plus ca change .....
http://gizmodo.com/the-pigeon-guided-missiles-and-bat-bombs-of-world-war-i-1477007090

And the Russian's used anti-tank dogs in WW2, although not with complete success. In combat when faced with unusual German tanks the dogs got confused and tended to run back to their own lines, with their bomb intact, and try to hide under the familiar Russian tanks!

Wiki : Anti-tank dogs

And going way back in time doesn't Pliny the Elder somewhere mention the use of 'burning pigs' against war elephants?

Meles meles wrote:

Trike, that is interesting (to me at least)  ... and I think it deserves a new thread of it's own, no?

I think we can do that, Meles. I'll get it started

A history of violence;

Pooh - Bosworth would have him for breakfast. That Yankee cat is all fat and fur.

Temp, who is Bosworth?

"Yo, Fatboy, so you want to talk 'history of violence'?"




Bosworth is a farm cat who thinks he controls a large area of North Devon.

Thanks Temp. Bosworth looks as though he might have a hint of wild cat in his ancestry, even though he is from Devon.

http://highlandtiger.com/wildcat_facts.asp

That's not actually Bos, Trike; it's his doppelganger. Looks identical though - even to the chewed ears.

I loved that, Trike - thank you (mieow).

  

But we are getting far too frivolous on this thread again. Find a historical cat, quick.

Not historical Temp but contemporary, better than a smoke alarm (possibly);

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-26783232

Just been reading the giant rat story you posted in the bar, Trike. Bosworth was appalled at this wimpishness - thought Viking moggies were supposed to be tough?

Even the family cat had refused to enter the kitchen while the giant rat was in residence, father Erik Korsas told BBC News.

It's like something from the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

They fought the dogs and killed the cats.

When I was in town yesterday one shop had a weathered looking sign in the window reading "This is the cat's house, we just pay the mortgage"

I have been "googling" to see if I can find the 1980s advert (as in on an advertisement board rather than a TV short) where a cat who was dressed up like Burglar Bill was drying to get at some (I think Ross's) fish with dynamite.  It reminds me a bit of ferval's avatar but I have had no luck.  I did find a link to a history of small cats in advertising (well twentieth century onward) http://www.elve.net/panim/en/cat.htm

This was taking things a bit far;


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalking_Cat

I'm not sure whether it's okay to insert the actual video or whether I should have just done the link but there are quite a few videos on YouTube about Murkin the dog and various kittens and cats his owner has fostered over the years (unfortunate name for the dog I know - his owner states that when she named him she did not know the meaning of the word with an "e" instead of a "u").  She hasn't posted for a while now but this one shows Murkin with a young cat that his owner has taken in for keeps who has a condition that makes his gait wobbly though apparently he is in no pain.  The cat is called Wobblepants.

Anybody else remember any of these fictional cats that I recall from childhood/adolescence?
Princess Tai-Lu http://www.lookandlearn.com/history-images/ROA1958-925-00/Princess-Tai-Lu?cat=31~Nursery_annuals_etc  Prudence Kitten  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-25140676

Mr Twink http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alienor/MrTwink.htm
and Bagpuss http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8425212.stm

More recently I came across a couple of fictional cats who solve mysteries Francis http://felidae.wikia.com/wiki/Francis whose stories are somewhat dark and Midnight Louie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_Louie

I have had to confine my kitty to barracks today.  I went out to try and play catch-up with some gardening (lazy woman's way - squirting a 24 hour weedkiller on to weeds).  It's supposed to be safe for  pets after 24 hours.  She sneaked out and was sniffing round the weeds I had squirted so I grabbed her (miracle I was able to do that), brought her in and blocked the cat-flap.

Don't worry about clicking 'OK' at the beginning, this is quite innocent - at least in content. I'm always a little sceptical about these 'co-incidentally filmed' events.

