Former Wrestler Stops Attempted 'Cat Burglars'

Source: ABC NEWS

A former wrestler nabs cat thieves. 

 

Cats may be known for landing on their feet, but that's not the case for three "cat burglars" accused of attempting to steal two felines from a New Jersey animal shelter. The two attempted "cat burglars" grabbed two cats and tried to make their escape through the woods behind the SAVE animal shelter in Princeton, N.J., towards a getaway car driven by another teen, according to ABC station WPVI-TV in Philadelphia. They were caught after a former wrestler and long-time volunteer for the shelter ran after the pair and caught one. 

"Fortunately this wonderful volunteer of ours pinned one of these guys down and said, 'Give me back that kitten, I know you're trying to steal it,'" SAVE Executive Director Piper Burrows told WPVI-TV. "The volunteer made this young man call his friend who was running through the woods at this point with the other kitten and managed to get both of them here." 

According to WPVI-TV, John Moore and Hamza Cheema, both 19, have been charged with burglary and theft. Corey Thompson, 19, turned himself in and was charged with conspiracy to commit theft and hindering apprehension, WPVI-TV reported. 

One of the cats was adopted after the alleged kidnap attempt, while the other, a golden cat named Casino, still needs a home.

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Stubbs, Cat Mayor Of Alaska Town, Wins Community Support After Dog's Assassination Attempt

Source: Huffington Post

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- The honorary mayor of a tiny Alaska town is noticeably absent this week, when he should be hanging out at the general store or sipping his water-catnip concoctions from a wine glass at the pub next door.

Instead, Stubbs the cat is sedated and under veterinary care after he was badly injured in a vicious dog attack in Talkeetna, a quirky community of 900 that elected him in a write-in campaign 15 years ago. Talkeetna has no human mayor, so you could say 16-year-old Stubbs is the reigning leader – of the feline sort, anyway.

"He's everybody's guy," said Stubbs' owner, Lauri Stec, who manages Nagley's General Store, where the orangey-beige cat lives and mingles with locals and tourists alike. Saturday's attack by the loose dog left Stubbs with a punctured lung, bruised hips, a long deep gash on his side and a sternum fractured to the point it might need to be repaired with a plate.

Stec has reported the attack with borough animal control officials.

Because the cat was so severely injured, Stec has not been allowed to visit him at the veterinary clinic that took an hour to get to after the nighttime attack. A local veterinarian went with her for the long drive in heavy rain. Because it wasn't a sure thing that Stubbs would even make it to the emergency treatment, the vet took along a euthanasia kit.

Stec has gotten the go-ahead to pay a brief visit to Stubbs Thursday afternoon. The next few days will be crucial in his recovery, but the cat has begun to sit up and eat. A tube inserted his lung has been removed. All in all, Stubbs is holding his own, Stec said.

"He's a freaking tough boy," she said.

Stubbs also gained multiple fans outside of Alaska when word got out about his role in town, a popularity that earned him national stories and visits from tourists stopping in the community that serves as the last stop for travelers and climbers visiting Mount McKinley, North America's tallest peak.

The town, 115 miles north of Anchorage, is purported to be the inspiration for the town in the TV series, "Northern Exposure." It's a place dotted with artist shops, where bachelors are auctioned off at a yearly fundraiser ball and where women compete in a wilderness contest.

Even in such a place, Stubbs is a star.

"We all love him," said Geoff Pfeiffer, a waiter at the West Rib Pub and Cafe located inside the same building as the general store. The staff there is hanging on to Stubbs' wine glass, hoping they get to fill it again with water and a catnip garnish, a feline cocktail for a regular who commands attention every time he comes in.

"It's like Elvis has entered the building," Pfeiffer said.

Stubbs has his own Facebook page, filled with posts this week from well-wishers around the world. He also has his own Twitter page. On Wednesday morning, "Stubbs" tweeted: "If the dog community believes b/c the Mayor was declawed he won't fight back they're wrong. Dead wrong. Old Yeller wrong."

Before Saturday, Stubbs had already used up a few of his nine lives. In the past, he has been shot by a BB gun, and still has a BB lodged inside. He's fallen into a cold fryer vat at the West Rib when the staff was changing the oil. He rode on a garbage truck before jumping off.

His is a big personality, both in his adventures and social encounters, letting people pick him up and photograph him.

"He's a little pistol," Stec said. "He's got a great personality."

She's not alone in thinking that. Donations from well-wishers as far away as Australia have been pouring in for Stubbs' veterinary bills. There's also a jar for donations at the general store placed near a photo of Stubbs.

