Cats bringing out the soft side of inmates

Several inmates at a Vancouver-area prison have furry new bunk mates with the goal that the offenders and the cats will teach each other compassion.

Source: The Seattle Times. By Jennifer Sullivan

 

Larch inmate Joseph Contreras hugs Princess Natalie, a longhair 6-year-old cat, who is known at times to have a testy disposition. 

YACOLT, Clark County — Princess Natalie glowers from her perch, a small table tucked inside a concrete prison cell. Her thick, black tail twitches and her golden-green eyes narrow as she offers a clearly dissatisfied meow when Joey Contreras picks her up and kisses her head. 

Despite the protestations, Contreras and his cellmate, Joey Walter, say that they have the best jobs of any inmates in Washington: They're paid 35 cents an hour to care for Natalie, a longhair 6-year-old cat with a testy disposition.

Since January, staff at Larch Corrections Center, a minimum-custody prison near Vancouver, have assigned two shelter cats to each live with a pair of inmates in the hope that the relationships will result in better behavior — in both the felons and the cats. "We're feline attendants," jokes Contreras, 28, who is serving time for identity theft, forgery, fraud and possession of stolen property, as he proudly shows off the scratches and bite marks courtesy of Natalie. The cat's terrible temper and fussiness led Contreras to add "Princess" to her name. "She growls and swipes," said Walter, 37, who is behind bars for assaulting a police officer. "We don't know what she's in here for," he jokes. "She won't tell us."

For years, corrections agencies across the nation have adopted programs to allow inmates to interact with animals as a way to teach them responsibility and compassion, two things in rare supply in most prison cells. In Washington, such programs have connected inmates with a veritable menagerie of animals — from honeybees to tadpoles, dogs to butterflies, and now, for the first time, cats.

Dan Pacholke, director of prisons for the state Department of Corrections (DOC), says it's been more than 30 years since dogs were assigned a permanent place in the prison system. Since the early 1980s, inmates at the Washington Corrections Center for Women, in Gig Harbor, have trained dogs for owners with special needs. Since then, dog-training programs have spread to a big portion of the state prisons.

Eleven of the state's 12 prisons have some type of program involving inmate interaction with animals. It will become 12 for 12 later this month when inmates at Airway Heights Corrections Center, near Spokane, will start training dogs, Pacholke said.

Pacholke believes that having inmates work with animals makes "the environment of prisons less tense and less violent." Working with animals "instills empathy, compassion and responsibility" in the offenders, he said.
"They're getting [animals] that are castaways. That irony isn't lost on the inmates. They're encouraged by the success," Pacholke said.

Monique Camacho, a classification counselor at Larch Corrections Center, said inmates interested in participating in the program must have a history of good behavior. They pair each cat with two inmates, and donors provide the necessary supplies — a litter box, scratching post and cat food.

The inmates, designated by DOC as "cat handlers," are paid to leash train, socialize and groom the cats so the animals can ultimately be adopted.

Cuddly Catz, a Vancouver-based nonprofit animal-welfare group that takes in abandoned cats, places the cats in the prison. Their volunteers come out regularly to teach the inmates how to work with the animals, Camacho said.

Cuddly Catz, and a veterinary clinic and a man who makes scratching posts donate everything, from the posts, to the litter boxes, to toys and any necessary medical treatments.

On a recent afternoon, Clementine, a small gray and white cat, spread out on her scratching post, staring at 35-year-old inmate Richard Amaro as he talked about her likes and dislikes. He boasted about her sunny disposition and said he and his cellmate are lucky to be assigned such a mellow cat, compared to their neighbors' cat, the redoubtable Princess Natalie. "This gives you a softer side; it makes you feel like you have a kid at home. When I've been out during the day I remember I've got my daughter at home waiting for me," said Amaro, who is serving time for theft, harassment and contracting without a license. Clementine doesn't make a peep when Amaro clips a leash on her and carries her out of his cell. Amaro walks out of his cellblock to an outdoor gated area, next to the prison's razor-wire fence. He opens the gate, sets his cat on the ground, and she scampers to a log and hunkers down.

The DOC cat program is free for the agency, except for the $1,000 they spent on the outside cat-play area.
Watching the men at the outside cat-play area, Corrections Officer Wes Robinson said he's surprised by the positive change he's seen in Contreras since the arrival of Princess Natalie. Robinson said that he used to supervise Contreras at Stafford Creek Corrections Center, in Aberdeen, and recalls he was a problem inmate. "It just give them something around to take care of. Contreras was a handful," Robinson said. "This takes his mind off things."

Camacho, the counselor at Larch, said that when she and prison Superintendent Eleanor Vernell started brainstorming ideas for new pet programs, she suggested horses. Vernell suggested cats. "I wanted to do something different," said Vernell, who believed "dogs are too macho."