Cats grrr! I suspect that I must smell like cat mint because they come out of the woodwork to be friendly - whichever continent I'm in; the stalking leopard I was once warned about in the foothills however may have had other priorities. A lovely black fluffy cat that terrorises fledgling black birds in the garden undergrowth will not be shooed away but instead puts on a show at my feet. You know that rolling about looking cute and then demanding stroking and weaving about wherever one steps.  I haven't the heart to give it a kick which might resolve  the intrusion. The gadget that make a high pitched sound would distress the dogs in other gardens. Open doors have them piling in to loll about on the chairs or explore the house. Until recently we have always had a cat or three who dominated  the scene and all living to great ages so perhaps I should get another resident but we were so enjoying our independence - until fluffy black began his move. Grr cats!

Cats eh?!?

I had nobody arriving today so had the opportunity to take the dog for a good long brisk walk. We set off at a cracking pace but one of the cats, never wanting to miss out on anything, decided to tag along too. She gamely managed to keep up for about a mile, but then started to complain. So at about a mile and a half, with the cat now trailing well behind and loudly protesting, we turned around and headed back. And at a few hundred yards from home she just lay down in the road and wouldn't budge, so I ended up carrying her the last bit. Though she managed to shin up a tree easy enough as soon as we'd got back into the garden.

Mind you the dog was plodding a bit today too. He's starting to get a little bit porky, so from tonight he's going on a diet and with lots more exercise .... although preferably without Puss.

Cats Eh? You'd never get a cat to work like this, it knows its place is beside the fire.
It would be one way of getting doggy-dog's weight down though, MM.



http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/05/13/311127237/turnspit-dogs-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-vernepator-cur

This has cheered me up - slightly.



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2110957/Art-FUR-arts-sake-Russian-artist-recreates-famous-paintings-featuring-fat-cat.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-27507950

Re B and B's with resident cats, a magazine - possibly the Cats' Protection League,  now lists places that have resident cats after enquiries from people who seek them. They might go international if MM gets on the list. 
 A local shop has a very popular mog that usually sprawls on the counter by the cash desk in the pet food department. Dogs on leads are also allowed in here to presale sample from the floor bins. At a guess, Health and Safety are a bit relaxed in these parts which is no bad thing.

Here is a well behaved moggy;

I had a cat that tried to make the flush work - and did sometimes.

No one has mentioned cats for the decline in garden butterflies. Our visiting cat catches them between front paws and then eats them. A loud hiss from me makes it run away - much as Res Hiss has a similar effect, I guess.

Had a lovely, I don't think, thunder storm here this morning.  My feline friend went and hid under the bed.  Maybe Temperance's Bosworth is more intrepid.

Temperance's Bosworth has turned out to be a drug-befuddled drop-out. He ignores the obese rabbits who are eating everything in my garden and spends his time either rolling in an ecstatic frenzy in the catmint or sleeping it off. I don't think he's heard the thunder.

http://www.catster.com/lifestyle/cat-behavior-tips-humor-stoned-totally-legal

I had some cat mint which grew beautifully while it was at the seedling stage indoors but as soon as I transferred it outdoors the neighbourhood cats loved it so much that they rolled in it and killed it before the roots could properly take anchor.  I never have that problem with weeds such as mare's tail, dandelions and coltsfoot etc.  They grow in profusion.

Romulus, Remus and - Tiddles.
http://timesonline.typepad.com/dons_life/2014/06/italys-first-moggy.html#more

Such an important moggy cannot be referred to as Tiddles, ferval. His full name is Claudius Agrippa Maximus Germanicus Felix Tiddles Nero, better known to his mates on bin night as Little Paws.

Not a cat to cross.

Oh dear Trike, what a sad post.  Poor Tobermory - in his case a little learning certainly proved a dangerous thing.  In the Akif Pirincci novels (only about three of which were translated from the original German - not that my German is up to the reading novels stage) there is a cat detective, Francis.  Francis is a clever moggy indeed (he can use a computer - though the novels were written in the days of DOS) and solves feline murder mysteries but he never lets his resident human know that he can understand human language.

There's been some discussion about cats on the Tumbleweed Thread of late.  I'm just posting a link to the CPL picture of the winner of their "Cat of the Year" award http://www.cats.org.uk/media/nca-media/ concerning a cat who has lived rough but has now been taken in.

