7 Ways To Incorporate Cute Critters Into Your Professional Wear

Like Mary Lambert, I’m usually pretty content to rock “mom jeans” and “cat earrings.” My criteria for making fashion purchases are as follows: 1) Does it fit? 2) Is it comfortable? and 3) Can I wear Converse with it?  But sometimes, life requires me to wear things that are “business casual” or “business attire.” As a college kid with little money and a lot of feelings, I am hyperaware of the intersections of capitalism, queerness, and fashion (specific wardrobe components or fashion aesthetics should never be a requirement for inclusion in any community!). As a person who shops in plus sizes, things are extra challenging because the clothes that are marketed for my body are often more expensive than smaller sizes. When I’m shopping for things that might be professional attire, I think it’s less soul-crushing when said items have cute animals on them, OR when I can sneak in accessories with cute animals on them.  So without further ado, here are seven exciting ways to make your workwear a little more quirky and nature-inspired.

1. Dress and a blazer

Band Of Outsiders Blazers
Penny Loves Kenny Flats

Since my gender presentation is usually a little femme of center, this tends to be my go-to business attire combination. I have a few versatile dresses that can be dressed up or down, and throwing a blazer over something makes it instantly classy. However, none of my dresses are as cute as this one from Modcloth because puppies make everything instantly more awesome.

 2. Classy button-downs

Naked & Famous Longsleeve Shirts Giorgio Brutini Slip-ons & Loafers

Those who prefer pantsuits can sneak a fun pattern into their ensemble with an animal-themed button-down. Wearing an exciting print with a dark or neutral suit is probably an acceptable way to go. Not into suits? Tuck a fitted button-down into a skirt. And of course, button-downs work super well with various types of pants if you have the option to be business casual.

 3. Fun sweaters

Comme des Garcons Longsleeve Tops
Gucci Slip-ons & Loafers

I have a sweater with giant cat on it that I absolutely love. Layering a fun sweater over a chambray or button-down can take you from cozy to classy in seconds, but you’re still letting your love of animals shine.

 4. Cardigans

Sunnygirl Cardigans Romwe Cardigans

Cardigans are amazingly versatile. They’re comfortable but also presentable, and can be a great way to add character to an outfit. My favorite cardigan is camel-colored with a gray cat print on it, and the neutral colors but fun pattern are the perfect combination (sadly it’s all sold out though). You can layer cardigans over dresses, button-downs and pants, shirts and skirts — anything really.

 5. Scarves and ties

Givenchy Ties
Target Scarves & Wraps

Scarves are a staple of my wardrobe because they add variety to even the most simple outfit: changing up a scarf choice can make the same jeans and a t-shirt look really different. I personally treat scarves kind of how some folks treat statement necklaces: a cool accessory that adds personality to an outfit. My favorite scarf is like the zebra one pictured but it’s a mossy green background instead of yellow, which means it goes with everything. The patterns on scarves and ties can be subtle or more pronounced, but you’re still personalizing what could’ve been an otherwise boring outfit. Try adding a scarf to a plain dress and blazer, a shirt and cardigan, or wear it over a button-down. There are so many stylish options!

 6. Jewelry

Nordstrom Rack Rings MANGO Necklaces

I’m not a big fan of jewelry (other than my nose piercing, which I love), and I know that it’s not for everyone. However, if you are a person who enjoys accessorizing with jewelry, you have a wide variety of options for incorporating critters into your ensembles. If an animal exists (or even if it has gone extinct), someone has probably made a necklace of it. Animal earrings and rings are also super trendy at the moment, which is great if you are looking for a small and subtle way to add animals to an outfit.

 7. Shoes

T.U.K. Flats T.U.K. Shoes

Unfortunately, I have yet to encounter a workplace that believes Converse or Doc Martens qualify as business attire. This leaves me with flats or oxfords, which are fine. But why go for normal shoes when you can have shoes with cats on them?

I’m not claiming to be a fashion expert by any means, nor am I claiming that this list is inclusive of every style and gender presentation. There are probably thousands of trendy queer workplace looks that my brain cannot even conceive of! Animal accessories are helpful for me because I can keep a few basic work items in my wardrobe and change them up with less expensive (and more interesting) items that are easier to repurpose. Hopefully this list can be a starting point for folks who are looking to bring their love of critters into their workwear!

30 Cat Fonts, Because Those Exist

The internet is made of cats, and thank goodness, because that means we get to have approximately nine million cat fonts. That’s an estimate, but I bet I’m pretty close. I rounded up 30 free cat fonts because you need them in your life, and with that many choices, you can have your pick of the litter. You’re welcome.

1. Vamp Kitten

I can’t say for sure why this kitten is a vampire, but she is. One of the best thing about cats is how bendy they are. I truly believe this to be a very realistic depiction.

2. Cats Alphabet

Guys, “M” is two cats holding paws. Holding paws!

3. Cat

The title of this font is what you’re going to get. Pretty straight-forward, there. I’m getting creepy vibes from “O,” though.

4. Bad Black Cat

No one can say for certain what makes this cat “bad” because he looks pretty normal to me. Eyeless, but other than that, pretty normal. If he was like, scratching the couch while maintaining eye contact, I could see the badness level, but hmm.

5. That Darn Cat

Because when you write out “the darn cat gets paw printz all over everything,” not every letter is showcased?

6. WW KuteKats

Please note that this font is lower case only. How cute is that?! That makes them all kittens, right? little baby letter kittens.

7. Kitty Cats

This seems to be a pretty hit or miss font, like what is going on with “I” there? But “P” is super great, so we’ll let it slide.

8. Austie Bost Kitten Klub

Can’t argue with that logic. I do appreciate a good kitty in heels, though. Wait! Kitten… heels… DO YOU GET IT.

9. Ali-Cat

Ali let me take over her column for the weekend, so this one is special just for her.

10. Addie

I’m not sure who Addie is. Do you think La Vie Dansante just took pictures of her cat and made it an abstract font? Because that’s what I think.

11. AEZ Black Cat 

This one was a stretch but it had cats, so, here you go.

12. AEZ Crazy Cats

The cat on the head, the cat on the head! THE CAT WEDDING. This is truly the greatest of fonts.

13. BM Neco

Everyone is just jealous I have this font, clearly.

14. BJF Kat n Mouse Font

Dalmation cat. Or are they heart polkadots? Do you think that’s a dead mouse hanging out of her mouth with the letters on it? Consider this.

15. LMS Cat Treats

8-Bit Cat Treats. I think the ones with the fuzzy side are strange, but you do you.

16. Cat Cat

I want to say the letters are made out of Swiss cheese. Do you agree? Am I way off?

17. Katz Catz

I see what you did there, Katz, and I heart it.

18. Catt Art 

The sheer range of illustrative styles boggle my mind on this one, but look at “T.” That cat and dog are best buds!

19. CatBats

Perhaps it is called CatBats because all cats featured have large ears? Can’t be positive here. That last cat doesn’t look happy about being a font, though.

20. Catstuff

YOU: Whatcha up to?

ME: Oh, you know, Catstuff.

21. Kitty Face

All the kitty faces on everything! Sometimes tails, as well. Paws? Got ’em.

22. Karen’s Kitties

Karen goes to great lengths to give us a broad range to work with here, including but not limited to: cats wearing clothes and a cat about to lick its own ass, for sure.

23. Border Cats

So many horizontally flipped choices! I’m not sure what happened to “m” and “n” but I’m worried for them.

24. Cats CSP

For those times you just really need a leaping letter, “M” has your back. Also, I think “O” is a cat hanging out with a pillow on a fence, waiting up all night to serenade you.

25. CatCrypt

I’m skeptical about calling this a crypt, because those cats all look pretty alive. Except “r” and maybe “M.”

26. FB Nyan

Download this one immediately, you need it.

27. Cats vs Dogs

In case you’re wondering who wins this competition, just know that the dogs are all lowercase.

28. LCR Cat’s Meow

Gosh, I’m so glad this font allows me to use pictures of cats wearing clothes and also whatever “J” is doing there.

30. KR Black Kat

There’s a cat on those there letters.

Any that I missed/should immediately know about and exclusively use?

This has been a special hijacked ninty-first installment of  Queer Your Tech with Fun, Autostraddle’s nerdy tech column. Not everything we cover is queer per se, but we talk about customizing this awesome technology you’ve got. Having it our way, expressing our appy selves just like we do with our identities. Here we can talk about anything from app recommendations to choosing a wireless printer to web sites you have to favorite to any other fun shit we can do with technology. Header by Rory Midhani.

The Autostraddle Guide to Adopting Your Furry Best Friend: Cat and Kitten Edition

Before we begin:

via Cara Welfare Philippines, by way of Bored Panda

Okay, are we all properly misty-eyed now? No one can argue with animal adoption — offering a space in your home to a being who doesn’t have one, or even opposable thumbs, is a worthy cause. And we’re already on board with the Adopt Don’t Shop philosophy (adoption means saving a life!).

Let me tell you where I’m coming from: I’ve adopted three cats in my life. And not just cats, kittens. I never go in intending to adopt a kitten. I’m always like, I’ll adopt an older cat! They’ve already been socialized, they know manners, they’re not going to put everything in their mouths, it’s harder for them to find homes, etc. But the wand chooses the wizard, Harry, and the cat chooses the people. The first kitten I ever adopted jumped on my shoulder and then into my bag. The second kitten reached out through the bars of her cage and literally grabbed my fiancée by the arm and pulled her in close. The third started purring the instant I picked him up, he nuzzled into the crook of my elbow and the adoption specialist said, “Ugh. Please just take him. Just take him.”

We’ve covered adopting dogs. Now let’s talk about adopting kittens. Here are a few things you need to know and have when you’re taking home your very first feline fur-baby, speaking from the perspective of an adopter having done this three times now.

via Core Naturapthics

Are You Ready For a Kitten?

Kittens are far more than cute bundles of joy to hug and squeeze (lightly) and love. Remember that kittens grow into cats. My cat growing up lived to be 21. So you’re signing up to be a cat parent for a sizable chunk of time, if all goes well. And you’re signing up to deal with it if it doesn’t all go well (more on this later). Also remember that pets are part of the family — you’re going to need to care for this being through thick and thin, through cross country or even international moves. So here’s a small checklist.

• If you’re a renter, does your landlord allow cats? Are you aware of special circumstances surrounding pets in your building that you need to know about (like a deposit or pet rent)? If you’re already familiar, are those special circumstances something you can deal with? If you move, you intend to find housing that will allow your kitten, right?
• What about your lifestyle — does it fit a kitten right now? Having a kitten is kinda like having a sugar-high toddler. Kittens have a boatload of energy and none of the street smarts (or manners) that an older cat might have. You’re about to spend a ton of time pulling no-no items out of the kitten’s mouth, redirecting furniture scratching to appropriate scratching areas, and just generally staying up and worrying (kittens are babies, see if you don’t worry a little!). If you work non-stop or travel a lot, who’s gonna do that? Shelter animals often come from chaotic environments and they’re going to need their new forever home to be as stable as possible.
• Do you have the room? Sure, cats require less room than dogs. But lest ye have a 15 pound behemoth of a cat with weight-caused health issues, you need enough room for playtime, not to mention the litter box and the food dishes.
• Do you have the financial means to cover the adoption fees, food, supplies and medical care? If you can’t afford it, don’t do it! Volunteer at a shelter instead.
• Have you talked to everyone else you live with (partner, roommates, family, etc.) about adopting a kitten? Do they know what responsibilities they’ll have (litter box, making sure the house remains kitten proofed) when the new baby comes home? Also “talk” to any other pets that live in the house — are they good with cats? If you’ve got cat-aggressive dogs or a cat that would prefer to be an only furbaby, now may not be the time.
• Are you ready to take on the long-term responsibility that is kitten adoption?
• Are you ready to snuggle, love and possibly be groomed by your new bestie beastie?

If you answered yes to all these questions, or are willing and able to make adjustments to your “no” answers, sounds like you’re ready to start your kitten journey!

This image is actually desktop wallpaper.

Okay, Now Are You Emotionally Ready for A Kitten?

I ask this completely sincerely. What are your motives here? And here’s why I ask it: have you recently lost a pet? I have. The first kitten I ever adopted, Puck (who y’all know from the Tampon Cat Toy photos), grew into a 3-year-old cat and got cancer. We did everything we could for him, but he lost his battle while I was away at A-Camp (luckily we are a two-person household, or I wouldn’t have been able to get to Camp at all). My fiancée and I decided to adopt another kitten for a multitude of reasons: our other cat (who y’all know from the Kitten-Approved Gin photos) needed a cat-friend to hang with (she was very sad), our family didn’t feel complete, and mostly? I wanted to honor Puck’s memory by offering the space in our home to another furbaby. That made emotional sense to me. But I’m still jumpy — I’m still looking for signs that the new kitten is going to die (probably he is not going to die and I’m just traumatized). So was I emotionally ready to adopt a kitten? I think probably as ready as I’ll be in a long while, but the jury is still out. Do I still think it was a good decision? Absolutely — I love our new little family member. But I still think it’s a good question to ask yourself. Did you just go through a break up? Did you just experience loss? Are you adopting a kitten because you think it will solve a problem? All things to think about before making a commitment that is definitely not as temporary as your emotional state. Bottom line: Do you have the emotional energy to devote to this right now? Do you have the capacity to be a good cat-parent despite your personal upheavals? If the answer is no, wait a while. Your kitten will find you when the time is right.

