International Cat Day

Did you celebrate International Cat Day last weekend? If not, Anabel and Sally want me to let you know that it isn’t too late, you can start celebrating right now. (They actually think that every day is a celebration of them, so they don’t know why you wouldn’t celebrate International Cat Day any old time you want.)

Officially, Saturday, August 8 is International Cat Day.  Established in 2002 by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), it is billed as a day to raise awareness for cats and learn about ways to help and protect them.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you are already quite aware of cats, Anabel and Sally in particular. You know about Anabel and Sally’s volunteer work and their tips for those having a hard time with the stay at home order.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the oldest archaeological evidence of the domestication of the cat dates back 9,500 years. In the Neolithic village of Shillourokambos on Cyprus, the bones of a cat and a human were discovered next to each other. The position and similar state of preservation suggests they were buried together.

But the ancient Egyptians took cat appreciation to a whole other level. For them, cats were the physical embodiment of gods and symbols of divine protection. Domestic cats were believed to carry the divine essence of Bastet (or Bast), the cat-headed goddess who represented fertility, domesticity, music, dance, and pleasure.

If you are looking for an excuse to add a cat to your home you may be interested to know that studies have shown that sharing your home with a cat can improve mental health and relieve stress, anxiety and depression. And since no one is really going anywhere these days anyway, you don’t have to worry about going out with cat hair all over all of your clothes.

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If you think that you can’t have a cat because of your terrible cat allergies, modern science has something in process for you! Cat allergies are really just an allergy to the Fel d 1 protein that cats produce in their saliva. Of course, then they lick themselves and it gets everywhere. But there is a vaccine in process that is given to the cat to prevent production of this protein. It was making the news big time around a year ago. I wasn’t able to find any recent updates, but I am optimistic that it will be coming on the market soon. I’m so excited for all the poor people who think that they could never live with a cat! In the meantime, Purina has come out with ProPlan Allergen Reducing food that claims to reduce the amount of Fel d 1 protein by 47%.

We celebrated International Cat Day the way that we celebrate most days around here – Anabel and Sally got delicious Intense Beauty flavor cat food with sprinkles, bowls full of fresh ice cubes, a good brushing, and then slept their day away.