Cats

A Nebraska man who stuffed his girlfriend's kitten into a makeshift bong and filled it with marijuana smoke says that he had done it before and that it had calmed the kitten down. Acea Schomaker, 20, of Lincoln said Tuesday that he never intended to hurt the kitten, 6-month-old Shadow. He says the kitten would bite and scratch him and his girlfriend but he didn't want to discipline it by swatting it or squirting it with water.

The first phone call came a couple of years ago. A man was on the line, recalled Ellen Lavinthal, president of the rescue group Animal Alliance, and he said, "I have a litter of kittens. I need to get rid of them." She picked up the kittens and dropped off a voucher that would allow the owner to get the mother spayed at a low cost. Six months later, the man called back. "He said, 'I've got another litter. Are you going to come get them?' " Lavinthal did. And she dropped off another voucher.

The Los Angeles City Council voted 10 to 1 Friday to approve mandatory sterilization of most dogs and cats at the age of 4 months or older, and city officials pledged low-key enforcement driven by complaints. The ordinance must get a second reading in a week, but it is expected to pass. The measure, initiated by Councilman Richard Alarcon, offers exemptions for animals of licensed breeders, show animals and service animals.

The 53-year-old son of an elderly woman whose filthy Villa Park home was overrun with cats -- both living and dead -- is under investigation for elder abuse, Orange County sheriff's officials said Thursday. Paramedics called to the home this month found Mary Maloney, 76, lying outside on a blanket; she was covered with sores and skin rashes, authorities said. When deputies investigated, they found cat feces 2 feet high in places, urine-soaked walls and carpets, and trash everywhere.

Cat owners are often fiercely loyal to their furry companions -- and such devotion may be rewarded in a surprising way: Owning a cat may lower one's risk of dying from a heart attack. Non-cat owners appear to have a 40% higher risk of dying from myocardial infarction than those who don't have a cat, according to a study presented at the American Stroke Assn.'s International Stroke Conference last month in New Orleans.

Everyone agrees that coyotes -- at least two of them -- have recently been preying on the scores of feral cats that have lived for decades on the sprawling campus of Cal State Long Beach. The dispute is over which animals should have to go. University officials say the cats are attracting the coyotes, and it is the cats that need to be removed. That has outraged many cat lovers who fear the felines will be killed. They say the coyotes present the danger, so they should be evicted.

If you've been on the L.A. Animal Services website any time in the last couple of months, you know the department maintains a digital countdown of the days, hours, minutes and seconds until the city's spay/neuter law goes into effect Wednesday. Now, there's less than a week to comply with the ordinance requiring most pet cats and dogs in Los Angeles to be sterilized. There are a number of reduced-cost options for sterilizing your animal.

The famous six-toed cats at Ernest Hemingway's island home aren't going anywhere. The Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum announced Thursday that it had reached an agreement with the federal government that allows the 50 or so cats to continue to roam the grounds, ending a five-year battle that could have resulted in the felines being removed or caged. Most of the cats descend from Snowball, a cat given to the novelist in 1935.

Pulling into the parking lot on West Campus Drive at Cal State Long Beach, Dorothy Burstein figured that the cats would recognize the rumble of her Honda Accord. If that didn't perk up their ears, the sound of her popping open the car trunk surely would. "That means food," she said. Burstein is a volunteer with a small nonprofit group that for the last 10 years has been quietly feeding the dozens of feral cats that live on the fringe of the university campus.

The gray tabby cat with hazel eyes and a white nose scrunched at the bottom of a stack of metal cages filled with rabbits, quail, pigeons and ducks, across the aisle from the buckets of turtles and scorpions in a narrow shop with as many live animals as a petting zoo. If it was male or female, young or old, nobody seemed to know or care. All that mattered was its weight, 6 1/2 pounds. After a few quick calculations, the shopkeeper offered to sell the cat for $1.32 per pound, about $9.