a wonderful lunch on the cliffs gazing at the sparkling ocean. Later we had an awesome swim in the Adriatic.
A few days later we saw six incredible bottle nose dolphins trained by the US Navy to search for sea mines and other explosives left over from the wars of Montenegro’s past. We were there for the last day of their mission and saw the dolphins put on a show. They did all kinds of tricks like playing catch, jumping through hoops, and sliding onto the boat.
In the next village we saw mosaics that dated back to 230 B.C. They were very detailed, one even had Hypnos the Greek God of dreams who watched over them while they slept and controlled their dreams.
During the week I became friends with a caramel colored stray kitten that I named Snuggles. On our last day there was another huge storm. The rain was pouring and when we were walking back home after dinner there was a gust of wind that I thought was going to blow us away. I felt like Dorothy in Wizard of Oz during the tornado. “Toto I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.” Montenegro and my birthday were amazing!
Posted by BOOK NAME: Cats vs. Dogs
AUTHOR: Elizabeth Carney
Cats vs. Dogs is about which pet is the best. There are a lot of contests in the book like Senses, Diet, Communication, and Behavior. The book tells you what each animal can do or is like. At the end of each little chapter, there’s a box that tells you who’s the winner–cats, dogs, or a tie.
Cats won a lot and dogs won a lot. It’s really a tie, so in the Final Showdown it shows that there’s not really one winner, there’s two…it’s a tie.
The books tells you some interesting facts like if cats have a twitchy tail, it means the cat is ready to pounce. Some other facts about cats are when “cats sweep their tails from side to side when they’re feeling excited or aggressive.” We looked at our cat Archie and his tail was straight up which means he was happy.
This is what dogs do about their tails: “Happy dogs wag their tails from side to side or round and round like a propeller.” Also, “when dogs are scared they tuck their tail between their legs.” “Dogs hold their tails still and upright when they sense danger.” We couldn’t really see our dog Jibber’s feelings…mostly because she doesn’t really have a tail; she only has half a tail.
And that’s what Cats vs. Dogs is all about. I would recommend it for ages maybe 5 through 10. I’m in second grade and it was a really easy book for me and I think everyone would really like it.
Posted by BOOK NAME: Bunnicula
AUTHOR: Deborah and James Howe
I’m back with a book called Bunnicula. This is a series of books, so if you read this one, I think you’ll like the others.
It’s about this family that goes to the movie Dracula and they find this bunny in the movie theater. They take it home and they name it Bunnicula.
This story is mainly about this cat named Chester and a dog named Harold. Chester likes to read and Harold is pretty much just a dog – he likes to sleep.
Some strange stuff starts happening. At the house where Bunnicula lives, all of the vegetables start turning white. But nothing else…just the vegetables! Chester starts being suspicious (Harold…not so much). Chester reads a vampire book and Bunnicula matches every single thing about a vampire. Harold and Chester come up with a plan…
I’m not going to tell you the rest…because I want you to read it. This time, I’m going to do something different. If you’ve read the book, tell me who’s your favorite character and why. My favorite character is Harold the dog because he does all these flopsy things…he sneaks into the pantry and steals a chocolate cupcake (his favorite).
If you haven’t read the book, tell me if you think you’ll read it.
See you next time!
Posted by BOOK NAME: Runaway Ralph
AUTHOR: Beverly Cleary
Ralph, a talking mouse with his own little motorcycle, felt under respected so he ran away from the hotel where he lived with his family. He drove to a summer camp and became the pet of a nice boy there, who kept him in a cage in the craft shop next to Chum, a cranky guinea pig.
A cat named Catso stole a watch from a girl and she accused the nice boy of doing it. The boy then found out that Ralph could talk and asked him to help find the watch. Ralph found it in Catso’s bed and put it in the girls’ locker room, where the girl found it and stopped being mean to the boy. When summer camp came to an end, Ralph drove back home to the hotel.
I think Ralph would be a fun pet. I have an old dog named Sonny but he can’t do much of anything any more because he’s 13 years old in human years, 91 in dog years.
In this book, I really liked how Ralph was able to drive a motorcycle and he did a neat trick to get it on the road. This was a fun adventure and easy to read. There are more books about Ralph, but this is the only one I’ve read so far. I’d recommend checking it out.
They can fly on a new airline just for pets that launched this month called Pet Airways. The planes’ interior cabins are appointed with pet carriers instead of seats, and the pets are checked on regularly by flight attendants. Airports offering service on Pet Airways even have pre-flight lounges for dogs and cats to wait in.
Read more about Pet Airways on USA Today’s Today in the Skies blog.
Make a cool dog bed or kitty condo for your pet on National Geographic Kids.
As you may already know, cats can really get your attention when they want to. A new study has shown that kitty may even make a special sound to do so! Cats have the ability to combine their usual purr with a whining noise that is similar to the noise an upset human baby makes. This subtle noise may make the cat’s owner more likely to feed it rather than ignoring it.
Study leader Karen McComb from the University of Sussex in the U.K. notes that not all cats make this purr-whine noise. Cats are more likely to purr-whine if they’re the only cat in the household–possibly because the sound is more likely to be overlooked when there are multiple cats vying for attention. A louder meow could be more effective in multi-cat houses.
Get the story on the cat’s purr on National Geographic News.
See cat pictures in the Photo Gallery.
Photograph courtesy Wildlife Conservation Society
Conservationists have been trapping snow leopards in Afghanistan–but don’t worry, they’re using cameras, not cages! To set the camera traps in remote snow leopard territory, the conservationists and park rangers had to travel for a week on horses (or yaks). After setting the traps, they left and waited.
Four out of five camera traps ended up capturing images of the elusive big cats. This is great news for the snow leopards. Due to poaching and humans hunting their prey, there aren’t many snow leopards left in Afghanistan. In fact, conservationists have estimated there are only about 100 of the cats living in the country This estimate is largely an educated guess, but conservationists say that the photos mean that there is a chance for the population to recover.
Learn more about the snow leopard photos on National Geographic News.
Watch a video about clouded leopards on National Geographic Kids.
Photograph by Meghan Murphy/National Zoo
Earlier this month, two clouded leopard cubs were born at the National Zoo’s Conservation and Research Center in Front Royal, Virginia. This is the first successful clouded leopard birth at the center in 16 years!
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Mimi Ausland, 12, really loves animals! After visiting a website that donates rice to hungry people, she was inspired to create a similar website to help dogs and cats in animal shelters. When visitors answer a trivia question on Freekibble.com or Freekibblekat.com, they donate 10 pieces of kibble to Mimi’s project. Mimi’s sites have been a huge hit, and she has been featured in several articles both online and in print.
Mimi is passionate about her work collecting food for shelter animals. “I love helping animals because of how they cannot speak for themselves and people have to speak for them. I also love being able to help them get good healthy food and actually delivering the food myself to our local shelter–and I really like making other people aware that they need our help,” she says.
Photograph courtesy Kelly Ausland
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