Blog the Change—URI PALS

Today I'm writing about women. Abused women. Many women in domestic violence situations don't want to leave their homes cos it means leaving their beloved pets behind. They fear for themselves and they fear for their pets as well. Now there are shelters which allow victims to bring their pets with them. You can find a list of these shelters on the Sheltering Animals and Families Together' website. SAF-T lists 30 states which house such shelters. The site also contains a link for families who need financial assistance to enable women to leave an abusive home and they have a downloadable Pet Safety Planning Guide and Start-Up Guide.

While I don't think any of my friends are in a situation like this, you may know someone who needs help. For instance, about a year ago, we got a desperate e-mail from a Twitter friend. Someone he knew quite well was in a situation where she had to take her kids and get out of an abusive home. She needed to re-home her 2 dogs. This broke her heart and ours. After a frantic search, her dogs were transported to safety in California.

New York City's Urban Resource Institute (URI) has a pilot program called People and Animals Living Safely (PALS) that allows victims of domestic violence to bring their pets into the shelter. They're starting with cats and small animals and with the support of the Mayor's Alliance for NYC's Animals, they hope to include dogs by the end of the year. They're trying to raise $250,000 to retrofit their facilities with dog runs and other changes needed to accommodate dogs, as well as to launch PALS in its three other domestic violence shelters in NYC.

Do you know that more than 40% of domestic violence victims stay in abusive situations out of fear for their pets? Plus, more than 70% of pet owners who enter shelters report that the abuser has threatened, injured or killed family pets. Until the PAWS project, none of NYC's more than 50 shelters allowed pets in residence.

Pets are family members and it's time shelters opened their doors to us. Don't you agree?

I want to keep my family together.

We've Got a Winner on EZ Sunday

Why did you wake me? Oh, I have to pick a winner!

I've taken time out of my EZ Sunday to pick the winner of the $15 gift card to CrystalsandJewelry.com. The winner likes anything GREEN and her friends are going to be green with envy when they find out she won and see her new bling.

The winner is:

This will serve as my entry in the Black and White Blog Hop,
which is hosted by  which is hosted by My Life in Dog Years.

CONCATULATIONS TO CAREN GITTLEMAN of Cat Chat with Caren & Cody.

There's still time to enter to win a bag of the new Advanced Natural Series of litter from World's Best Cat Litter. Let me know in a comment if you want the Original or the Pine Blend and how I can get in touch with you if you win. The giveaway will be open until Monday. Sorry, this is for U.S. residents only.

A Happy Birthday Giveaway

Thanks to Glogirly for the graphic.

Today is TW's birthday and to celebrate, we're having a giveaway. The other day I reviewed the new litter from World's Best Cat Litter. What TW forgot to tell you is that they're offering one of my readers a free bag of the new Advanced Natural Series of litter. Let me know in a comment if you want the Original or the Pine Blend and how I can get in touch with you if you win. The giveaway will be open until Monday. Sorry, this is for U.S. residents only. Hmmm, should I sing Happy Birthday or I'm in the Box? First I'll get the fire distinguisher out cos that's an awful lot of candles or maybe I can smoother her them with cat litter.

♫ I'm in the Box ♪

CK sings to the tune of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight":

♫   She's in the box, she's in the box

She's in the box, she's in the box

In the litter, the clumping litter, the kitteh pees tonight.

In the litter, the clumping litter, the kitteh poos tonight.

 ME-UUUUUU ROOO ROOO ROO ROOO ME-UUU   ♪

You can never have enough cat litter or be too CAT.

As most of my readers know, I've never been a big fan of the World's Best Cat Litter but I'm always willing to give a product another try. When they contacted me and axed if I'd like to try their new litter, I didn't hesitate to say yes. I said, let's put it to the poo test.

♪   In the litter, the dustless litter

The kitteh pees tonight

In the litter, the Pine Blend litter

The kitteh poos tonight   ♫

You might remember my post entitled The Standoff is Over!, where I talked about how I went on strike against the litter box that housed the World's Best Cat Litter that came in the green bag. I'll sit tight until you finish reading it. It was not welcome in my condo.

♫   Pee my kitteh and poo my kitteh

In Pine Blend litter

Pee my kitteh and poo my kitteh

The litter is the best   ♪

When we received the Pine Blend litter formula, TW read the package. The Advanced Natural Series is said to feature more powerful odor control, produce smaller clumps and have no airborne silica dust. It says it's an entirely new litter that uses a blend of naturally absorbent plant fibers. Per usual, when trying a new litter, she only put some in one of my two boxes. After opening the package and scooping some into my box, she remarked "I hope the cat likes this litter as much as I like it already. There's no dust and no perfume smell." She said it smelled like freshly cut wood. Whoa, is this an endorsement?

♪   She's in the box she's in the box

She's in the box she's in the box   ♫

♬   ME-UUUUUU ROOO ROOO ROO ROOO ME-UUU

ME-UUUUUU ROOO ROOO ROO ROOO ME-UUU   ♬

Steaming hot pees.
See how much smaller the new litter clumps?