What to Expect From The Adoption Process

Finding Your Shelter

It is tempting to go about finding your kitten in the standard way, and there’s honestly probably nothing wrong with it. That way, in this day and age, is going on Petfinder and finding a kitten that you like the look of. That’s actually not how I recommend you do things. I recommend finding the shelter. You can’t tell anything about a kitten from the picture and the description anyway — rarely does one actually adopt the animal that piqued their interest, in my experience. Case in point: my brother and I recently looked at the same cat at St. Hubert’s Animal Shelter. With my brother, he was a lovely purring puddle. With my fiancée and I, he was a growling terrified demon. The best description and picture in the world isn’t going to tell you anything about your compatibility with the kitten. But Petfinder is a good way to see what shelters you’ve got in your area and what kind of animals they generally house.

Then go pay them a visit. With your actual body. Is the shelter clean and stable? Do you like the way they’re treating their animals? Do you like working with the people? When they speak to you, are they giving you good clear information? That’s how you know your kitten is coming to you from a loving home, a place with people who you will enjoy working with. If you have a regular pet store whose employees you like and trust, consider finding out if that pet store runs adoption days for local shelters. See who they work with and why. Find the shelter first, the kitten will come out of that experience. Who knows? Maybe your new kitten will reach out and grab you, too!

A baby Maddie Taterka (Autostraddle Contributing Editor) with her baby kitteh.

Some Common Adoption Practices: A Glossary

Not all shelters run the same way, so it’s hard to tell you exactly what you’ll be going through. But here are a few common terms and practices you’ll see around.

Home Visit. Some shelters will come visit your house before they’ll adopt a cat out to you. Pros: this shelter really cares about their kittens and about fit, and they will honestly tell you if they don’t think the kitten you’ve picked is the right little guy for you. If you’re new at kittens, you can glean a lot of information from these volunteers and professionals, so ask all the questions. They’re your encyclopedia for however long they’re in your living room. Cons: this process can take longer (but kittens are worth the wait!) and can leave you feeling like you’re inadequate, or like the shelter is trying to catch you out. They’re not. Keep in mind, the shelter really wants you to have this kitten. The home visits are there to make sure you know exactly what you’re doing, and that you don’t pick a nervous, only-pet kinda kitten when you’ve already got a feisty Pomeranian.

Adoption Fee. This varies depending on region, but most shelters charge an adoption fee anywhere from $50-$200 (adoption fees for dogs tend to be more than cats at any given shelter). My fees have always been in the $125 range. This kind of fee covers processing and paid help at a shelter, as well (sometimes) spaying/neutering and/or shots and vaccinations. Make sure you ask what’s included and what procedures have already been done (you’ll need this information when you have your first vet visit). Don’t ever believe the lie you tell yourself that you’ll remember what they tell you about their vet records, you won’t. So get it on paper or right it down as they say it. Sometime shelters will waive adoption fees for hard-to-place animals, but this rarely happens with kittens as kittens are generally easier to home.

Indoor-Only. I won’t get too much into my personal philosophy on this one (all of my cats forever have been indoor), but shelters will ask you your philosophy on this. And many shelters really prefer that you swear on the Kitten Holy that she will be indoor-only. Please do not lie to them if your philosophy is different than theirs. If they say indoor-only and you agree, indoor-only please. This is your local shelter, and they live the same place you do — they may be aware of risks in your area. If you have questions about the risks of the great outdoors or the benefits of indoor-only kittehs, ask your friendly shelter employees.

Regular Veterinarian. Many shelters will require you to have your vet’s information on hand before releasing the kitten to you. This is mostly to prove that you know what’s up and that you intend to take your pet to the vet (in fact, many shelters recommend a vet visit within ten days of adoption!). This can be difficult, though, if you’re adopting your very first furry friend. Again, know that the shelter really wants you to have this cat. So if you don’t go in with a vet already picked out, ask them who they’re using. Make your decision based on their information (and since you already picked a shelter full of people you like and trust, you can be confident that you’re gonna like their recommendation). Keep in mind that putting down that vet isn’t a contract that you sign in stone — feel free to try out different vets in your area until you’re totally happy. Hell, sometimes traveling a little bit is worth it (for instance: I live in New Jersey, but I use a vet in Pennsylvania because I like them so much).

References. Some shelters ask for references, so go in with the contact information of two people who have lived with you and know how you treat animals (yours and everyone else’s). If you don’t need them, awesome! You’ve at least shared the good news that you’re adopting a kitten! Probably they have squealed with you and asked to come visit when the baby comes home. If you do need them, it saves you from making a few hasty shotgun phone calls.

Landlord’s Contact Information. Again, the shelter probably isn’t calling your landlord. They just really want to know that you’ve cleared this with your landlord, and that there are no unknown pet policies. It’s devastating to an animal to get sent back because the landlord said no. Go in with this information (and having cleared the pet with your building). And know that some shelters may actually contact your landlord (though it’s never happened to me).

What You Need To Physically Possess or Do Before She Comes Home

Kitten Proofing

Loose cords, string/floss/tinsel on the floor, lilies or anti-freeze? None of that! All of these things can cause severe damage to a kitten (and there is no recovering from anti-freeze poisoning). Make sure you know what’s poison to cats and keep that out of reach (did you know onions and grapes can both cause damage?). Here is one list of food and plants that pose risks. Here’s another that includes a few things other than food and plants. Do a sweep — where can your kitten get to? Are there any holes in the back of cabinets that will let them into the walls (true story, I have one of those in the cabinet under my sink)? Can your cat get into your antique sewing machine (mine is currently stuffed with worn out exercise pants to prevent such an eventuality)? Get creative, because your kitten will get creative. Your kitten knows no limits. The limit does not exist.

Food

Unless you want the stinkiest cat butt in all of the world, go grain free. In my experience, my cats on grain free food are less smelly/farty than my cats not on grain free food, but there is as always some debate about that. And kittens don’t generally do terribly well on seafood flavors (again, stinky cat butt). But other than that, you’re good to go! You don’t even need to get special kitten formula food as long as you look for the AAFCO standard compliance on the label — that means it’s got nutrients for all life stages. Here are a few recommendations:

via the Fromm Family website

Fromm’s Grain Free Entrée. What I use. What I have used for a while. For wet food, Merrick‘s really gross looking but really good for babies and adult cats. Weruva People Grade Pet Food is exactly what it sounds like: people food for pets, and they also make BFF at a lower price point (fish-based, though, so for when your kitten grows up a bit). Blue Buffalo Freedom is actually a kitten formula for those who are a bit nervy with the “all stages” thing. Oh, and also Halo Grain Free is partially owned by Ellen. Why yes, I did manage to find you a pet food that’s partially owned by Ellen DeGeneres. You’re welcome.

You may also notice I’m recommending higher quality foods at a higher price point than, say, Iams or Meow Mix. That’s because making the choice to spend a little more on food will actually save you money and agony in the long run. Better food leads to fewer vet bills and a happier life for your kitteh.

Litter

One option is Fresh News, which I actually really hate. But if your cat has recently been spayed or had hernia surgery, you want a litter like this that won’t get into their wee little incision before it’s done healing. Dr. Elsey’s Precious Cat is what we currently use, great clumping and good for multiple cat households. The same company makes Dr. Elsey’s Cat Attract, which is great for new babies who need a little litter box encouragement. Blue Naturally Fresh — it is litter. Made out of walnuts. I want to try it so much, probably once I’m finished writing this I will ask my pet store to order it. Also don’t forget a litter box. Literally, any litter box. This is the one we use — the high sides and hood prevent tracking.

I also highly recommend a Litter Genie. It changed my litter life. It upped my litter game. And I no longer have to trudge all the way downstairs and outside every time I want to clean the litter box. I can just put it in the Litter Genie and my apartment doesn’t stink. It’s also cut down on my plastic consumption, because I can have several days worth of litter all in one plastic bag without the distinct cat odor.

Treats

There’s not a lot to say about treats except to try your best not to get the ones that are terrible for them — look for things that don’t have “byproduct” or nebulous meat things listed in the ingredients section, and again go for grain free (stinky cat butt, etc) and non-fishy ones for a little while. My kittehs have a clear favorite: Bravo Healthy Bites Chicken Breast. There is only one ingredient: chicken breast. There are no other ingredients to be concerned about. It is literally just freeze-dried chicken breast and that is all. Sometimes the chunks are a little big for tiny kitten mouths, but because it is only freeze dried chicken breast, you can just break the chunks up. They are soft.

I think the most important thing to know about treats is that if you start them off on the good stuff and never do the Friskies or Temptations, you won’t ever have to do the Friskies or Temptations. I wish I had known that with my first kitten. Perhaps then we could have gotten him to eat a Greenie Pill Pocket every now and again.

Toys

Cats will play with anything. Literally anything that kinda moves or looks like it will maybe move or squeaks or jingles or crinkles. And they will lose cat toys — under the stove, under the fridge, under the couch. So. Don’t spend a ton of money on cat toys that will disappear, savvy? And also — don’t get the ones whose strings could come off. String is extremely harmful when swallowed for cats of all ages. Instead, try jingle balls that come a million to a pack and a couple special soft toys. A dangler is always entertaining for all parties involved. Our household has had great success with tunnels and interactive cat toys (but ugh, they’re ugly and take up a lot of space, so we rotate them in — they live in the closet part time). When your kitten is under three months, don’t waste money upgrading to a catnip toy — though catnip is healthy and fine for felines of all ages, kittens under three months don’t react to it. Some don’t develop a reaction until six months. Some don’t ever react to catnip at all.

Also, if you have stuffed toys lying around that are wee enough, stuffed toys can make the perfect kitten friend. One of our kittens stole this stuffed donkey toy (named Earnest) off my fiancée’s childhood dresser when we were house sitting for her parents. They’ve been best friends ever since.

Other Special Needs

Nail trimmers are going to be essential — kittens have needle claws that will pull your sweaters and dig into your arms even during the most mild of play times. You’re gonna need to cut those nails. This will vary in difficulty depending on your kittens purrsonality. Also, believe it or not, poultry-flavored toothpaste (our vet gave us this one). Your cats are gonna need their teeth brushed (that’ll prevent vet visits for bad teeth, thus saving you money) and when they’re kittens is the very best time to get them acclimated (so you can do it without getting savaged). So put a little cat toothpaste on your finger tip and play with their gums a bit.

Autostraddle Music Editor Stef Schwartz and her cat Scully say CLEAN YOUR TEETH!

You’re also going to be doing a lot of redirecting from scratching furniture or rugs — make sure you have a scratching post to redirect to. There are small scratching posts, but the appeal of the furniture is that it’s a) tall enough that the kitten can stretch all the way out on it and b) heavy enough that it doesn’t move. So if you’ve gotten the wave and they don’t seem into it, try getting a big heavy one that mimics the favorite sofa. We have this exact scratching post and all parties are happy/all furniture is intact. Declawing cats is generally not recommended as it is the equivalent of amputating human fingers up to the second knuckle; it throws their balance off and can cause chronic pain.

Cat carriers are useful for getting your kitten to and from the vet/cat sitter/other places you’re likely to go with your cat. They are also useful to have in the event of an emergency where evacuation is required. I like the collapsible fabric kind so that it doesn’t take up so much room in the closet while not in use, but some people/kittens prefer the hard-sided carriers. If your kitten has just had surgery or has special needs that require her to be kept quiet-ish at present (no flying leaps onto the dining room table, for example), consider grabbing up a larger dog carrier with room for litter, water, food and general existence so your kitten can have a “play pen” while unsupervised. This may not be necessary for all surgeries, however, so talk with your friendly local shelter employees to find out about your individual kitten’s special needs.

And speaking of water and food, if you’re not intending to share your own dishes, grabbing up some stainless steel bowls for food and water is highly recommended. I say stainless because they last a long time, don’t retain odors, and many of them are dishwasher safe. Bowls on floors can be slide-y, so grab one with the rubber ring on the bottom or else a mat (and if your kitten likes to play with the water like mine does, grab the mat for sure).

The Naming of Cats

Alrighty, ready for the woo-ish portion of The Kitten Kit? Anyone who’s read T.S. Eliot knows that a cat’s name is very important. And I have always, in one way or another, gotten what I asked for when I picked a name. For example, our kitten called Jeeves is a compulsive groomer. He even grooms our eyebrows in the middle of the night. We picked the name before we knew about that gem of a behavior.

This is Jeeves, by the way.

