Our Secret Santa Paws Visited!
HIYA!! SAVANNAH HERE!!!
For my newer readers, let me tell you about the Cat Blogosphere’s Secret Santa Paws gift exchange. Our pawsome blog pals at Sweet Purrfections beg their Mom Paula to coordinate this totally fun event for any of our cat blogging pals that want to pawticipate. We even have international cat bloggers who join in the fun. So we all submit our names and number of cats in our homes and what colors we like, what type of treats and toys and also what we can’t have because of diet restrictions and so on. Then Mom Paula matches us up!
We were Secret Paws for Lola The Rescue Cat (and her sisfur Lexy) in New York. Hopefully they received their package and are gonna have a blast with all the stuff we packed in there. Oh yes, and we always put a little somethin’ in there for the humans, just ‘cuz they serve our meals.
So let’s get going. First up is how we wrapped up and packaged our prezzies for the kitties we were shopping for. As you can imagine, all our gifts had to be sniffed and tasted first, right??!!
Wow! Our shopping list was purrty good this year.
And then comes the “testing” part.
Then Mom L wraps it all up, and Dad P dashes like a reindeer to the post office in hope that Santa Paws will get our prezzie package there on time! Whew!
And now it’s Christmas Day and finally Mom L lets us have at our own Secret Paws package. What an incredible package we received! So beautifully wrapped with special purrsonal gift tags and such lovely hand printing on every prezzie. Gosh, we hated to open those. BUT—we did!!
Of course Mom L made us enjoy the wrapping and what not, but that’s ok, ‘cuz then we got to find out what was inside. First to paw forward was, of course, TKS aka The Kid Sage! She about stuffed her whole body into that box!! MOL!!!
Next up was KK aka Kit Katie aka Katie! She also tried to do a nose dive.
And check out how cool Mom L’s prezzies are.
Now on to check out what was in those beautifully wrapped and tagged prezzies. Katie loved the feather wand toy and all those balls!! She is such a soccer player!
I preferred to be more adult about all this hoopla and I carefully strolled around the debris that TKS and Katie left and guess what I found??
Sniff, sniff…yup…this is the mother lode of silver vine!
Silvervine!!! And then I discovered the incredible scents from all the wrapping paper. Those youngster sisfurs had no idea what they were missing in the trash bag Mom L and Dad P were so carefully guarding.
I left the rest of the mauling of the prezzies to KK and TKS. I went off and had a little nap after sniffing all that silver vine and other smells.
Katie is losing patience with TKS mauling the smelly nip purple toy. KK is too polite to wait her turn
And Katie, sweet Katie, was caught looking on at all the joyful things someone she never met sent to her, me and TKS just to help us have a most fun filled Christmas. I am sure KK is thinking ‘I wish all the other abandoned cats out in the cold had this bounty”. Sigh…
This is so nice…but there are so many who need this and so much more
Hope you enjoyed sharing our Secret Santa Paws experience in 2020. We are filled with an abundance of gratitude to have our home and do everything we can to help Mom L and Dad P and all our Project Delta View Cats volunteers bring even a bit of this abundance to all those abandoned community cats we serve in our city of Pittsburg, CA.
Here’s to a stellar New Year for every cat forced to live a life of lost love on the streets. Always Support Your Local Street Cats purrlease.
PAW PATS, SAVANNAH
sad
Savannah's Paw Tracks 
Whenever I observe stress in the facial expression of my mother, a typical senior, I also observe how that stress drains from her face and is replaced with joyful adoration when our pet feline enters the room: “Hi, sweetheart,” she’ll say. And I know that countless other seniors—not to mention myself (whether consciously or subconsciously)—with pets also experience the emotional benefits of hosting a cherished pet.
She appreciates the healthy reciprocal relationships—some animal lovers would go as far as to describe them as somewhat symbiotic—that can exist between pet animals (many of us see them as family members) and their loving and appreciative human hosts, especially physically and/or mentally ill hosts.