Vernell believes that working with cats is far more complex because inmates have to work harder to earn the animal's affection. "It teaches them responsibility. It teaches them patience. It teaches them how to bond," Vernell said. In the coming months, prison officials hope to expand the program to about a half-dozen cats to pair with each two-man cell, Camacho said. "This forces them to think outside of themselves. They have to make sure the cat is loved and happy," Camacho added.
Jennifer Sullivan:  206-464-8294  or jensullivan@seattletimes.com. On Twitter @SeattleSullivan.

Misao The Big Mama And Fukumaru The Cat: Stunning Pictures Of A Long Friendship

Source: Huffington Post 

Meet 88-year-old Misao and her odd-eyed companion, Fukumaru.The heartarming friendship between a Japanese grandmother and her beloved cat, documented in a series of photographs, has become a best-selling book in Japan and a viral sensation in the United States.

In 2003, a stray cat happened to give birth to a white male kitten in a barn on Misao Ihara's property. The cat was soon adopted into the family and became Ihara’s inseparable companion. According to Little More Books, Ihara named the cat "Fukumaru" in hope that "the god of fuku (good fortune) would come and everything will be smoothed over like maru (circle)."

Twelve years ago, photographer Miyoko Ihara, Misao's 30-year-old granddaughter who lives with her, began taking photographs of her grandmother and Fukumaru as they went about their lives. Despite being 88 years old, Misao Ihara still goes out to the field everyday in her hometown of Chiba to farm, and Fukumaru accompanies her, helping her with her daily tasks. “Partly because they are both hard of hearing, my grandmother and Fukumaru are always looking into each other’s eyes. They’re really close,” Miyoko Ihara told Nippon.com. “Fukumaru is so happy and contented at my grandmother’s side. When I take a picture of the two of them together it’s like I’m photographing myself as a little girl.”

The photographs documenting their close bond were compiled into a book, "Misao The Big Mama and Fukumaru The Cat" which has taken Japan by storm. Misao Ihara believes it is because of the tranquility of life portrayed in the photographs.

“When I see the way my grandmother is living her life, I really feel that she has a kind of strength that my generation simply can’t match. She gets up with the sun, and goes to bed when it sets. She loves her cat and the vegetables in her field like her own children. If her vegetables come out well, she’s happy. She doesn’t have to worry about questions like ’what is the point of my work?’ Her way of life fills me with admiration and a sort of envy," Miyoko Ihara said.

Loyal Italian Cat, Toldo, Brings Gifts To Owner's Grave.

Source: Huffington Post

A loyal cat has been bringing his owner small gifts everyday in a show of affection. The catch? The cat's owner has been dead for over a year.

Meet Toldo -- a cute, 3-year-old black and white cat living in Montagnana, northern Italy. According to the Corriere Fiorentino, Toldo has been visiting his owner -- Iozzelli Renzo, who died on September 22, 2011, aged 71 -- every day for the past year and leaving small presents at the grave. The gifts usually consist of leaves, sticks, twigs, plastic cups or paper towels.

Story continues after photo ...



"Even today I went to the cemetery with Toldo. On the way back, someone I know told me the cat has already been there early this morning," Renzo's widow, Ada, told the Corriere Fiorentino.

Neighbors have also seen Toldo wandering around the cemetery through the day. It all started the day of the funeral, when the cat followed the coffin from the house to the cemetery. The next morning, Ada went to the grave again. "We went to the cemetery with my daughter and found a sprig of acacia on the grave. I immediately thought that it was the cat, but my daughter was convinced that I was just in a very emotional state at that moment," she told the news source. That night, however, Renzo's son returned to the cemetery and found Toldo standing guard at the grave, reported Dreuz.info.

Story continues after photo ... 



Ada says that her late husband shared a particularly strong bond with Toldo -- He'd adopted the feline from a cat colony when he was just 3 months old.

Unfortunately, not everyone believes in the sanctity of the relationship between Toldo and his owner. Ada told La Nazione that people often try to shoo the cat away.

"There are insensitive people who send him away with stones or other things, convinced that the presence of an animal in the cemetery is almost a desecration," she told the news source.  Still, Toldo remains resilient and continues to visit the grave everyday.

"My husband was very affectionate with him. Renzo loved animals. It's almost as if Toldo would be grateful. He is a special cat, one can not help liking him, " Ada said.