All I’m saying is, choose wisely. If you name your cat Houdini, microchip that sucker and fix those doors that don’t close quite right. And in the name of all your possessions, you might want to avoid “Mungojerrie” or “Rumpleteazer.”

The Vet, The Pet Store and Your Support Network

It’s almost time to set about enjoying the presence of your new best feline friend (or BFF). But do keep in mind, there are a few people and places you’ll now need in your life that you didn’t have before. You’ll need to find a regular vet if you didn’t already have one, plus the phone number for your local emergency vet (for off hours). Yelp is great for seeing who’s in the area, as is LocalVets.com, but keep in mind — people who have had negative outcomes (many of which could not have been prevented even by the best of vets) are more likely to leave a negative review, even if the vet was stellar. People who have had positive experiences may not think to leave a review at all. Seeing how the vet deals with you and your furbaby, personally, is always the best option. Asking pet owning friends and acquaintances for specific recommendations is also wonderful. Don’t hesitate to try a few vets and don’t hesitate to keep switching until you’re happy (not just with the way they treat your pet, but with the way they speak to you as well). Just make sure you have copies of all medical records to carry with you in the event of a switch. I like to keep mine all together in a folder. Post the phone number for the emergency vet on your fridge or in another central location — if you’re having an emergency, the last thing you want to be doing is Googling. Make sure all members of the household know where the emergency number is. Hopefully, you won’t need to use it. And hopefully you see your regular vet only for the standard stuff. Let’s all knock on wood, shall we?

You’ll be seeing your pet store, though, a lot more. So like choosing a shelter, it’s important to pick a place with a knowledgeable staff that answers questions confidently and clearly, and also knows where to find the answers when they don’t know. While some may not have options beyond Petsmart or even Walmart, I highly recommend choosing your local independent shop or even PetValu, a smaller chain, instead. It’s not always the case, but most often those employed at these kinds of stores have a lot more knowledge — and PetValu specifically has a program where they train their employees in training and nutrition through UC Davis. Smaller stores generally have a willingness to order foods or litters at your request, so talk to the employees if they don’t seem to carry what you’re looking for. And like your vet, try a bunch and keep trying until you find your favorite.

Lastly, it takes a village to raise a kitten (that’s totally how it goes). Mostly, your pet is your responsibility. But if you get snowed in over night somewhere, or you forget to turn on your air conditioning and it’s slated to be 90 degrees and you’re at work, it’s always nice if you’ve got a neighbor or friend you can call — someone with your house keys in case of emergency. These people in your life can sometimes function as pet sitters when duty (or vacation) calls. It’s always good to compensate them, but I’ve had great success in trading pet sitting duties.

So now it’s your turn — what did I miss? What tips and tricks for adopting kittens can you offer? DO YOU HAVE PICTURES OF YOUR KITTENS OH GOD PUT THEM IN THE COMMENTS PLEASE (and see this handy how-to for posting pictures in the comments section!).

Excuse Me But These Cats Have Serious Business To Attend To

I have two cats and the only job they have is personal assistant — whenever we’re trying to do any work at all, they are squarely on whatever books or tools we need, helping. They are very helpful. But that’s not the kind of cat career I’m talking about—there are some cats with better jobs than I will ever purrrsonally have. Here are just a few of them.

via iTV

Larry, Chief Mouser for the British Government

Larry lives at 10 Downing Street and is Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office. He’s the headest of honchos out of the more than 100,000 cats employed by the British Government to keep down mice. According to his Wikipedia page (which everyone must read), Larry the Cat was recruited from the Battersea Dogs and Cats home and was selected by the Downing Street staff. A few highlights:

In late February 2011, it was reported that anonymous sources were briefing against Larry saying “there is a distinct lack of killer instinct.” However, a senior Downing Street spokesman said that it was too early to make judgements and that Larry hadn’t even been taken to visit his main work area in case he ran away. He finally made his first kill – a mouse – on 22 April 2011. On 9 September 2011, Larry was spotted swiping at a mouse, known as “Mandy,” who then escaped under a bush.

At the same time the press officer continued that “his day to day responsibilities also include contemplating a solution to the mouse occupancy of the house, Larry says this is still ‘in tactical planning stage'”.

David Cameron has said that Larry is a “bit nervous” around men, speculating that, since Larry was a rescue cat, this may be due to negative experiences in his past. Cameron mentioned U.S. President Barack Obama is an apparent exception to this fear saying, “Funnily enough he liked Obama. Obama gave him a stroke and he was all right with Obama.”

Socks delivering a briefing.

Socks Clinton, Former First Cat

If you grew up during the Clinton administration, you may remember Socks because a cartoon version of him guided children through the White House website. You may have also written to Socks, which could have landed you in Hillary Clinton’s book, which featured many of the letters sent to the first pets. Socks was originally the only First Pet, but Buddy (a chocolate lab) was introduced in 1997. It did not go well. According to Socks’s Wikipedia page:

Socks found Buddy’s intrusion intolerable; according to Hillary Clinton, Socks “despised Buddy from first sight, instantly and forever.”

Officer Lemon, Police Cat

At just two weeks old, Lemon wandered into the Yoro Station in Kyoto, Japan. He was almost immediately recruited onto the force. He spends much of his time on top of the service desk helping those in need and is also frequently spotted doing community outreach (he warns seniors of the dangers of scam phone calls). He looks very snazzy in his custom-made uniform.

via Naturally Spoken

Mayor Stubbs of Talkeetna, Alaska

Yes, yes, Talkeetna is too small to have a mayor (it’s technically only a historical district). But Honorary Mayor Stubbs has been in office for 15 years and is still Mayor today. His office is located in Nagley’s General Store and every day he goes to a local restaurant to sip catnip water from a wineglass, I shit you not.

via xinhuanet

Top Five Movies Featuring Cats

We’re celebrating Autostraddle’s Fifth Birthday all month long by publishing a bunch of Top Fives. This is one of them!

Two of my favorite things in the world are cats and movies, so when you combine the two, it often makes for a magical experience. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that so many movies about cats are also female-led movies. I didn’t even try to look for cat movies that also feature a female main character, and still, four out of five movies fit that description. And the one that doesn’t fit still has the cat-related scenes all centered around a woman. It just seems like ladies, cats and movies go perfectly together. So here are my Top Five Movies About Cats in no particular order.

1. Alien

Not just one of the best cat movies of all-time and not just one of the best female-led of all-time, this is flat out one of the best movies of all-time. Alien, otherwise known as How Far is Ellen Ripley Willing to go to Save her Pet? is a thrilling and chilling haunted house movie in outer space. This is a perfect movie for anyone who wants to have a good time, eat some popcorn and feel like a scaredy cat for a couple of hours.

via Theiapolis.com

2. Batman Returns

Some may say that this is really a movie about bats, but Michele Pfeiffer as Catwoman absolutely steals the movie from under Batman’s cape. Seriously, all you have to do is take one look at her in her S&M-inspired catsuit and you’ll forget that she wasn’t top billed. Some people may prefer Anne Hathaway’s portrayal in The Dark Knight Rises, but for me, nothing can beat Pfeiffer’s over the top cat puns and sexy slinking walk. Her dangerous and strange sexiness definitely helped to inspire a generation to try things out and be a little kinkier.

via Blastr

3. Ghost Cat

This is a Canadian TV movie from 2004 that’s also known as Mrs. Ashboro’s Cat. I don’t really know if this movie actually qualifies as good, but it isn’t terrible. It deserves its spot on this list simply because it features an adorable little 16 year old Ellen Page (a full three years before she played a sixteen year old in Juno) in a Gemini Award winning role. So if you want to see one of our top two favorite famous gay Ellens before she was super famous, you can check this one out on Netflix Streaming.

via Desuko Movie Spot

4. Josie and the Pussycats

Easily one of the best movies of the early 2000s. it has such a perfect cast of ladies, with everyone from Rosario Dawson, Tara Reid and Rachel Leigh Cook as the titular band to Missi Pyle and the incomparable Parker Posey in amazing supporting roles. In my opinion, this one of the best movies ever about female friendship and when I was younger this was exactly what I wished my early twenties would be like. Josie and the Pussycats is also a brilliant takedown of pop culture and the music industry that was way, way ahead of it’s time. Plus, it has a killer soundtrack featuring Kay Hanley from Letters to Cleo.

via Amazon

5. A Cat in Paris

This lovely French film from a couple years ago was actually nominated for an Oscar for best animated feature (in the same year another cat movie, Puss in Boots, was also nominated), and like the rest of the films on this list (and unsurprisingly a lot of other movie about cats) is actually about a girl and her relationship with her cat. This movie has it all, simple, yet beautiful animation, a hard-working and courageous single mother, a suave cat burglar, a truly despicable villain and an array of tense chase scenes.

I have to give a special mention to The Aristocats, The Cat Returns, The Lion King and Cats Don’t Dance (which gave my cat Sawyer her name) four other animated cat movies that were all on this list at one point or another before I realized that I wanted to include some live-action films too. Really, though, you can’t go wrong with any of these cat-themed movies, or plenty of others. I’m sure that there are dozens of others that I left off and even more that I haven’t seen yet and still have the chance to enjoy.

Header by Rory Midhani

XOXO Gothip Girl: Gay Cat Disowned, Currently On The Prowl

A woman in the Nigerian town of Lafia has been in the news lately for disowning her cat Bull for “unnatural sexual behavior.”

The woman claims that Bull has only made sexual advances towards other male cats in the house despite having been provided with numerous perfectly attractive and presumably DTF female cats at his disposal.  Neighbours attest that none of the kittens born in the house in the last seven years resemble Bull’s colouring, which suggests that he has not been fornicating with the lady cats at all.

According to the Nigerian publication Leadership, the cat’s owner spouted a bunch of homophobic nonsense and then announced that “anybody interested in this gay cat can have it because I have no further use of it.”  Neighbours have been gathering at the woman’s house to witness this feline abomination for themselves, but at press time, nobody has stepped forward to claim Bull.

Although our sources confirm that several eyewitnesses spotted the other male cats in the house canoodling with Bull on multiple occasions, none of them were willing to give a statement regarding their relationship to the whiskered Lothario.  On the other hand, Bull was more than happy to make his position known.  He gracefully lifted a leg over his head, licked himself in an unsavoury manner, and purred contentedly.  Although Bull’s feelings weren’t terribly hurt by his owner’s rejection, he is hopeful about being adopted by a new human who will be more accepting of his lifestyle.

Critter Corner: Cure Your Separation Anxiety And/Or Annoy Your Pet With PetChatz

Welcome to Critter Corner, an irregular feature in which we’re going to talk about all things related to pets. We promise copious cat photos.

(feature image via Shutterstock)

“Man, I really wish I could text my cat right now.” I’ve said this often, and meant it wholeheartedly. I’ve lived with my little calico for five years, and we’re best buds. I think of our relationship less as pet ownership and more as a really solid interspecies friendship, in which one of us buys food and pays rent in exchange for kitten snuggles and a mouse-free apartment. When I’m away from the house, I miss her like crazy, and find myself wondering what the hell she’s up to, how she’s feeling, if she has chased any interesting shadows or bugs today. Presumably, she is napping, grooming herself, and thinking about napping, totally oblivious to my separation anxiety.

Just my perfect angel, NBD.

For pet owners who feel an equal level of crazy, an invention called PetChatz is here to answer your prayers. With this simple device that plugs into any electronic outlet and connects to your WiFi, you can see, hear and talk to your pet, while the device dispenses “low calorie, natural and holistic” treats and (if you wish) comforting scents. You can check in on your PC, tablet or even your phone. For only $350, your dog, cat, hamster or whatevs can learn to experience the side of you that’s less maternal caretaker, and more psychotic girlfriend with zero boundaries who is constantly calling to see where you are, who you’re with, and what you’re thinking about.

Look how comforted and excited the dog in this video is! Thankfully this woman seems to be the only person working in her office, so nobody else has to hear her babytalk from over the cubicle walls.

The discovery of this device has led me to do some serious soul-searching. Does my cat miss me as much as I miss her? Would she actually come when this machine played its little song to summon her? Can I fill this thing with M&M’s and use it to lure Intern Grace into Google Hangout? If my animal did have profound separation anxiety, would this help in any way? According to Psychology Today, most dogs aren’t really able to pick out moving images on TV, so would they be able to recognize their person on the webcam screen? According to Margaret Duxbury, an animal behavior professor at the University of Minnesota, animals who spent more time watching television with their owners were more likely to be able to recognize and/or respond to their owners using PetChatz than animals who didn’t. Does this mean that you should make sure your dog is in the room when you watch QVC? Unclear.

If you have $350 burning a hole in your pocket and can’t bear the idea of your precious gerbil spending eight hours alone, PetChatz is for you. Maybe. Let me know how it goes.