This morning, TW scooped the boxes. SUCCESS! I used both boxes, including the one with The Advanced Natural Litter. True to it's word, the clumps were smaller but not so small that they'd fall through the holes in the scoop. Since Pop has been home, he's been taking turns scooping the litter and he even likes it! The real test was whether I'd poo in it and I did! The litter box is in his bathroom and he says my poos are now ODORLESS! (As if my poos ever smelled!)

New Advanced Natural Series of World's Best Cat Litter in Original and Pine Blend formulas should be in your stores next month. It's Cathy Keisha approved.

Review Disclaimer: I did not receive any monetary compensation for this review. I was given a free product to review. As always, the opinions in this review are my own and not influenced by any outsider . I receive no additional benefits for talking about the product or company.

Welcome to the CK Award Show!

I have a bunch of awards to claim since TW had forgotten all about them. I'll start with the most recent and work my way back. I hope this post isn't gonna be too long for my readers. I'll try to throw in some eye-opening facts that you won't want to miss.

Simba of Simba's Antics very kindly passed on to me the My Favourite Things Award that Nissy make to celebrate 50,000 page views on his blog. By this time, he must by up to 100,000 views. That's how far behind we are. Thank you Simba.

He wants me to list 6 of my favourite things and then pass the award on to some other bloggers. Because he was so kind to present me with this award, I'll honour his request.

1. Biting my humans
2. Napping
3. Foam rubber missles/rockets
4. My Skinneeez (the real one)
5. Fancy Feast grilled tuna
6. My furrends and readers of this blog

Back in April, I was the proud recipient of 3 awards. They were presented to me by those Purrime Ministerettes Shiva and Jaya. Their blog says they're award-winning movie stars and the coolest rescue kitties that ever lived nine lives. It actually sounds like they're describing me but I don't want to anger them.

The first award is a quite attractive award called the Inspiring Blog Award. It's nice to know that this little blog can inspire. Like all awards, this one has rules and regulations. I linked back, I posted the award, but I refuse to list 7 facts about myself or pass it on cos everybuddy knows every little thing about me and everybuddy already has the award.

Next is the newly designed Liebster Award. This has come back for the 3rd or 4th reincarnation, much like the noisy neighbor with the new haircut or the bell peppers TW ate for dinner. Liebster still means sweetheart. The PMs are forwarding 11 questions that they also answered and if I know what's good for me, I guess I should at least attempt to answer them.

1. If you could become your favorite movie star, who would you want to be and why? Does Beyonce count as a movie star? Actually, I am a movie star in my own right, having starred in such flicks as Katie is … Accused and the Real Housecats of the Blogosphere.
2. Have you ever bitten your hooman and, if so, why did you do it? Erm, biting my humans is my hobby. I do it early and often. Why bite if you don't want to draw blood? I do it cos it's a hobby, it's fun and humans taste like chick-hen. I like to grab Pop's foot and bite hard when he tries to get back into bed at night when he can't see me. MOL!
3. Complete the sentence "if I ruled the world the first I would do is …" Spay/neuter any human who's ever been cruel to an animal. Actually, make that any human who tries to take away human and/or animal rights too.
4. Which part of you do you most like your hooman(s) to scratch and tickle? I don't like my humans' hands on me except if they have a FURinator in them. [Ed. note: She likes when her Pop scritches the top of her head.]
5. How did you come to live with your hoomans? They found me on Petfinder.com. The complete story is here and here.
6. Have you ever seen the movie "Cat and Dogs" and, if so, who was your favorite character in it? No, I'm a busy cat. I don't have time for movies.
7. What is your relationship with your vet *stabbyperson like? All stabbypersons are afraid of me. They won't cut my glorious claws or take my bloods.
8. Which part of you do you least like your hooman(s) to scratch and tickle? Like I said before, I don't like my humans' hands on me. They're NEVER allowed to pet my tummy. Touching my tummy is actually on their Bucket Lists. Heh heh.
9. What's your favorite colour? Blue cos my furs look so stunning next to a blue background.
10. Have you ever seen your hooman(s) doing anything that he/she/they wouldn't want anyone else to know about? That's kind of personal. 
11. What was it that you saw? You'll have to read my Senile Saturdays to find that out.

The last and very colorful award is the Purrime Ministerette of Planet Purrth Award. What can I say about this award? There are 7 rules but I'm not following any of them at the risk of being removed from my Cabinet position of Secretary of Toothies and Claws. You can see what they are here.

These awards are up for grabs to anybuddy who wants them.

✱ ✱ ✱ ✱ ✱ ✱ ✱ ✱ ✱

You still have time to enter the drawing for a $15 gift card to CrystalsandJewelry.com. Just leave a comment here and tell me what your favorite stone or crystal is. For extra entries Like my new Stunning Keisha FB page, Like CrystalsAndJewelry.com on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest and tell me in a comment that you have done so. This giveaway will end on July 13 at which time I'll pick a winner. Right now Robyn's huge summer break sale is going on. Everything in stock is 25% off until July 15th PLUS she's offering readers of this blog a $5 off coupon with a minimum order of $9.95. Just use coupon code HRBBM4QWN.  First Class Shipping via USPS within the United State is free.