Me-yow! This cat has a glow — for a good cause 

Source: NBC News

For brightness, glowworms got nothing on Mr. Green Genes. And for fright factor, neither do black cats. The 6-month-old feline may look like a standard-issue orange tabby in the comfort of daylight, but he turns a ghoulish shade of fluorescent green under the shroud of darkness! But there’s no need to get spooked; Mr. Green Genes is not a ghastly creation out of a Halloween horror story. The glow-in-the-dark cat is the result of a genetic experiment gone right, not awry; he was cloned at the Audubon Nature Institute in New Orleans to aid endangered species ... and down the line, humans as well. The phosphorescent feline made his national television debut on TODAY Thursday. The studio went dark and Mr. Green Genes’ ears, nose and eyes glowed under an ultraviolet light.

The green gene Betsy Dresser, senior vice president for the institute, explained to TODAY’s Amy Robach the process of producing a kitty that strangely glows, but is otherwise as normal as any of its brethren. “Two of our scientists at the center worked together with the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center,” Dresser said. “They introduced a gene that would then produce a protein that glowed fluorescent green.”

While it’s certainly a neat scientific parlor trick, Dresser told TODAY the research that led to the glowing cloned Mr. Green Genes is vitally serious — both to combat animal diseases via gene therapy and, later, to increase the possibility of inserting good genes into humans while taking bad genes out. But to verify that the gene implants were working, scientists needed to try them out on a cat, because the animals have much of the same genetic makeup as humans. And to see if the genes actually made it into the finished, cloned cat, a gene was inserted that produces a fluorescent protein.  “We wanted to know for sure that we could insert this gene into a cell and have it multiply,” Dresser explained. “If nothing glows, we wouldn’t know if the gene was really inserted. So, because it glows, we know we inserted the gene and were successful with that technique.”

The nose glows While Mr. Green Genes pawed playfully and rolled on his back for handler Kelly Trimble, Dresser explained that all the cat’s skin cells glow with the green fluorescent protein but, because it’s a furry critter, only the eyes, ears and nose display wattage under ultraviolet. “If we were to shave him, he would glow totally,” Dresser told Robach. Dresser was also quick to note there is nothing cruel and unusual involved in producing a cat that glows in the dark. “It’s totally harmless,” Dresser said. “He’s just a normal cat; he doesn’t know he’s glowing.”

 

As host Amy Robach looks on, Mr. Green Genes’ handlers prepare to expose the cat to an ultraviolet lamp. Normal or not, Mr. Green Genes might one day be considered a pioneer and hero in the advancement of genetics. For example, in endangered animal species that carry a gene making them prone to a specific disease, that gene could be pulled out at the embryo stage to give the species a better chance at surviving and prospering.

For mankind, it might lead to new innovations in treating diabetes, Dresser said. “In a diabetic human, there are genes that make insulin. If we can insert genes that make diabetics produce their own insulin, then we hope to stop diabetes. “It’s helpful to both animals and humans,” she added. But that’s the future. In the present, Mr. Green Genes can look forward to a normal life — unless he’s exposed to a black light, the secret of his glow is safe.

And Mr. Green Genes’ offspring might have a bright future too, Dresser said. “We’ll breed him and we’ll see if his kids glow, too!”

Dogs and Cats in the Fur Trade

   

Dogs and Cats in the Fur Trade. 
Source: The Humane Society of the United States  



Buying fur or fur trim supports an industry that kills millions of domestic dogs and cats each year—both on purpose and accidentally in traps.

Although most dog and cat victims of the fur trade are raised and killed in China and other parts of Asia, their fur is exported for sale worldwide.

The United States already bans the sale of dog and cat fur (prompted by an HSUS investigation), but recent investigations found that dog fur is still slipping into the country on unlabeled and falsely advertised jackets. In the United States, traps set for wild animals like foxes and bobcats maim or kill countless dogs and cats each year.

Cat 'arrested' for break-in at Brazilian prison

Cat 'arrested' for break-in at Brazilian prison. Source: BBC

The confiscated items strapped to the cat's body included drill bits, files, and a mobile phone.

A cat has been detained in the grounds of a jail in Brazil with contraband goods for prisoners strapped to its body with tape. The white cat was apprehended crossing the main prison gate. The incident took place at a jail in Arapiraca city, 250km (155 miles) south-west of Recife in Alagoas state. The confiscated items included drill bits, files, a mobile phone and charger, plus earphones The cat was taken to a local animal center.

The jail holds some 263 prisoners. A prison spokesperson was quoted by local paper Estado de S. Paulo as saying: "It's tough to find out who's responsible for the action as the cat doesn't speak." Officials said the items could be used to effect a means of escape or for communicating with criminals on the outside. The incident took place at New Year, but the photo has only recently been released.

Caffrey: The Two-Legged Cat

The black persian feline was hit by a car.

Source: ABC News

Caffrey, the black persian cat, has two legs -- both on the same side of its body after it was hit by a car according to the Daily Mail. (Casey Gutteridge / SWNS.com)