Evolution’s Rainbow: Joan RoughGarden Explores Queer Sex in Animals

A few days ago a small cardboard box arrived, leaning precariously out of my mailbox. Now, this is somewhat of a common occurrence, because I have no sense of self-control when it comes to buying books. But this was no ordinary book — it was Joan Roughgarden’s Evolution’s Rainbow, which several of you commenters have mentioned before. Well, I finally got it, and I am so glad you all told me about it!

Roughgarden is a professor of biology at Stanford University, and author of several other books on the intersection of evolutionary biology and social mores. A transgender woman, she discusses how she kept her job at Stanford during her transition but had to relinquish many administrative duties; she used her newfound free time to research the diversity of gender and sex across species and cultures. She wrote Evolution’s Rainbow both as a catalogue of diversity across the natural world in sex, gender, and sexuality, and also as an “indictment” of all academic fields for suppressing or ignoring the diversity that we see.

The book features a sunfish on the front, a species which has four genders and is native around Roughgarden’s home town (via theguardian.com)

This is an incredible book. It’s a brick, yes, clocking in at 407 word-filled pages, but its text is accessible, well-written, and insightful. Every page or two elicited a ‘holy cow that’s so awesome!’ from me, and all of you — biologists and non-biologists and poets alike — you all should read it. In the meantime, while you wait for your own copy to arrive, I’ll try to summarize what I took away from the book — with the important caveat that I am no evolutionary biologist, or even a life scientist in general.

Her premise, as I see it, is that there are hundreds (or more) of species that don’t exhibit behaviors consistent with Darwinian sexual selection theory, suggesting that it is not the universal truth we take it to be. Further, our current insistence on sexual selection theory leads to incorrect conclusions as well as dangerous societal implications, which I’ll discuss more in a bit.

A little bit of background: Sexual selection theory states that the basic building blocks or templates for a species are male and female, and that each sex has built-in traits —the male is the assertive, passionate one, and the female is shyer and coyer. Males compete for the attention of females, and the female generally chooses the most successful-looking males to mate with, thus ensuring strong and successful offspring. Roughgarden writes:

“This theory [sexual selection theory] that social life boils down to a selection for showy traits is both inaccurate in its universalist claims and inadequate to address the diversity of bodies, gender expression, and sexuality that actually occurs in nature. Furthermore, the theory has been corrupted by evolutionary psychologists and others to naturalize injustice and deny freedom of expression.”

The author, Joan Roughgarden (via ai.eecs.umich.edu)

In a section entitled “Sexual Selection Corrupted,” Roughgarden argues that the problem with this general theory of reproduction, apart from the possibility that it is over-generalized and incorrect, is that it leads both to a disparaging of any member of a species that is not the “alpha-male” type, and that it naturalizes male aggression and domination of females. In modern times, a corrupted take on sexual selection has long been “used to perpetuate ethically dubious gender stereotypes that demean women and anyone else who doesn’t identify as a gender-normative heterosexual male.” I’m sure you’ve all heard of evolutionary psychology, and how it attempts to normalize aggressive and promiscuous sexual behavior in males, while consigning women to passivity and a lack of sexual assertiveness themselves. In its worst manifestations, evolutionary psychology asserts that rape is an evolutionarily inherited behavior by males: historically males who couldn’t find a mate in other ways could also reproduce through rape, and thus “rape genes” were passed from one generation to the next. It leads to the dubious conclusion that “all men are therefore potential rapists, although they do not necessarily act on this potential.”

Instead, Roughgarden advocates “social selection theory,” which emphasizes species-wide teamwork, not sex-based competition. In this theory, animals evolve traits that lead to inclusion in groups that can more effectively provide food, safety, and resources to successfully raise offspring. And all along the way, as she argues her point, she offers as evidence a wide array of diverse animal sexual behaviors to show that, contrary to common belief, sexual behavior does not adhere to any one norm.

This includes homosexual behavior in animals. She lists hundreds of species that engage in some level of homoerotic or homosexual behavior, from reindeer to African elephants to marmots and vampire bats. Almost all male bighorn sheep, for instance, engage in “homosexual courtship and copulation”; she lists their progression from nuzzling, to genital licking, to anal sex. This section was fun to read on its own merits, the book is peppered with delights of sentences like this: “No genital-genital contact has been reported among female vampire bats, but male vampire bats hang belly to belly licking one another, both with an erect penis.” But it also addressed some evolutionary implications of homosexuality. Under the Darwinian sexual-selection model, same-sex sexuality should not be evolutionarily successful because it does not in itself lead to more reproduction. The fact that we see it today must be explained away as an anomalous genetic mutation or social invention.

The bighorn sheep, a symbol of rugged outdoorsiness, has predominantly same-sex sex for most of the year (via animals.nationalgeographic.com)

But under Roughgarden’s social-selection model, same-sex sexuality has a range of other functions, all of which do become evolutionarily advantageous within a cooperative species: to secure a position within a social group or to ease camaraderie and teamwork between species members. Male bottlenose dolphins, for instance, often pair-bond as adolescents, and maintain a constant and life-long relationships as monogamous sexual partners and companions. And female red squirrels occasionally form life-long bonds, jointly raising a litter of young and having sex. In both of these cases, the teamwork between two individuals within a species leads to a longer life span and better reproductive outlook for offspring, no matter whose offspring it is. Roughgarden spends a significant amount of time discussing sexual behavior in bonobos, for whom strategic sex with any partner can facilitate sharing of food and resources, reconciliation, bond and coalition forming, all of which are important in a species that relies heavily on community.

When bonobos are presented with a large quantity of food, bonobos will routinely engage in about ten minutes of sex before eating – facilitating good relationships and sharing (via cnn.com)

I’m still hung up on Part 1 of Evolution’s Rainbow — I’ve been reading aloud and quoting it to friends all week with seemingly inexhaustible sentences beginning with, “Well, did you know…” But the second and third parts promise to be just as interesting, in different ways. The middle third of Roughgarden’s book is dedicated to exploring, in similar ways, the biology of human sex, sexuality, and gender development. She discusses the difference between diversity and disease, and the disservice that the medical and other communities have done to genetic diversity by harming or stigmatizing anyone who doesn’t conform to an undefined and amorphous sense of “normal”. And in Part 3, she expands her biologist’s lens to include social sciences of gender and sexuality variations across cultures and history. She particularly spends time looking at diversity and equality from a Biblical standpoint, because she recognizes that there are some people for whom the Bible and church teachings are the ultimate arbiters of what constitutes morally right and wrong —no matter what scientific conclusions we come to.

I have been basically glued to the pages of this book since I received it, even to the detriment of writing this article about it. But in articulating all this to you, I think what feels so valuable about it to me is the way it discusses gender and sexuality variance from a standpoint of biological variance – a different angle than we usually get to see. Though I work in a totally different field of the natural sciences, I know that my worldview is to a large extent shaped around this identity of “scientist,” and my academic training has led me to particularly appreciate argument based on scientific reasoning. Much of the argument I see in the world about queer issues is on a more philosophical or religious basis, or – my favorite – opinion couched in pseudoscience. It is this pseudoscience that she most effectively takes down in this book, by providing a well-researched, well backed-up scientific rejoinder. What I’m saying is that she speaks my language, and I love it.

It’s a book big enough and detailed enough that there’s no way to mention every insight — but for those of you who have read Evolution’s Rainbow, what else did you feel particularly drawn to? What were your favorite parts? What have I left out that shouldn’t be missed?

Queered Science is a series of profiles meant to highlight queer science and tell you what you need to know about it, for your intellectual edification and so you don’t feel excluded from a major and predominantly heterosexist subset of academia and industry.

Header by Rory Midhani

Live Feed: Christmas Cats TV is a Roomful of Cats in Holiday Sweaters

Hansen’s Team Pick:

Christmas Cats TV is basically all that I’ve ever wanted but didn’t know I wanted. It is honestly just eight hours of streaming live feed of cats in Christmas sweaters, with Christmas music, some weird cat lady wearing a sweater and sometimes there’s an elf. Once, a boy band came on and sang “Little Drummer Boy.” But most importantly, there were cats in Christmas sweaters. You can even get a shout out on the show if you use their adorable messaging system (or Twitter).

This show is even 100x better when we all drink out of cat flasks, I think. Also, there are no cats in this picture?
Screencaptured via {Christmas Cats TV}

Today’s the last day of Christmas Cats TV, where you can watch “a room full of adoptable cats available for adoption” (you can adopt them, you know) and get into the holiday spirit with general wackiness of the Cat Grandma. The cats are adoptable through North Shore Animal League America in Port Washington, New York, the world’s largest no-kill rescue and adoption organization. There’s even little profiles of them up on the website, including their names and personalities and cute pictures.

Cats in holiday sweaters. I repeat, cats in holiday sweaters.
via {Christmas Cats TV Twitter}

I think it’s safe to say now I’ve found this channel, my motivation to work for the rest of the day is completely gone. If you need me, I’ll be sitting at my desk, drinking out of my cat flask, watching cats run around in sweaters, trying to get a shout out.

Party of Five: Jacqueline McKenzie, Owner of Crazy Cat Lady Clothing

Party of Five is a quick little ditty where we ask someone (anyone we want) five questions (any five questions we want) and they answer them. This doesn’t have to be necessarily ‘queer’ — it doesn’t have to be anything at all, except five questions and five answers. Today we’ve got Jacqueline, A-Camper and owner of Crazy Cat Lady Clothing.

I was Facebook messaging with my A-Camp September 2013 cabin, the Wildcats. We were all just chatting, talking about what we did for our jobs and then wham, this website comes across my screen:

And I thought, I must have everything on this site. Turns out, this beautiful online store was linked and owned by A-Camper Jacqueline Mackenzie, and she has a few things to tell us about owning a store that sells galaxy-cat-sweaters. And by a few things, I mean five things.

So you have two businesses – tell us a little bit about them!

I run Lucky 7 Shop, which is an indie clothing boutique hosted by the Storenvy marketplace, and I also created a site called Crazy Cat Lady Clothing, which consists exclusively of (you guessed it) cat themed clothing and accessories, as well as home décor.

How did you decide to go into Crazy Cat Lady Clothing? 

The first time I spoke with a young fashion blogger who called herself a “crazy cat lady,” I found it somewhat odd and amusing. That was until I started noticing that there was a huge population of young women who were also very proud to identify as such. Honestly, when I first purchased the domain name I was afraid the fad would pass before I even got a chance to set up the site! Suddenly everyone was selling cat merchandise! Grumpy Cat was booking interviews on major talk shows left and right, and daily cat meme sites were a dime a dozen. Fortunately I did some research before abandoning the idea altogether, and was pleasantly surprised to discover that searches for the term “crazy cat lady” on google have actually been on the rise at a very consistent rate for nearly a decade.

In fact people of all ages have been obsessed with cats since the beginning of time, as far back as ancient Egypt, which was brought to my attention by this meme. So this obsession with cats is nothing new. It has been going on for literally millennia.

With reassured confidence, I was able to use the skills I had acquired by running Lucky 7 Shop to put together Crazy Cat Lady Clothing. It’s a funny, lighthearted concept and one that people can understand very quickly, since the name says it all.  I also created an accompanying blog features mainly adorable and humorous cat photos and artwork, and tries to present it in a quirky and visually appealing way. Thus far it’s been very successful at driving traffic to the store.

What’s the most popular item on the Crazy Cat Lady site?

Our top seller is the gold cat watch.

What’s your favorite item on the Crazy Cat Lady site?

This cat sweater says it all.

This is Jackie McKenzie, btw. Via her Facebook.

Do you have any advice for Straddlers wanting to start their own online retail business? 

Everyone’s experience is unique, but what worked for me was making sure the goal I set was achievable. I decided my sole aspiration was to be self-employed by selling things online, but set no other limitations and I had no time frame. Since the goal was very broad, it never felt impossible. Crazy Cat Lady Clothing has ended up being the perfect fit for me because, although I’ve never owned a cat, I find that many elements of it align with my personal sensibility. Some aspects of the subculture have a dark sense of humor about them, it’s quirky and campy, and very nerdy, but at the same time cat ladies can also be extremely sexy if you look back at the history of fashion photography.  I’ve discovered that many, many lesbians love cats. I find that every person knows at least one crazy cat lady and my hope is that they will refer her to this site.

Please head on over to Crazy Cat Lady Clothing if you should feel so inclined!

Stop Whatever You’re Doing, There’s A Wine For Cats Now

Hansen’s Team Pick:

You know those times when you really just want to drink a glass of wine after work, but you’re hanging out with your cat, and she looks like she’s had a rough day, too, and you feel really guilty for not being able to give her some of your cab sav? This kind of thing can’t only happen to me.

In fact, it would seem that this situation is seemingly universal, because a Japanese company has released wine for cats.

It’s wine. For cats. Cat wine. This is a real thing in the real world that you need to know about.

Pet company B&H Lifes has started producing “wine exclusively for cats” called “Nyan Nyan Nouveau”. In Japanese, “nyan nyan” refers to the sound a cat makes (and yeah, sometimes also refers to a flying cat made of a poptart because why the fuck not). I think adding the Nouveau to Nyan Nyan makes it sound pretty regal, don’t you? This ain’t no Franzia for cats, is what I’m saying.