Indeed, animals have a beneficial influence over humanity that many people still cannot fathom; and this beautiful reality of animals’ positive effect on their human hosts can also be beneficial to the animals.
Besides numerous studies revealing the health-benefits to humans (their high blood pressure is alleviated, for example) when in proximity, and especially when in physical contact, with a domesticated animal, the fact is, when a cat or dog, for instance, is lovingly petted down along its back, it acts as a sort of soothing and healing massage, and that animal’s lifespan and good health increase considerably.
Many health-care homes are already adopting cats and/or dogs to reside at the facilities, and the data available has revealed the improvement in the health of many patients since the facilities’ adoptions of such pets.
In a June 14, 2000, Vancouver Sun article it was written that scientific proof reveals a “powerful man-beast bond that transforms lives, alleviates depression and disease, gives direction to the blind and comfort to the lonely and fills homes with a measure of uncomplicated joy that is impossible to fully appreciate until it is gone.”
This fact has but vastly increased in awareness and even measurability since then and will almost certainly continue to do so.
Being a fan of felines myself, I often enjoy the presence of others’ pet felines. In fact, when I got my days mixed up and made the long trip from White Rock to Vancouver apparently for naught, I still felt some gratitude by the fact that I got to visit and pet the large black cat—who happens to look just like our family cat—at the veterinarian clinic near my destination.
(Frank Sterle Jr.)
Just three days short of National Feral Cat Day (October 16), I spotted a dead feral cat on the roadside, likely hit by a car. It was quite saddening to know his/her life and death would not at all matter to general society. On the contrary, many people would be glad that the cat would never harm another innocent bird, presuming it ever had.
About three years ago, it was reported that Surrey, B.C. had/has approximately 36,000 feral and stray cats, so many of which are allowed to suffer severe malnourishment, debilitating injury and/or infection by callously neglectful municipal government as well as individual residents who choose to remain silent.
(Progress can also be made by discontinuing allowing pet cats to roam freely outdoors and notably risk them becoming another predator’s meal or some sadistic person’s target for a torturous death.)
When I made a monetary donation to the local Trap/Neuter/Release (TNR) program, a lady volunteer left me a tearful voice mail expressing her appreciation, which to me suggested a scarcity of caring financial donors.
No wonder cat Trap/Neuter/Release (TNR) programs are typically underfunded by governments and private donors, regardless of their documented success in reducing the needless great suffering by these beautiful, sentient animals.
It’s as though there’s a prevailing mentality of feline disposability.
Could there be a subconscious human perception that the worth of such animal life (if not even human life in regularly war-torn or overpopulated famine-stricken global regions) is reflected by its overabundance and the protracted conditions under which it suffers?
Wow, you certainly got some awesome Secret Paws presents! And how nice that you got to enjoy the wrapping!
Looks like you all scored some great goodies. XO
You hit the Secret Paws jackpot!
We really love Secret Paws and thank Sweet Purrfections Truffle and Brulee and Mom for doing all the work. You sure got a nice package friends, So much fun
Y’all sure had a big time with your wonderful bunch of goodies!
Such gorgeous gifts for such gorgeous kitties. I’m happy you got to enjoy the wrapping. I licked the wrapping paper on my gift till it got soft, then I ate a bite. Then Mom took it away. #scrooge
Love and licks,
Cupcake
What a dear thank you letter to your Secret Santa. XXX
What wonderful gifts you all got and sent out.
Wow! Guys you really scored! Those are pawsome gifts! I bet you will enjoy them over and over! Happy holidays,
Purrs
Marv, Jo Jo, Kozmo, Cinnamon and Barb
Aww, you guys had an awesome Secret Santa!
We made a huge donation of gently used and new food and furniture and toys to our local shelter…and a smaller one to the vet, who also has a small shelter, for the so called unwanted kitties, they can stay there forever:)
Darling Savannah, Sage and Katie. What a pawsome Chrissymouse you had! We hope you will also have a wonderful Mew Year. Purrs also to Mom L and Dad P and their fellow volunteers, for working so tirelessly to spread a little joy among all those homeless kitties.
We love you all.