On ITV last night there was a programme "The Secret Life of Cats". One of the cats featured was Sugar a deaf albino from Boston, Massachusetts who fell 19 storeys and survived with only bruising;




This pair featured as well;

Something for everyone here: moggies, great writers and even Jean-Paul Sartre!

http://bookhaven.stanford.edu/2012/09/what-do-truman-capote-ernest-hemingway-philip-k-dick-and-jean-paul-sartre-have-in-common/

Here is Truman Capote with his moggy - a lovely picture, I think.





The link mentions a "gnarly old tomcat" called Charlemagne who appears in the novel "The Golden Gate" by Vikram Seth. Seth wrote his book in five hundred and ninety Pushkin (Onegin) tetrameter sonnets, like you do.

Ah, John, don’t take it all for granted.
Perhaps you think Liz loves you best.
The snooker table has been slanted.
A cuckoo’s bomb lies in the nest.
Be warned. Be warned. Just as in poker
The wildness of that card, the joker
Disturbs the best-laid plans of men,
So too it happens, now and then,
That a furred beast with feral features
(Little imagined in the days
When, cute and twee, the kitten plays),
Of that familiar brood of creatures
The world denominates a cat,
Enters the game, and knocks it flat.

PS Some great pictures here, including one of Jean-Paul Sartre's cat proofreading "Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology".

http://writersandkitties.tumblr.com/

Is your cat clinically depressed?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2764512/How-modern-life-making-moggie-miserable-Growing-evidence-suggests-way-treat-cat-leaving-stressed-depressed.html

I don't think my cat's depressed, Temperance.  She hasn't lost her appetite, though she has a way of changing her "favourite" food quite often.  Good job there isn't anybody overhearing me when I say things like "I'm living on a pension, you know, I'm not made of money" to the cat.

Has anybody heard of a series of children's books, The Scaredy Cats' Club by Shoo Rayner.  I occasionally look at his drawing channel and found videos of readings of two of the stories:- 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pgdmN-d08E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUo4LX0ryG0

"Frankatstein" and "Bluebeard's Cat".  They are good but I found them a bit scary for me never mind kids.  While I don't have any friends' grand-children or children to buy books for at present I'm all at sea when it comes to the current 21st century crop of children's literature and what a modern child might enjoy.  Would these be suitable?  When I think of children's books I still think of Enid Blyton, Rutherford G Montgomery and other writers from the time I was a child myself, but as the old adage goes, times have changed.

Not as profound as some of the postings here - but I've just found out my new nextdoor neighbours have 2 dire wolves.  (ID will understand the reference).  Well that is a slight exaggeration but they have a couple of huskies and the gentleman was telling me one of them floored a stag on Cannock Chase (a local beauty spot) recently.  They have been cutting down the hedge between my garden and the theirs (back) today but it seems the plan is to put in a stout fence with a concrete base so that never the twain [the dogs and the cat] shall meet.  I just hope my cat has enough common sense to stay her side of the fence.  I'm wondering whether to confine her to barracks until the fence goes up.

It is time to rid ourselves of these menaces ...

Cats kill 275 million other animals a year

Maybe the butler didn't do it. But the cat probably did

And one brave man who has decided to stand up for endangered species against these little psychopaths ...

Kill the Cat That Kills the Bird?

You are sticking your neck out a bit saying that, Nordmann.  My cat was acquired to be a pet but she was also to scare off some mice that were coming in from the house adjacent [on the other side to where the dire wolves have just moved in].  The chap who used to live there was in care and his son can't sell the house because the Council have a right over it to claim back some of the care fees for when the gentleman was being looked after [when it is eventually sold].  It's in even worse nick than mine, mind - but with the house inhabited Pixie's and Dixie's relations had moved in.  My cat hasn't caught a mouse yet but I haven't seen any since I've had her.

I admit that cats are predators but I don't think it's just cats that take birds.  There are birds of prey who take smaller birds and - in the UK at least - the encroachment of the towns into what used to be countryside must have destroyed some bird habitat.  Maybe Meles meles knows more about this than me - but song-birds certainly used to be taken for the pot in some parts of France. I stayed with some people in France many years ago and didn't realise until after the event I had eaten some thrush pie (obviously before I became a vegetarian).

The one that got away (so far)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-30035666

Sometimes, they come back:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-31018677