Okay, before cat lovers round the world collectively clutch their pearls (“think of the kittens!”) you should know that Nyan Nyan Nouveau doesn’t actually contain alcohol. It’s made of juice from Cabernet grapes, Vitamin C, and catnip, but it supposedly tastes a lot like red wine.

Apparently, B&H Lifes developed the drink for cat owners “wanting to celebrate birthdays or Christmas with their beloved cats” but seriously, I think I’d give it to my cat just so I didn’t feel bad about drinking an entire bottle of wine alone. And at only (USD) $4 a bottle, this is a steal of a deal. You may think this all just sounds silly, but I say, “Treat. Yo. Self.” If you can read Japanese, here’s where you can buy it all up. But hurry, because there’s only a production of 1000 bottles, so why not just buy 10?

Queering the Politics of Animal Rights with VINE Sanctuary

Long before Leslie Knope married gay penguins in Pawnee, many species in the animal kingdom have been enjoying the pleasures of homosexual sex. Giraffes do it, Bottlenose Dolphins do it, even Black Swans do it. And then I learned about the queer ducks at VINE (Veganism is the Next Evolution) Sanctuary.

“At first we mistook their mating for fighting and tried to separate them. They went to great lengths to reunite until we realized they were boyfriends. After that, they were a lifelong bonded pair, ” explains educator and activist Pattrice Jones. Jean-Paul and Jena-Claude, the two male mated ducks, remained devoted companions for seven years.

VINE Sanctuary in Vermont (originally Eastern Shore Sanctuary) works to queer the politics of the animal rights movement with an intersectional approach. A lesbian-feminist, Jones observes, “You don’t have to actually be queer to be subjected to homophobic or transphobic discrimination or violence, just fail to conform to gender norms, which we were beginning to see as constructed in party by reference to animals.” For over a decade the two queer co-founders of the sanctuary, patrice and Miriam Jones, have been connecting the politics of racism, sexism and speciesism in talks about “Queering Animal Liberation” around the country.

Scholars with an interest in animal rights politics can often be far removed from those individuals on whose behalf they fight. One way to bridge the gap between activism with animals and theoretical and academic work is with the animal rescue sanctuary movement. Jones explains, “In the real world, actual animals live, suffer and die in material circumstances shaped by human activities. Those human activities are themselves entangled in social, economic, and ideological systems that are themselves patterned by factors such as racism and sexism.”

Over the past few years the field of Animal Studies has grown exponentially with programs across the country such as the program at New York University. While it’s encouraging to see an increasing interest in the politics of Animal Rights Law and Animal Studies, Jones has some concerns. She has noticed some of the same fragmentation between activist and academic work in Animal Studies as in the LGBTQ movement.

“We saw Queer Theory, which arose in academia as a result of radical street activism in the context of the AIDS crisis, morph into an inaccessible discourse wherein elite academics talk to each other, never bothering to translate their ideas into terms that less-educated people could understand or use in their activism.”

This tension outlined by Jones becomes clear when exploring the history of the class-based push for affordable HIV/AIDS drugs by the organization ACT UP in the 1980s in comparison to the focus of much of the mainstream LGBTQ organizations today. “The rightward shift (marriage and military) in the LGBTQ rights movement might not have happened if some of the more progressive ideas current in academia had been more accessible to grassroots activists.”

Of the five queer individuals who make up the core of those working at the sanctuary there is one non-gender-normative individuals in addition to a trans (FTM) individual, a happily married same-sex couple and finally, “One of us finds that none of the alphabet soup of LGBTQ identities quite describes her sexuality and tends to chafe at identity politics altogether.” To Jones, transphobia is symptomatic of larger social norms more than a problem of ecofeminist politics. Moving beyond the work of trans-inclusion jones argues, “We just want to use our standpoint to say things that we think will be even more disruptive to the binary logic of domination that oppresses both non-human animals and LGBTQ people.”

In a nutshell, Jones explains the motivation to queer animal liberation and push the boundaries of identity politics: “We think we can make a more substantial contribution by continuing to talk about the biodiversity of sexuality and gender expression among human and non-human animals, thereby unsettling the gender binary that European colonialism carried (along with capitalism and cockfighting) around the world.”

You should go!

Vegan & Animal Rights Bookswap
Saturday September 14th, 4-7pm.

The Women’s Center
46 Pleasant St. Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139

Please join us for an evening swap of inspiring vegan cookbooks, theory books, how-to dvds, and all other media related to vegetarianism and animal rights. Bring up to ten items or just bring yourself and mingle!

There will be a raffle and bake sale in support of VINE sanctuary in Vermont. Confirmed prizes for the raffle include a $40 gift certificate to Sudo shoes, a $25 gift certificate to Life Alive, a gift basket of vegan themed stationary from Two Trick Pony, and more! (See list of sponsors below.)

This event is free and open to people of all genders, diets, and ages. The space is wheelchair accessible.

Raffle is at 6PM.

UPDATE: The book swap was attended by 20 people and over $250 was raised!

Support our event sponsors:

sudoshoes.com
twotrickpony.com
lifealive.com
veggiegalaxy.com
etsy.com/shop/kristincrane
compassionco.bigcartel.com
truebistroboston.com
ecolissa.com

Learn about the animal sanctuary here.

Check out The Humane League

For more info, please visit our Facebook event page.

See a full interview with Pattrice Jones here.

Team Pick: Scientists May Have Cure for Cat Allergies, Everyone Rejoices

Mey’s Team Pick:

Feature Image via corporation-cats.tumblr.com

It’s a tale as old as time, you meet a lady and everything clicks. She laughs at all your jokes, you can’t take your eyes off her bow tie. But when you take her back to your place, things start going downhill fast. First her eyes start watering, then she breaks out in hives, and finally she’s lying on the floor in the fetal position hacking up a lung. You’ve got a pet cat and she’s allergic. Well, thanks to a team of researchers at Cambridge University, you may never need to worry about this happening again.

via knittingbabe.tumblr.com

The team of scientists, led by Dr. Clare Bryant, have isolated the protein in cat dander that combines with histamines in the human body to cause allergic reactions. According to Dr. Bryant:

“When cats lick themselves they spread saliva, hormones and skin cells on to their coat. When the hair falls out, it is proteins in this dandruff stuck on their fur that people are allergic to. How cat dander causes such a severe allergic reaction in some people has long been a mystery. This is the first time we have discovered the process that leads to the allergic reaction. It opens up a whole new type of drug to treat it.”

via memeblock.com

They believe that within five years a pill or inhaler could be on the market that would allow people to play with, pet and snuggle cats without any kind of bad reaction. While current drugs help relieve the symptoms of allergic reactions, this new information could lead to a drug that would block the effects of the dander itself. So, if that cutie you’ve got your eye on has a cat that’s been getting in the way of things, science may be the wingwoman you’ve been waiting for.

Oh, and by the way, there is good news for dog lovers- research suggests that a similar treatment could help with dog allergies as well.

A Prairie Homo Companion: To Be More Like A Dog

A Prairie Homo Companion is a regular column that celebrates the Canadian prairies, canola fields and big skies, and the paradoxes of being a fine-ass lady prairie homo.

Header by Rory Midhani

Early last week I was sitting and crying not necessarily because I was sad, but because I had so much work to do and I didn’t know how I was going to get it all done. All of my feelings of being overwhelmed needed somewhere to go and so I sat and I cried, softly, thinking no one would hear. I was wrong though. My dog heard me, and she came running up to me as I sat on my bed, her tail wagging excitedly, a chew-toy in her mouth. She jumped up — paws on my knees, pushing the chew-toy in my face as if to say, “Don’t cry. Play! How could you feel overwhelmed when there’re so many fun things to do in the world? So much to chew.”

COPYRIGHT MALAIKA ALEBA

This is a post about dogs, because this prairie homo wouldn’t be who she is today if it weren’t for dogs. It’s a well-known fact that cat-lover is synonymous for lesbian. I mean, pussy and cat can mean the same thing and queers girls love both; but I think there’s enough on the internet about the strange and wonderful connection between lady homos, boi homos, bi homos, and their feline obsessions. Remember that time I wrote about lady-loving-lady writers and the dogs who’ve inspired them? Well, I’m not finished with writing about dogs for the internet. I don’t think I ever will be. Virginia Woolf said that no woman can ever write enough. I wholeheartedly agree, and would like to add on that a woman can never write enough about her dog. I’m sure Woof would agree with me as well — after all, she did write a whole novel from a dog’s perspective.

PRAIRIE HOMO DOG
COPYRIGHT MALAIKA ALEBA

Dogs are very important to a prairie homo. Sometimes it can be hard to find other lady-loving-prairie-ladies who share your taste in books, are fantastic cooks, enjoy political debates, are addicted to CBC, are adventurous and edgy but not so adventurous and edgy it scares you, will teach you how to cross-country ski, speak a language other than the one you do so you can learn new words, are full of serenity to counteract your anxiety, are able to connect with you on all the levels, enjoy your quirky sense of humour, and are willing to dance badly with you in the kitchen (I have certain requirements, you know). Or maybe all of those perfect-for-you women are out there, but you want to stay inside because it’s cold, or it’s too hot and staying in to read Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal while eating ice cream and then French bread soaked in olive oil while drinking wine is your activity of choice because while you know you can drink that wine just as well as any alcoholic vineyard owner, flirting with women in crowded spaces (or even one-on-one) is not an activity on which you’d write an advice column. Your dog doesn’t care that you’re an anti-social drunk bookworm. She just tries to get in on the French bread and olive oil situation, and even when you tell her, “No! My food!” she stares at you with adoring eyes as if staying at home to eat and read is the best activity and you’re the best human for partaking in it.

I once had a very environmentally conscious roommate who insisted on keeping the heat turned incredibly low even in the middle of the winter. I spent a lot of time typing, then pausing to rub my hands together, or typing while wearing gloves, and my bed had about 7 blankets under which I shivered. My roommate suggested putting a water bottle in the bed, like they did back in the day before they used heat made from oil obtained by digging up the boreal forest, poisoning the rivers, and mutating the fish. “Y-y-yesss?” I agreed, and a water bottle did help, but you know what is even better? A woman obviously, but let’s not forget dogs! I admit, I am one of those people who lets her dog sleep in her bed, and if you think that’s gross or something, we’re probably not going to get along. The thing is, there have been many-a-night when my dog’s body heat is responsible for keeping me warm and asleep, as opposed to shivering and awake.

COPYRIGHT MALAIKA ALEBA

It’s finally warm now. I don’t need my dog as a heater, but last week, as I sat and cried, and she pushed her chew-toy into my face, I came to an important realization: I need to channel my inner dog. Sometimes it’s not enough to love dogs; it helps to kinda be like them too. Now, I’m not going to start saying hello by sniffing butts and pulling dead squirrels out from the ravine with my teeth, but I can appreciate the fact that however overwhelmed I may be feeling, there are still games of chew toy tug-of-war to be had. There are so many ways to play; so many fun things to do. When my dog gets mad, she’ll express herself in a healthy way by barking, but then she’ll let it go and either sleep or run in a circle and chase her tail. Nothing miserable is worth holding onto in her world because it only takes away from all the fun times to be had. Life is good. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to continue reading Why Be Happy When You Could be Normal? while my dog snores at my feet.

What Ag-Gag Bills Are and Why They Want To Outlaw The Truth About Animal Abuse

One way or another, you probably have an opinion on the American meat industry, and it’s probably because you have a horrible image seared forever onto your eyeballs like grill marks on a steak. Once upon a time, animal rights activists mainly protested by smashing lab equipment, setting cows free, and picketing circuses into submission, but as the government cracked down on the more radical acts, groups began focusing on a more legal (and often more effective) tactic — infiltrating factory farms, recording what goes on there, and releasing the often-shocking footage to the public.  But a new group of laws, popularly known as “ag-gag bills” (for “agricultural gag”) and currently on the table in eleven states, could make that illegal, too.

Ag-gag bills come in three flavors.  Some say what they mean, and out-and-out prohibit recording video or audio of farming operations without permission.  Others are sneakier — like Vermont’s, which levies a $1,000 fine against anyone who “makes a knowingly false statement or representation as part of an application to be employed at an agricultural facility,” effectively preventing undercover whistleblowers from ever getting in the door.  A third and increasingly popular type allows documentation of cruelty as long as all tapes are turned over to law enforcement within a specific time period (always 24 to 48 hours).  At first glance, this looks progressive, and even helpful — quick turnover means quick action and transparency, right?  But in reality, it’s just another way big operations will be able to appear conscientious while avoiding meaningful change.  One recorded abuse can easily be written off as an isolated incident — Chickens-R-Us apologizes, one employee takes the hit and gets fired and/or charged, and business continues as usual.  It takes much longer than a day to build the kind of case that holds higher-ups responsible or leads to effective overhauls.