Alaska feline mayor Stubbs the cat suffers dog attack
Source: BBC.com

Image: Stubbs the cat was elected mayor of Talkeetna 15 years ago.

A cat which was elected mayor of an Alaskan town 15 years ago has been badly injured in a dog attack.Stubbs the cat, mayor of Talkeetna - which has no human mayor - is receiving veterinary care.
The cat, aged 16, was elected in a write-in campaign 15 years ago. In the wake of Saturday's attack, Stubbs has been left with a punctured lung, bruised hips, a long deep gash on his side and a fractured sternum, the AP news agency reports. Talkeetna, 115 miles (185km) north of the state's main city, Anchorage, is dotted with artist shops and is said to be the inspiration for the US TV series Northern Exposure.

Grumpy Cat Has an Agent, and Now a Movie Deal

By KATHERINE ROSMAN
Source: Wall Street Journal

Some celebrities simply cannot be pleased. Just ask Ben Lashes, a talent manager in Los Angeles. This week, he landed a major motion-picture deal for a client who nine months ago was an unknown living in Morristown, Ariz., population 227.  When he told his client that she was heading to Hollywood, she looked bored. "She hates movies," says Mr. Lashes of his client, Grumpy Cat, a cat with a mouth puckered into a frown whose viral photos have ricocheted around the Internet.

Grumpy Cat

Mr. Lashes, 34 years old, is an agent for Internet cats. When an ironic photograph of a feline becomes Internet famous, Mr. Lashes contacts the pet owner and offers to help strategize ways to prolong, protect and monetize. He says he operates with this question in mind: "What would Walt Disney do if he created Mickey Mouse and it went viral on YouTube?" Grumpy Cat, the Arizona sourpuss, is Mr. Lashes's star client. The cat is having a mini-Mickey moment. Last September, Bryan Bundesen, 34, a cable technician from Galion, Ohio, was visiting his sister Tabatha in Arizona. He snapped a photo of her cat, a mixed breed whose real name is Tardar Sauce. (Ms. Bundesen, who works as a waitress at a Red Lobster, says her daughter thought the cat's fur was the color of tartar sauce, but misspelled it.) Mr. Bundesen posted the picture on the website Reddit. People thought it was funny. Many began to overlay the photo with sentences expressing what they imagined to be the cat's irritation with humans: "I thought I could not be more disappointed…you proved me wrong," reads one of thousands. "There are two kinds of people in this world…and I don't like them," says another.

From Grumpy Cat to Keyboard Cat, when online fur balls are ready for prime time they turn to Internet talent-manager Ben Lashes to score commercials and licensing deals WSJ's Linda Freund reports. Within weeks, photos and videos of the cat had been shared and posted to social-media sites millions of times.
Mr. Lashes, whose legal name is Benjamin Clark, became the cat's representative in October. He says he is trying to help the Bundesens capitalize on the cat's fame without overexposing it. This week, Mr. Lashes helped negotiate the sale of a film option based on Grumpy Cat's persona to Broken Road Productions, the production company responsible for Adam Sandler's 2011 vehicle "Jack and Jill." Terms of the one-picture deal weren't disclosed.

This week, Grumpy Cat is coming to New York to promote the forthcoming Chronicle Books release, "Grumpy Cat: A Grumpy Book: Disgruntled Tips and Activities Designed to Put a Frown on Your Face" at BookExpo America, the publishing industry convention.

Mr. Lashes also has forged a deal with Grenade Beverage LLC to create and distribute a line of Grumpy Cat coffee-in-cans and bottled beverages. Excluding the movie deal, the Bundesens have earned a low-six-figure sum off the cat thus far, Mr. Bundesen says. Mr. Lashes's take is about 20%, clients say. (Mr. Lashes declined to comment on financial arrangements.)

"He is really good at helping us not get taken advantage of," Mr. Bundesen says of Mr. Lashes.
Mr. Lashes grew up in Spokane, Wash. After a year of college, he dropped out in 2000 to pursue his dream of becoming a professional musician. He fronted a band and worked in talent scouting for an independent label.

In 2010, he heard from Charlie Schmidt, an old friend of his father's and a multimedia artist in Spokane. Back in 1985, Mr. Schmidt told Mr. Lashes, he had dressed his now deceased cat, Fatso, in a blue T-shirt, sat him at a keyboard and manipulated the cat such that it played a song Mr. Schmidt wrote. Mr. Schmidt had recently posted the old video on YouTube. Keyboard Cat was blowing up.

