A little fun to start your week off on the right paw: Animal Issues Reporter.org is pleased to present our debut article from Anneloes Wagenaar Hummelinck, AIR’s European Correspondent, Director of Outreach Programs, part-time humorist, and diligent cat observer. Welcome and thank you, Anneloes!

Ozzy – all seven kilos of him – weighs in on important animal issues while Anneloes tries to write about them / Photo: Anneloes Wagenaar Hummelinck

by Anneloes Wagenaar Hummelinck

Cats are great pets. They keep you company when you’re alone, comfort you when you’re hurt or lonely and they are always ready to listen to you. Plus, they are more independent than dogs and a lot less work (no walks!). Reasons enough to make them the number one pet in Holland, where I live (and why I have two).

The downside of cats

Cute as they are, there is a downside to having cats (besides having to clean the litter box, I mean). They always, always want to know what you’re doing and, if it doesn’t involve them, they seem slightly offended and want to be what you are doing.

Doesn’t matter if you’re reading a book (they just lie on the book) or working on your computer (they lie on your keyboard). The latter can have some serious consequences.

For instance, with just two tiny steps of those cute paws, they can re-do all your settings: change your keyboard from English to French language for example, or make everything on your screen appear so tiny you can’t even read the solution to this problem on Google.

Cats going online

Walking the keyboard and re-setting settings are relatively easy to fix (yes, it may take a while, but they’re fixable). But your cat could do a lot more damage. You know the computer mouse? Well, as you may know, they love to play with it. (This is actually quite logical. I mean, with that name, it’s almost asking for it, isn’t it?)

Hit it, click it, throw it off of your desk and watch it swing on its cable, hit it some more. This game could get you into some serious trouble.

A woman was surfing the web and left her computer for a bit. When she came back, she found her cat playing with the mouse. As she looked on the screen, she saw:

“Congratulations! You are now the proud owner of two tickets to the musical We Will Rock You!” Her cat had purchased tickets online.  Luckily, after she explained what had happened, she didn’t have to go through with the purchase. But beware: this could happen to you!

Cats posted online

This is not to say that cats and online don’t mix. That is just not true. Cats are hugely popular online. Think of all the cute kitty pictures shared on Facebook and Pinterest. In fact, the biggest group on Hyves—a Dutch social media network—is a cat group. Over 80,000 people are in that cat group (and heaven only knows how many cats), just sharing pics of their cats and other people’s cats and cats in general, and saying how they love them all.

There are loads of cat clips on YouTube, proving the online popularity of that species. Just look up ‘stalking cat’, or the popular cartoon ‘Simon’s cat’ (based on the life and times of a true cat). People just can’t get enough of all things meow.

And entertaining images of your kitty online—if viewed enough by all those feline-obsessive types—can actually bring you income from advertising.

I think the lesson to be learned from this is that it can be a great idea to put your cat online yourself, but it can be a very bad idea to let your cat go online by him- or herself. The first could make you money, the second could cost you money.

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Anneloes Wagenaar Hummelinck is an online marketing and social media specialist with a Masters degree in Communication and Information Sciences from the University of Groningen in Holland. She has adopted two cats—one of them a colossal seven-kilo fellow from Greece—and frequently helps rescue groups foster, place, and transport needy animals into new homes.

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