YOU KNOW WHAT’S GOING TO HELP US THROUGH THIS? CUTE BABY ANIMALS.

Ag-gag, like many monsters, has an even bigger and scarier dad.  Much of the proposed legislation contains ideas and language that can be traced back to a model bill written by a group called the American Legislative Exchange Council [ALEC].  ALEC bills itself as “a nonpartisan public-private partnership of America’s state legislators, members of the private sector and the general public” that “works to advance the fundamental principles of free-market enterprise, limited government, and federalism at the state level.” Others, like the Center for Media and Democracy, see it as more of a way for Big Business to undermine the democratic process in order to advance a pro-corporate agenda that includes “major tax loopholes for big industries and the super-rich, proposals to offshore U.S. jobs and gut minimum wage, and efforts to weaken public health, safety, and environmental protections.”  Seen in this light, it’s basically a way for corporations to buy legislation — they donate a bunch of money to ALEC, which uses it to throw conferences where corporate reps and legislators work together to draft generic bills; the legislators then bring those bills back to their home states, customize them, and try to get them passed.  Most ag-gag bills are slightly mutated versions of a 2002 model bill called The Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act, which aims to classify anyone who “enters an animal or research facility to take pictures by photograph, video camera, or other means with the intent to defame the facility or its owner” as a terrorist.

So why would information dissemination count as terrorism? Emily Meredith, press liaison for the industry trade group Animal Agriculture Alliance, gives a few reasons that effectively boil down to one — when people get a chicken’s-eye-view, it hurts the meat industry’s reputation, and everyone suffers, from “farm families who work these farms day in and day out… to provide food to this hungry country and the world” to entire communities that are economically impacted when sales decline, to consumers who might be turned off because sausage-making is ugly no matter how you slice it. As Kelli Ludlum, director of Congressional communications for The American Farm Bureau Federation, told a New York Times reporter, even a “perfect procedure” might seem out of line to someone unfamiliar with farming.

AWWWWWWWWWWWW

The party line is that whistleblowers aim to turn stomachs and close wallets — other proponents have tried to characterize the opposition as “extremist vegans” and others who “are trying to kill the meat industry.”  But all kinds of people hate these bills for all kinds of reasons. Environmentalists hate them because the broad language of some bills, such as Pennsylvania’s, can be used to prevent photography of fracking and other oil and gas operations (and because it means one less way to call out factory farms for degrading water and air quality and bucking regulations).  Workers’ rights groups fear they’ll lead to workplace discrimination and to lower-level employees being blamed for institutional problems. The National Press Photographers Association has spoken out against them, as have other proponents of First Amendment rights.  And if anyone wants to make sure their meat is handled safely, it’s going to be proud carnivores, right?

Most whistleblowers are associated with or employed by animal rights groups, pretty vital entities in a country where there are literally no federal laws that protect livestock (despite polls showing that most Americans think animals, particularly farm animals, deserve some rights).  Their work makes things definitively better for animals, step by tiny step.  Undercover footage from a Pennsylvania factory helped lead New Jersey lawmakers to ban gestation crates, tiny cages that don’t allow breeding sows to turn around.  Videos from Idaho convinced Kraft Foods to forbid its suppliers from tail-docking dairy cows.

EEEEEEEEEEEE {VIA CHICKS IN HATS}

It also has a broader impact.  In 2008, California’s Westland/Hallmark Meat Company recalled 143 million pounds of beef after the Humane Society released vigilante video of plant workers slaughtering and processing “downed cows,” which can pass on mad cow disease.  Four years later, a video by Compassion Over Killing led the USDA to shut down another California plant — one that provided meat to the National School Lunch Program — for the same reason.  And recent undercover investigations in a veal plant and a Butterball turkey factory not only led to several managerial arrests for animal rights violations, but also implicated U.S. Department of Agriculture employees who had turned a blind eye to the abuse (the USDA’s dual role — as agrobusiness promoter AND agrobusiness watchdog — has led to corruption, and new funding cuts won’t help).

You can help, though. If you live in one of the eleven states currently considering ag-gag bills, the ASPCA will let you know which of your legislators you should call, and how to reach her (just last week the Indiana House sent their bill out for further review because of constituent concern). No matter where you live, spread the word. Wyoming’s bill died in committee because of public backlash that everyone’s favorite animal advocate, Bob Barker, helped spearhead all the way from California. And no matter what you eat or why you eat it, educate yourself if it’s important to you! Get all the info you can while it’s still available, and use it to vote with your dollars.

GAHHHHH ALTERNATIVE LIFESTYLE MANECUT

Because there’s a deeper level to all this, too.  Behind all these practical effects is a philosophical principle — that people should be allowed to make informed choices about what we consume, and what we let happen to make this consumption possible (in this spirit, Duke law professor Jedediah Purdy proposes 24/7 live feeds of slaughterhouses and confined-feeding operations, with webstream URLs stamped on your egg carton or bacon bag).  If transparency is bad for business, then something about that business is probably itself bad.  Ag-gag laws will allow abuse to go unchecked.  They’ll lead to disease outbreaks, rivers full of antibiotics, and further corruption, and they’ll yield corporations yet another undeserved inch of the democratic process.  And they’ll remove our ability, as citizens and consumers, to have a conversation about the things that are ostensibly being done in our names.  Which means the meat industry is a bunch of chickens.

How To Own It: Wearable Cats and Dogs

Hello beautiful, and welcome to How To Own It, where store-bought fashion meets DIY crafts. Each week I’ll be exploring an aesthetic theme, showing you some of the best ways to wear it and how to make it for yourself.

Want to know how to own a look?
Email gabrielle@autostraddle.com or tweet to @Gabrielle_Korn.

Header by Rory Midhani

Performance artist Holly Hughes once said that lesbians are divided along the following lines: dog lesbians, cat lesbians and lesbians with allergies. I love all animals as deeply as I am allergic to them, but I think I’m on paper as a dog lesbian because I’ve found my kindred spirit in a tiny hypo-allergenic puppy mill rescue named Kimberly; maybe you’ve noticed her fluffly face peaking out in pictures I post to this website. I feel like in general, the internet has helped a lot of other people come out about their animal obsessions, too: for example, hopefully we all agree that only a meanie wouldn’t want to spend an hour watching videos of puppies playing with lemons.

someone got too fluffy for her winter jacket!

Basically it appears that we’re all letting our inner crazy cat/dog ladies out into the world, and you know what? She doesn’t seem so crazy after all. In fact, everyone’s inner animal enthusiast has always sworn that sweaters with creatures on them are super chic, and I’m starting to think she has a point. In fact, maybe wearing animals on one’s clothes is a new form of flagging!

Kitties

via dosetimoandar on weheartit

Being allergic to cats is one of my major flaws as a human, to the point that I’ve been tempted to say so during job interviews when asked about my weaknesses. My girlfriend is such a cat lesbian though, and even has two cat tattoos about it, so I feel doubly bad that we can never have one. Anyway, you don’t need to hear about that. What you need to hear about is that you can wear shirts with cats on them and look hot at the same time.

Crewnecks & Scoopnecks
Shortsleeve Tops

Puppies

via lisa d on lookbook

Dog grrrls need team apparel, too. One of the best parts of searching for dog sweaters for this post was that I got a lot of hits for actual dog sweaters, as in sweaters for dogs. Kimberly really needs some new clothes because she’s gotten so much fluffier since last winter (see above). Dog shirts for people are really great too, though! They are just as trendy and whimsical as kitty shirts.

Crewnecks & Scoopnecks
Pajamas

DIY Customized Animal Wearing A Scarf Decal

Perhaps you noticed that many of the animals on the shirts I’ve shown you are accessorized with scarves or bow ties. Perhaps you, like me, think that is a fantastic idea. And maybe you even agree with me that you’d like that idea even better if the animal was your animal. I mean, I would totally wear a sweater with just about any dog on it, but really what would make my life would be to have Kimberly’s face on my shirt. I think it would probably make her happy, too. So, I’m going to show you how to easily make a customizable animal decal that you can sew onto just about anything you want, so that we can all wear things that display our furry pals.

You will need:

a cute animal’s face
a piece of paper
two different kinds of fabric
sewing supplies

1. Take a picture of your animal’s profile. Kimberly’s face is an amorphous fluffy blob right now, so I used an old picture taken after a haircut so that her face shape can actually be seen.

can you even believe this is the same poodle?

2. Draw the outline of the profile. You can do this freehand if you’re fancy, or you can actually use your computer screen as a light box and just trace it! You don’t need to have any real drawing ability to get this to look awesome.

3. Pin your drawing to a piece of fabric and cut it out. If your animal has floppy ears, you should cut around the ears a little bit to differentiate between the ears and the head.

4. To make the scarf, cut a strip of fabric with angled ends. To make sure it’s even, fold it in half and make the angles at once. Lay the strip of fabric underneath the base of your animal profile. Then fold it over in front so that it makes an X, and sew it down.

5. Now all that’s left to do is pick an item of clothing to sew it onto! I picked this v-neck sweater because it already had a hole in it so if I messed up, I wouldn’t be sacrificing anything.

6. Try to find a way to hold your animal while you pose for a picture that shows both your new sweater and your cute friend. Apparently it was really hard for both of us to have all of our eyes open at the same time.

PS I wasn’t going to include this outtake, but the team insisted that I had to. Look at her fucking face:

Holigay 2012 Gift Guide: Animals and The People Who Love Them

Hugs and (puppy) kisses to Stef for the drawings and Scully for helping out.

Cats and dogs are important members of families across the globe — and you should be making note of that this season. After all, don’t you think your girlfriend would really love it if you showed up with a catnip-filled candy cane toy for her kitten tonight? I know I’m willing to melt on demand for whoever buys Eli a black leather jacket for Christmas to match the one I bought after Thanksgiving. Buying pets toys is a must, people! It makes everyone happy and when animals are happy, they ooze happiness that fills the air and your life.

As we write this Eli is curled up in that nook next to my ribcage, by the way. I dare you not to buy him a bone, honestly.

But it would be stupid for me to write a gift guide for animals without consulting one, so I consulted two –– Eli, my dog, and Scully, Stef’s cat. I was also in touch as well with Mary Tully, bonafide professional animal expert person.

Also Mary has a dog named Kai, and I assume he affects her life in a powerful way and impacts her daily decisions. And he’s adorable!

So without further ado, the pet gift recommendations straight out of the mouths of three animals and the people who love them more deeply than you can imagine.

Gifts for Dogs, Cats, Hamsters, and Other Weirdo Animal Friends

Pet Decor and Furniture

Eli recently tore up the basket his bed was in because he was upset and/or playing while in or around it while I was at work. Even though he sleeps in my bed, I keep dog beds around because I think they’re important statement pieces. I’ve been dying to buy him this AKC plaid dog bed because I think it says a lot about me.

Stef also found hamster beds and “just thought you guys would like to be aware of the wide variety of handcrafted hamster beds available on Etsy, to the surprise of absolutely no-one.” Disclaimer: she doesn’t own a hamster.

STEF: i just emailed you four things, one of them was hamster beds
CARMEN: sweet beans
S: just a link to the search for hamster beds
S: it seems like a really lesbian thing
S: baby i want you to know i’m really serious about our relationship
S: so i got us this hamster bed as a promise
S: and a symbol of my commitment to our future
S: and when you’re done making the kale chips, maybe we can go to the shelter

Also, my friend Libby would love this Alphapooch Napper Cat Den, thankyouverymuch.

If Eli were a cat, he’d definitely want this cat condo. Stef recommends it:

Cats love small enclosed spaces. Cats love scratching things. Cats love scratching the small enclosed space they lie in and glare at you from.

Overall, though, I think what Eli and every animal in the world needs is a reliable ceramic bowl set. I love the french-inspired line from Wag.

Toys

Eli is a medium-sized ball of energy (read: Chihuahua/Terrier mix) who only gets listless when I am trying to use the laptop he sleeps on. I keep him busy with all kinds of toys, but he destroys anything that isn’t durable. Across the board, toys that last long just seem to make more sense. Try a Nylabone dinosaur for big chewers. A stuffingless dog toy is a cute gift — just bring a water bottle to fill it with! A traditional Nylabone never dies, and the DuraChew that looks like a tree but tastes like bacon is even better.

For cats, Stef and Scully recommend EEK! mice, which apparently come in ‘mice color’ and ‘I’m on drugs color.’ Stef’s testimonial sounds promising:

I have owned approximately two cats in my 29 years, and both of them enjoyed a fine catnip treat now and again, but I have never seen my typically poised and aloof cat go absolutely apeshit like she does when I bring her one of these catnip mice (the pink ones, obvs). She FREAKS OUT before I can even get the mouse out of the packaging and cuddles and licks and kicks him with such fervor that eventually her affections become overwhelming and he disappears under the refrigerator, never to be seen again.

Nothing comes close to this fucking cat play circuit, though.