Mr. Lashes started helping his family friend, creating a social-media strategy to fan the cat's grass-roots popularity. He told Mr. Schmidt to adopt a new cat and make more videos. Then came the licensing deals with T-shirt, toy and novelty gift companies. Soon, Mr. Lashes was making deals for the cat to appear in marketing and ad campaigns. In all, Mr. Schmidt says he has made nearly $300,000 from Keyboard Cat deals Mr. Lashes has arranged.

Mr. Lashes now lives in West Hollywood, Calif., where he works out of his one-bedroom condo. His newest client is Princess Monster Truck, a cat with an underbite. "When it comes to cats, Ben knows who is going to be big," says Christopher Torres, a client of Mr. Lashes and the creator of Nyan Cat, a digital, square-shaped feline. Mr. Lashes also represents other photographs, images, sayings or ideas that spread online and become cultural inside jokes.

Mr. Lashes says he tries to help his clients protect their brands as well. Last month, Messrs. Torres and Schmidt filed a lawsuit with the U.S. District Court in the central district of California. They allege that 5th Cell and Warner Bros.—respectively the developer and publisher of the Scribblenauts franchise of videogames—have infringed on the copyright and trademark right of Keyboard Cat and Nyan Cat, by including the characters in Scribblenauts games.

"If you're a big corporation and you normally pay for the use of these things, we will come after you," says Kia Kamran, an attorney who works with Mr. Lashes on his clients' transaction matters and who also represents the intellectual property rights of the tattoo on former boxer Mike Tyson's face.

A spokeswoman for Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment declined to comment. 5th Cell didn't respond to requests for comment. Mr. Lashes says he is driven by a desire to "protect the little guy" but also to have fun. At the South by Southwest tech convention in Austin, Texas, in March, he arranged a paid-appearance deal for Grumpy Cat from the website Mashable. For two-hour stretches over three days, the cat lay on a cushioned pedestal in Mashable's tent and conventioneers waited in line for hours to have their photo taken with the nonplused puss.

The logistics weren't that complicated to work through—Grumpy Cat was already scheduled to be in Austin to tape a celebrity edition of an online game show, "Will Kitty Play With It?" As part of the travel expenses covered by Friskies, the cat-food brand that sponsors the game show, Mr. Bundesen says he chauffeured Grumpy Cat around Austin in a black BMW BMW.XE -1.12% X5, with tinted windows. When they left the final day of the Mashable appearance, he says the car was swamped by 40 to 50 people taking photos of the cat through the car windows. "It was like the paparazzi," he says.

Write to Katherine Rosman at katherine.rosman@wsj.com

Corrections & Amplifications
Benjamin Clark is the legal name of the cat talent agent who goes by the name Ben Lashes. An earlier version of this article failed to note that Lashes isn't his legal name.A version of this article appeared May 30, 2013, on page A1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: A Hollywood Agent Helps Web's Cats Claw Their Way to the Top.

Cat allergy research offers new clues

By Helen Briggs BBC News. Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-23436589

 

Cats are common culprits for pet allergies. Scientists have discovered how allergic reactions to cats are triggered, raising hopes of preventative medicine. A University of Cambridge team has identified how the body's immune system detects cat allergen, leading to symptoms such as coughing and sneezing. New treatments to block this pathway raise hopes of developing medicines to protect sufferers, they say. Allergy UK says the research is "a big step forward" in understanding how cat allergen causes allergic reactions.

Researchers led by Dr Clare Bryant of the University of Cambridge studied proteins found in particles of cat skin, known as cat dander, which is the most common cause of cat allergy.
They found that cat allergen activates a specific pathway in the body, once in the presence of a common bacterial toxin. This triggers a large immune response in allergy sufferers, causing symptoms such as coughing, wheezing, sneezing and a runny nose.

Cat allergies

• Cats are among the most common culprits for pet allergies
• People with cat allergies are allergic to proteins in the cat's saliva, urine, and dander (dried flakes of skin)
• Symptoms of a cat allergy can develop in a few minutes or take hours to appear
• Some people with allergic asthma have severe flare-ups after coming in contact with a cat

• Your stories: 'Cat allergy made me feel like an outcast'

Dr Bryant told BBC News: "We've discovered how the cat allergy proteins activate the host immune cells. "By understanding the triggering mechanism, there are now drugs that have been designed that are in clinical trials for other conditions, such as sepsis, that could potentially then be used in a different way to treat cat allergy and to prevent cat allergy."

