Shout About Pets

Cats sleep for a really quite frightening proportion of their lives. Even at their most active, they’re still likely to sleep for about 12 to 16 hours. Lazier cats can rack up 20 hours of sleep in every 24 hour period.

The effect is magnified by the fact that cats are virtually nocturnal, being at their most active at dawn and dusk. This is why your cat absolutely flips out for half an hour or so round about the time the sun goes down.

Bizarrely, long haired cats are generally less active than short haired cats. Maybe it’s something to do with conserving energy in cold climates. I dunno. I just made that up really.

Very few of them, actually. I’ll admit this is largely a personal prejudice, but their beady eyes, sharp beaks and clawing feet freak me out a bit.

With that in mind, you want to try and get the least birdlike bird to be your pet. You want something with big cow eyes, a rounded beak and actually you probably can’t do anything about the feet. They don’t come with wheels. Some birds that love water have flipper feet. They’re better than talons.

You know what? Thinking about it, I’m not even sure birds should be pets at all. Birds need room. Pets have to stay indoors. It’s not fair to keep an animal that can fly in a cage. It can’t do the one thing it loves doing.

So, in conclusion, get a penguin.

What kind of an idiot needs to have food rationed? Surely we’ve all evolved to look after ourselves to at least that degree?

Well, no. Take a look at Americans. Clearly even humanity hasn’t quite got a handle on how much food is needed for survival. What chance have goldfish got?

Goldfish need to be fed very carefully or they can develop all sorts of problems. They can get fin rot or a fatty liver and too much food can have an effect on the quality of the water as well, which can lead to all sorts of other problems.

As a rule of thumb, only feed the fish as much as they can eat in four or five minutes. Anything not eaten after this time probably won’t be eaten.

As pets, guinea pigs are… okay. They’re not going to do a lot, but if guinea pigs are your thing, go ahead, knock yourself out.

If guinea pigs are REALLY your thing, how about getting a capybara? It’s basically a guinea pig built to the wrong scale.

They have slightly webbed feet, no tail and just sort of skulk around. They’re big though. They can be eight or nine stones in weight. Fat buggers.

It’s hard to look at a capybara without thinking that it looks like some other animal, only rounded in some way – shorter legs, rounder body, stubby snout.

One of the best things about cats is that, like soap, they’re self-cleansing. However, from time to time, you do need to intervene.

Cats are forever getting scratches – mostly from other cats. If your cat gets scratches on their back legs, they’re not a fighter. If they get them on their face and front paws, they’re scrapping.

Most of these cuts don’t come to much, but occasionally one can get infected. If there is a big cut or you can see that one has become infected, you’ll need to clean it.

You need nothing more than salt water and a cloth or kitchen towel, but a word of advice – be forceful. Many cat owners are too gentle and don’t actually clean the wound, which is a waste of time.