And never forget – the funniest toy is anything cats chase and you hold on a stick. Try the KONG version, which is probably indestructible. The KONG line of indestructible everything for dogs that you can fill with peanut butter is also helpful, PS.

All pets love a good challenge, though, so maybe invest in a pet puzzle for your super smart friend who has a Yorkie that sits at the dining room table and eats out of a plate. The sophisticated kind of pet will appreciate this. Maybe also a Macaw. This seek-a-treat dog bone puzzle is absolutely adorable.

Then again, Kygen dog games come in every shape and seem to be built for puppy geniuses.

Also, Mary Tully really likes Fab.com’s pet section – and they sell the incredible, amazing, one-of-a-kind holy shit it is so cute NORTH POLE EXPRESS CAT SCRATCHER. So. Mary advises keeping it simple and buying catnip but I one hundred percent endorse the following image/product being integrated more into your real life.

But it doesn’t end there! Mary says:

Fab.com is a great place to find unique, quality products of all kinds! They have some strange shit. But some really rad stuff too. Seriously they have everything from toys to pet clothing, collars, scratching posts, beds, bones, all of it. EVEN SWANKY LEATHER POO BAG HOLDERS!!!! It is technically a design website so most of their products are aesthetically pleasing/ interesting.You won’t see this stuff at Petco, which is why I like it:) Also, if you are looking for toys for intense chewers, they have so many things!

Excuse me while I buy a leather shit-holding pouch for my pet so I’m never seen as human again, but instead as an indestructible lesbian animal lover with an arsenal of kick-ass leather goods.

Food

Someone has the munchies

After your pet has played with all those toys, it’s going to need some serious snackage. I’m not sayin’ that Eli and I get the munchies a lot a la Scooby Doo and Shaggy, but we do. And Stef gets it, too — how nice it is to feed your pet well and know they’re loving food the way you do:

I don’t think Scully would actually mind eating the same food every day, since she was born on the mean streets and spent most of her kittenhood dumpster diving. Still, for the sake of spoiling her, I really like to switch it up and occasionally bring her things like Meow Luau and Polynesian BBQ. There is something uniquely satisfying about your cat’s dinner being fancier than yours.

Eli loves Beggin’ Strips, which seems appropriate because the advertising is so good, and I once ate smoothies with him because doggie smoothies exist and that’s fucking amazing. If you’re trying to do well by them, feed your dog the natural shit like Wellness WellBars, or Blue Dog Bakery low-fat treats. My mom swore by Mother Hubbard because she liked the name, but my Chihuahua loved them, too. And who doesn’t love a big ol’ actual piece of lamb rib holy shit did I just touch that ew what the fuck Eli, I love you too much. They’re called Smokehouse Meaty Mammoth bones, and he can’t get enough of ’em. Gnaw, man. If your dog has a sweet tooth pick up a peanut-butter filled bone. Meanwhile, Stef buys the easily pleased Scully Weruva Canned Cat Food as a special treat every once in a while.

Mary also found amazing vegan treat recipes, so you can DIY your pet or your girlfriend’s pet or your mom’s pet some food without even clicking your mouse! It may involve walking to the kitchen though, so get ready. Here’s the recipes for dogs and cats, and also — Bren wrote up one a long time ago and I still insist it’s amazing.

Animal Clothing

The thing about my dog is that he’s even cuter when he’s dressed up — and finding him stuff is super easy because Eli happens to wear a size 3Mo. for babies and I just buy him used sweater vests in thrift stores. He also loves anything that attaches to his body at the neck, like collars and bowties. He’s more dapper than I am but we have the same hair color so it doesn’t matter, you know?

eli and me, xxxmas 2011

Your dog or cat or, really, even hamster could benefit from some clothing. After all, ’tis the season to be snuggie.

Also, four for anyone who buys Eli a smoking jacket.

UGH CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE

Gifts for People with Pets and Other Animal Lover Weirdos

You’ll never forget your dog now that I’ve bought you a custom-printed mug of his face!!

Books

Because I love my dog, there are things I want people to buy for me and him that nobody could possibly understand. Take, for example, the book Eli, No! which I actually did not write but could have, based on the imagery and plot alone.

You might also consider getting people coffee table books about animals. I’m pretty sure SNOG has you covered.

If your pet-loving friends need a bit of help, try training books by Victoria Stillwell and Karen Pryor. They’re Mary-Approved, meaning they’re amazing for real.

Movies

If someone loves animals, chances are they love The Aristocats, Milo and Otis, Benji, Oliver & Company, Homeward Bound, Air Bud, and/or Beethoven, right? How about My Dog Skip?

Petgo Hands Free Bicycle Leash

You’re into girls who like dogs, maybe. Is there really a chance you won’t ever need this? Buy one and keep it on hand for your next hipster girlfriend with a pug to walk.

Top Five Famous Queer Lady Writers and their Dogs

One of the primary concerns for a lady-loving-lady is her relationship with other lady-loving-ladies. But while these lady-on-lady relationships are important, they should not take attention away from another crucially important partnership in a queer lady’s life – her relationship with her dog. Girlfriends will love you and leave you, but your four-legged friend’s desire to wake you each morning with an enthusiastic lick will never waver.

Our furry partners in queerness deserve much attention and praise. For example, there’s my lab, who’s a wonderful asset to the gay blogosphere. While she doesn’t have the literacy skills of Tinkerbell, she nonetheless inspires me to write. All I need to say is, “I’m going to write an article for Autostraddle!” and her tail will start to wag enthusiastically as she runs to my desk. It doesn’t matter that to her, the verb “to write” has more to do with the pre-work belly-scratches I give than with the typing itself. Her excitement eventually gives way to contented snoring at my feet. Let me tell you that writing to the sound of dog-snores is, hands-off-the-keyboard, the best way to write.

All of this musing about queer ladies, dogs, and writing, got me thinking that I needed to make a list – a list of famous lesbian and bisexual lady writers who had (or have) dogs. So here you have it, the one and only list in the whole world wide web honouring the unique relationship of lady-loving-lady writers and their four-legged sources of dogspiration.

1. Rita Mae Brown

brown with dogs

Rita Mae Brown has not only written about the adventures of the ambitious lady-loving Molly in Ruby Fruit Jungle. She also penned a lesser-known book, Animal Magnetism, in which she pays homage to the animals who’ve made her who she is, dogs included. She has this to say about her first dog, Chaps:

Chaps loved me, even when I was distant and just walking down a dirt road, oblivious to his overtures. He loved me when I was mean, which wasn’t often. He didn’t require that I be beautiful (good thing), smart, witty, or a fascinating conversationalist. He loved me and I loved him.

Later in her chapter on Chaps, she writes, “Chaps, while he taught me to communicate with dogs, taught me most about love. I can’t live without the love of dogs. I don’t know how anyone can.”

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2. Mary Oliver

When it comes to poet Mary Oliver, I have so many feelings. Whenever I doubt myself, I re-read and re-read and re-read her poem Wild Geese. I’ve probably read it a gazillion-million times, and I don’t even know if a gazillion-million is a real number.

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles, through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
Love what it loves
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I’ll tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself up to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
In the family of things.

You guys. I know this is an article about dogs, but I had to include this poem about wild geese, just because it’s about so much more than geese, you know.

percy

But Mary Oliver has not ignored dogs in her work. Her poem Percy speaks for itself about the importance of dogs to the whole wide world:

Percy

Our new dog, named for the beloved poet,
ate a book which unfortunately we had
left unguarded.
Fortunately, it was the Bhagavad Gita,
of which many copies are available.
Every day now, as Percy grows
into the beauty of his life, we touch
his wild, curly head and say,
“Oh, wisest of little dogs.I have a little dog who likes to nap with me.
He climbs on my body and puts his face in my neck.
He is sweeter than soap.
He is more wonderful than a diamond necklace,
which can’t even bark.
I would like to take him to Kashmir and the Ukraine,
and Jerusalem and Palestine and Iraq and Darfur,
that the sorrowing thousands might see his laughing mouth.
I would like to take him to Washington, right into
the oval office
where Donald Rumsfeld would crawl out of the president’s
armpit
and kneel down on the carpet, and romp like a boy.

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3. Eileen Myles

Riese wrote about her here . And then there are articles about her here and here. If you haven’t already noticed, we here at Autostraddle love Eileen Myles. I loved her even more when I found that there’s an  entire section of her website devoted to her writings on animals. Here she is writing about caring for her late dog Rosie:

I begin our ritual. Washing her ass first. With a small silver bowl and warm water and special dog medicated shampoo so her belly and legs and ass won’t get red and sore. I rinse her next, pat her ass dry, settle her down onto a clean mat. I do this again and again. Dog, water, soap, mat, mop, bucket. Dog craft is as close as I get in my life to devotion. Which is made of love.

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4.Virginia Woolf

Woolf was involved in a love triangle. No, I’m not talking about the one she was in with her lover Vita Sack-ville West, and both of their husbands. Besides, that’s more of a love square if we’re going to be specific. I’m talking about the love triangle between her, poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Browning’s dog, Flush. Browning described herself as a “philo-dogist,” and believed Flush was remarkably intelligent and well on his way to literacy. It was claimed that the cocker-spaniel could recognise the letters A and B and had the brain power to eventually master the entire alphabet. He didn’t, but that didn’t stop Woolf from penning “Flush: A Biography” after Browning had already written a poetic eulogy in the dog’s honour, “To Flush: My Dog.”

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5. Tinkerbell (and Riese)

But we can’t talk about highly-intelligent queer-tastic canines without honouring Tinkerbell. Unlike Flush, Tinkerbell is actually literate. Tinkerbell’s command of language goes far beyond the letters A and B. She has proven her wit in many an Autostraddle article. Also this genius is, in fact, trisexual. Riese would like you to know that Tinkerbell was born in Miami, is thin and beautiful, clingy and needy, and might be an alcoholic. Being a queer-tastic literary canine genius with a multi-faceted personality can drive one to alcoholism, you see. There are so many dimensions to Tinkerbell it’s hard to do her justice with this brief description. But hopefully, if you guys raise enough money, a tattoo artist will do her justice on Alex’s behind.

The Autostraddle Guide to Adopting Your Furry Best Friend: Dog Edition

What do queers love more than brunch and body modification? Pets, obviously. If you’re in that post-U-Haul stage, or feeling a furry best friend-sized gap in your life, you might be ready to adopt your very own dog.

via fatmontana.tumblr.com

Adopting a dog from a shelter offers a lot of perks, including, but not limited to:

+ Sticky kisses as wake-up alarms!
+ Fuzzy cuddles when you’re feeling sad!
+ Unconditional love when the stupid bigoted world is just too much!
+ Dog outfits for themed photoshoots, like Batman Dog or Drag Queen Dog or Chef Dog!
+ One million karma points for giving a needy dog the perfect home!
+ Plus, dogs are chick magnets and once you reveal that your dog is a rescue, you will need chick repellent. I’m serious.

Why adopt instead of buy from a breeder or a pet store?

There are between 6-8 million animals in shelters every year. The sad truth is that 3-4 million of these animals are euthanized. More programs are moving towards non-kill practices, but no-kill shelters are not the majority in the United States. Why is euthanasia such a common practice, and why are there so many animals in shelters? Practices like puppy mills, not getting pets spayed/neutered, and the unnecessary demand for purebred dogs contribute to the problem, as well as potential owners not being fully educated on the needs of their animal. Millions of the animals in shelters have been turned over by irresponsible owners, if not found abandoned or abused. This means that there are many more pets already in need of homes than there are in pet stores. It’s also significantly less expensive to adopt a best friend from the shelter than it is to purchase a purebred from a breeder or store.

So, are you ready for your best friend? Here are some questions you need to ask yourself before getting ready for adoption:

+ If you rent, does your landlord allow dogs? Are there any special circumstances in your building regarding pet ownership?

+  Does your lifestyle fit a new dog? If you’re always on the move, work away from home for long hours, or are planning on moving cross country after adopting, you might not be in the right place for adoption right now. Shelter dogs have already undergone difficult changes and need their new homes to be as stable as possible.

+ Is your living space big enough to comfortably accommodate a dog? Even the smallest dogs need space to play and do their business.

+ Do you have the financial means to cover food, collars, leashes, toys, medical expenses, and anything else a new dog might need? If your new best friend is special needs, he will require more medical help and therefore more financial resources. If you don’t think you’ll be able to afford medical care, there are ways to get help!

+ If you have roommates or live with your partner, have you checked in with them about their responsibilities to the new dog?

+ Are you willing to do the research to make sure you’ve found the right dog for you and your living situation? Make sure you consider factors like small children, time and space for exercise, and how often the dog will have to be alone. Different breeds have different needs, and you owe it to your best friend to make sure they’re met!

+ Are you ready to take on the huge responsibility and lifelong commitment that is owning a dog? Dogs are more than chick magnets and Instagram subjects. They are loyal animals who need your attention and care, and sometimes your discipline.

+ Are you ready to give your new best friend your very best love all of the time?