The charity Allergy UK said the research, published in Journal of Immunology, was a big step forward in understanding how cat allergen causes such severe allergic reactions. "Cat allergen is particularly difficult to avoid as it is a 'sticky' molecule that is carried into every building on people's shoes and clothes," said director of clinical services Maureen Jenkins. "It can also still be found in a home, on the walls and ceiling or fittings, even a few years after a cat has ceased to live there.
"Therefore, this new information identifying the specific receptor interaction in the immune system could pave the way for treatments for those with persistent disease triggered by cat allergen and, in the future, potentially dog and house dust mite allergen."

Allergic reactions happen when the immune system overreacts to a perceived danger. Instead of responding to a harmful virus or bacteria, it misidentifies allergens, such as cat dander, and mounts an immune response. The research was funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council.

The Year of the Cat
By LIESL SCHILLINGER, Source: New York Times 

According to the Chinese lunar calendar, the Year of the Snake began on Feb. 10. But by most other standards, 2013 is shaping up to be the Year of the Cat. In the first week of February, Hasbro, makers of the Monopoly board game, announced they were replacing one of the traditional tokens, the flat iron, with a curvaceous silver pussycat. Ailurophobes howled, blaming the “all-powerful cat lobby” (so teased a reporter on NPR), but the evidence suggests that public taste alone explains the switch. There are 86 million cats in American households, and in a Facebook survey, the nimble cat instantly leapt ahead of the regular Monopoly retinue to become players’ piece of choice — nearly twice as popular as the Scottie Dog, and three times more popular than the Car and Battleship. Take that, cat detractors! 

In March, Grumpy Cat, a scowling feline who receives one and a half million hits a month on her Web site, grumpycats.com, further heightened the profile of her species with a multistop media blitz. On the 6th, she traveled to Austin, Tex., where she was met by her sponsor (Friskies) and her agent, Ben Lashes (who manages many memes), and attended the South by Southwest 2013 festival. Two weeks later, she flew to New York, where she appeared on “Good Morning America,” gave an interview to Forbes, and dropped by Time Magazine for her close-up as meme of the moment. 

There is no word on a reality TV show: the bases on that are covered, what with “My Cat From Hell” having just begun its fourth season on Animal Planet (hosted by the tattooed “cat listener” Jackson Galaxy), and a family-friendly new program, “Psycho Kitty,” set to be broadcast on Discovery UK this fall, hosted by the Nashville-based animal behaviorist Pam Johnson-Bennett, who is the author of seven books on cat training. (Yes, apparently, you can train a cat.) 

Still, Grumpy Cat nabbed a book deal, even though clowders of other cats have beaten her to the punch. April saw the publication of “Lost Cat: A True Story of Love, Desperation, and GPS Technology” (Bloomsbury, 176 pp., $20), written by the amateur pilot and seasoned cat lover Caroline Paul and illustrated by her partner, the artist Wendy MacNaughton. Last year, while recovering from a bad accident in an experimental plane, in which she smashed her ankle and broke her leg, Ms. Paul suffered the further trauma of having her cat Tibia (Tibby) go missing for weeks — “waving his wild tail, and walking by his wild lone,” as Rudyard Kipling once put it. 

Tormented by visions of “catnappers, vivisectionists,” Ms. Paul blanketed her neighborhood with fliers and even consulted a psychic, to no avail. Luckily, the cat came back. Upon Tibby’s return, Ms. Paul clipped a GPS tracker to his collar in an effort to reconstruct where he had strayed (seedy juke joints, she thought, or a Russian bathhouse, or Antarctica). In the book, her text and Ms. MacNaughton’s ink and wash drawings record the sometimes true, sometimes fanciful results of her sleuthing (and guesswork) in memoir form.

In a different memoir, “Another Insane Devotion: On the Love of Cats and Persons” (DaCapo Lifelong, 304 pp., $24), Peter Trachtenberg tried to figure out what motivated the various women and cats in his life (particularly his cats Bitey and Biscuit), and failed entertainingly at both endeavors. “I’m always conscious that my judgments about what a cat is thinking or feeling aren’t really judgments but projections,” he writes.

Far from frivolous, such meditations lie at the heart of the scientific quest. In her optimistically titled book, “The Cat Whisperer: Why Cats Do What They Do — and How to Get Them to Do What You Want” (Random House, 336 pp., $24), Mieshelle Nagelschneider explains that cat owners’ D.I.Y. inquiry follows the time-honored research practice of “speculative tracking.” Her findings may come in handy for Mr. Trachtenberg. And if Ms. Paul and Ms. MacNaughton had been able to read Ms. Nagelschneider’s chapters on “The Compulsive Cat,” and “Mind-Throwing: Inside the Being of the Cat,” Tibby might not have strayed in the first place. 

Then again, being a cat, he might have.