If you answered “yes” to all of these questions, or are willing to make adjustments to the ones you answered “no,” then congratulations! You’re ready to start looking for a dog.

via wishiwasascoolasyou.tumblr.com

Sites like Petfinder allow you to search through multiple shelters at once to find the perfect match. Entries will give you pictures, videos, and important information like vaccinations, behavior, and whether or not the dog can handle other pets or children. Shelters make sure they know their tenants inside and out, and they want their dogs to go to the right forever home. Most shelters will have you fill out an application before you can adopt, with relevant questions about your lifestyle, your living arrangements, and prior experience as a pet owner. They’re not trying to psych you out, I promise. They just want to make sure you and your new best friend are the best match possible.

Okay, have you found your best friend? Sweet! Before you can bring him or her or hir (dogs can be queer, whatever) home, make sure you’ve got a few things on hand first:

+ collar, leash, and ID tag – it’s okay if you haven’t picked out a fabulous name yet, you just need your telephone number.
+ dog bed, kennel, or similar safe/sleeping area – ask the shelter what your best friend prefers for sleeping arrangements!
+ dog food appropriate for size and age
+ water and food bowls
+ toys – FYI, you don’t need to buy expensive toys from the pet store, especially since those don’t tend to last very long. Tennis balls, knotted socks, and old jeans tied into ropes all work super well to keep dogs from chewing on things they shouldn’t.

And most importantly, don’t forget to dog-proof your home before your new best friend gets there. Even the mellowest dogs can be stressed by the move, which might mean higher energy behavior like chewing or scratching. How do you dog-proof a house? Imagine you have a baby, but the baby has sharp teeth and claws and likes to chew through electrical cords and knock over fragile things. Pretend that image is not totally terrifying, and proof the house accordingly.

Once your best friend comes home, expect the move to be a bit stressful for them. They might have been housebroken at the shelter, but switching environments might mean they forget to go outside for a while. It’s kind of like how people sometimes pee themselves or throw up during standardized testing. It’s okay if your best friend seems a little shy or uneasy. Transitions are super hard for everyone and adjustment takes time. Before you know it, you’ll be cuddling and dog kissing and waking up in each other’s arms just like it’s the day after a lesbian one night stand. Brunch, anyone?

via mylifein916.tumblr.com

When you’re both settled in, there’s one more set of steps to follow. Last one. No more bullet points after this, I promise.

+ Spay or neuter your dog! I cannot stress this enough. Spayed/neutered animals live longer and healthier lives, and they’re not contributing to the problems that got them in shelters in the first place. The difference between a fixed and non-fixed dog is incredible in terms of energy and behavior, and it’s so much safer for the dog. But I want puppies, you say. You are not a breeder. Don’t try to be one.
+ Train your dog! Take the time to teach your dog a set of commands. Get your roommates or partner involved so everyone is using the same commands and directions. Tricks are fun and cute, but it’s also important that your best friend comes when they’re called, and can sit and stay for safety.

“Autostraddle Freaking Loves Shelter Dogs” Testimonies

Kate: This is Cooper. Coop is a lab/pitbull mix and the love of my life. Coop was abandoned by his owner in the White Mountains of New Hampshire when he was a few months old. Neighbors called animal control to report the dog being left behind, but Cooper was off and running. The local shelter kept an eye out for him, and got reports of him in and out of the woods. He was a charming scalawag, though, so families liked to leave scraps in their backyard, and restaurants reported him showing up to steal some leftovers before running out. He lived on his own in the wilderness and miraculously survived the winter all by his lonesome. When he was finally brought to the shelter, they removed over 200 ticks from his body. He was bone thin from tapeworms, but still incredibly strong. He has the pittie build — low to the ground and super muscular. People stop me when I walk him to remark on how jacked he is. Cooper was my Christmas present after a really shitty year, and I named him after James Fenimore Cooper because I was writing my thesis and whatever, I am lame. Cooper sleeps on my pillow next to me every night. He cuddles me, gives me wake-up kisses every morning, and literally never stops wagging his tail. I’ve been through a lot of rough shit and Cooper has been there with me, putting his head on my lap when I cry, letting me spoon him when I’m too upset to sleep. I cannot imagine my life without Coop. I rescued him, but Coop saved me.

Carmen: Eli and I have been together since August 19, 2011. Not even one year when I write this, but we’re already at this point where I can’t imagine what it was like not to have Eli. Eli is a Chihuahua-Terrier mix and he’s been described as “perfect,” “soft,” “sweet,” and “really soft.” He’s a small 15 pounds with a lot of spirit and a huge heart. He was abandoned by a family in early July of the year we met and I took him home because the night before I watched a documentary about C-List celebrities and their dogs called My Dog: An Unconditional Love Story. When they put him in the play room at the shelter there were three other people with me and Eli ran directly over to me and jumped into my arms and kissed my face. I love Eli more than anything else in the world.

Someone once described adopting a pet as “taking something someone else didn’t want,” and I got upset, really upset. I saved a life last year and ever since it has brought me deep joy. My life is different. Eli and I both have each other and we both have someone and that is so sweet and amazing and such a miracle. It didn’t matter that he was a mix, that he was potentially not trained, that he jumps on furniture and pulls on the leash. I love him. And so I gave him somewhere to sleep.

Gabrielle: Hey guys, this is Kimberly. She only had the party hat on for this picture, because it was my birthday, I promise. I’ve had her for about a year, and she’s nine years young. My girlfriend and I adopted her from a local rescue where she was anonymously dropped off by someone running an illegal backyard breeding operation. Kimberly had been in a cage for her entire life, and since she’s kind of a fancy dog, a toy poodle bichon, she probably was forced to have like, a million puppies. Sometimes I think about how they were taken away from her and sold to rich people and I cry. Anyway, when we first got her, she was in really bad shape. She had such a bad mouth infection that we had to have most of her teeth removed (now she only eats wet food). She could barely walk, and she wouldn’t eat or drink water. She wouldn’t even defecate until several days after living with us. We essentially had to teach her how to be a dog. It was really challenging but also really rewarding. She didn’t even know what grass was! And now one of her favorite things is rolling in it. Since she didn’t understand how to play with toys, we put them in a bag of treats over night to entice her with the smell, which worked like magic. Since she was never house trained, she pees up to 10 times a day, so we’ve had a lot of luck with wee wee pads rather than trying to take her out every hour. Also, she’s a bundle of anxiety, and is afraid of things like black garbage bags, noise in general, the dark, stairs, solitude, the outside, strangers, rain, etc. But recently she’s been getting much braver and will approach the things that scare her while making a noise that sounds kind of like a telephone ringing while wagging her tail. She’s also the cuddliest creature of all time, which is how she earned the name Colonel Cuddleton. In the past year, she’s gained 2.5 pounds (which is a lot considering she was only 5 pounds a year ago). She still can’t walk up stairs or jump on and off furniture (she doesn’t know how to land, she literally just catches herself with her face on the ground) but she’s grown into the sassiest, sweetest, most lovable little bear in the world.

Eleven Things You Wish You Knew About Honeybees

I am not a person who likes bugs. I refuse to go camping out of fear that I’ll wake up with a spider dangling half an inch above my face. Ants marching in a straight line make me want to pull out a magnifying glass and fry them one by one as they come towards me. I’ve been known to take showers in the middle of the night after waking up from nightmares involving cockroaches lying eggs in different crevices in my house and body.

But bees? Bees are fascinating! Cute, even. I recently went on a road trip with my friend, Molly, to visit her family — including her bee-keeping dad, Jack — in New England. After two days of eating honey on toast, on spoons, and on a giant pancake, we got to go out and play with the bees.

The Dutch Baby Pancake

I spent the entire 30 minute ride out to the farm pestering Jack with questions like a kindergardener.

Where do you get bees? They come in the mail.

How much honey do you get every year? Two years ago we harvested 15 gallons but last year we only got 2.

Have you ever been stung? Yes. 

We went to two of his hives, one where the bees had died from not having enough to make it through the winter (although, bafflingly, an entire lower drawer of honeycomb had been entirely ignored by the bees who ate from bottom to top and died in droves near the top) and another mean-ass colony who were still alive and kicking in 15 degree weather. After an afternoon spent poking around the hives, I went home with a plan for my retirement, a jar full of Jack’s Gold, and a head full of bee knowledge that I can’t wait to tell you about.

1. Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. In this case, I feel like that would be at the notes I took for all you apiphobes (or melissophobes, although that one sounds a little more like someone afraid of people named Melissa than someone afraid of bees) out there: bees only sting when they’re threatened. And for good reason: honeybees have a barbed stinger that sticks in human skin, separating their abdomen from the rest of their body and killing them when they use it. Unless you’re an EpiPen-carrying member of the Allergic-To-Bees club, bees actually suffer more than you do from a sting.

2. Swarms of bees are also less terrifying than they initially seem. A swarm is more mass exodus than killing machine and is usually a fairly calm process. Swarming is how bee colonies grow and reproduce. Every spring, some colonies decide to split off when they get too big. Since the hive can only have one queen at a time, the queen prepares by laying eggs in special “queen cups” that will be fed royal jelly by the workers so they will become fertile. Then those ever-diligent workers stop feeding the queen so that she can lose enough weight to fly out with her swarm.

After they leave, the first queen who hatches will fly out with the drones and then come back and decide if she wants to stay in her new digs. If she leaves she’ll take more of the colony with her, but if she stays, she’ll kill all her sister queens by stinging them before they hatch. Which makes me reconsider calling swarms “less terrifying” because infanticide is not exactly the stuff of daydreams. Let’s go with “less threatening to you and yours.”

3. If that’s not enough to convince you, consider this: you can pretend to be a spaceman when you’re wearing a bee suit.

One small step for man

4. Something else about bee safety: smoking is good for you! Not smoking smoking, but bee smoking, the kind of thing you do when you want to go near a beehive but wish the bees would just calm their little selves down a little. Why? Well, bees kind of freak out when they smell smoke because they’re pretty sure that where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And you know that game: what would you take with your if your house was burning down? Bees know their answer by heart and it’s only one thing: honey. So when you smoke bees, they gorge themselves on honey so that they can fly far, far away without passing out. Unfortunately, all that eating means that flying and/or stinging is not really an option. It’s kind of like if a robber tried to steal your family’s television after Thanksgiving dinner. We’d like to think that we’d be poised and ready to strike, but in reality we’ll probably make a few feeble attempts at standing up before pathetically resigning ourselves to sitting on our couch and watching as a stranger hauls off with our TV.

5. Now on to the marvelous things bees do with their bodies. For example: secrete wax! All the cells that make up honeycomb are identical hexagons. They’re built to store honey and pollen and hold eggs and larvae (this word is the reason I could never study bugs). Bees have to eat more than 8 pounds of honey to make 1 pound of wax, so beekeepers usually keep the honeycomb and return it to the hive after harvesting the honey. Despite being ultrasensitive (they can tell when their queen dies because she stops giving off pheromones), bees don’t mind using honeycomb from another hive. It’s just like moving into a house instead of having to build a new one every time.

Via: Molly

6. She works hard for the honey! The average bee produces around 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime. To look at it from another angle, it takes a hive of bees the equivalent of 1 and a half orbits around the earth to make 1 cup of honey.

7. Before we go any further, let’s let Isabella Rossellini give us a refresher on bee sex.

8. Aren’t you glad you’re not a bee? If you were, you’d be assigned a job based on how old you were. Baby bees spend their first two days cleaning out the honeycomb, starting with the cells they were born in, and keeping the unhatched larvae warm. They spend the next 9 days feeding the larvae, first the oldest and then the youngest. 12 to 17-day-old bees build the comb, carry food, and remove dead bees from the hive. They turn into guards for the next 4 days, protecting the hive from predators, and then spend the rest of their life — 6 weeks — collecting pollen, nectar, and water.

9. Since all the bees in a hive are related to the queen, the disposition of the colony depends on the queen. Some beekeepers who find themselves with a particularly nasty colony will remove the queen and replace her with a new one in hopes that she won’t be quite as mean. Since the lifecycle of a bee is only 6 weeks, it doesn’t take too long until a new temperament takes over.

The Angry Bees

10. Remember how I said they’re super sensitive? Bees can see color, but not the same way that we do. Their eyes can see a wider portion of the spectrum than ours can and so ultraviolet patterns on flowers that are invisible to us act as landing pads to guide bees to their centers.

What bees see: the colors on the second flower aren't real (bees can't see red) but the pattern is

11. Bees have a special dance that they do to tell their friends where the food is. This is amazing for a couple of reasons: a) The dance is called a “Waggle Dance,” which I’m going to assume was named by a scientist who harbored a secret desire to write for children’s shows. b) The bee is using vector calculus to explain to the other bees where the food is located. I don’t even know what vector calculus is. And c) Bees know that the earth is round. In fact, they’ve known that the earth is round since before Christopher Columbus accidentally landed in the Caribbean. I bet bees already know that gay marriage won’t destroy the human race.

Jack as a human, Me as an Alien