icees, cat cams, and poinsettia myths

madison had it's first big snowfall last night and nikki isn't too happy about it.

another kitty who had a bad run-in with the white stuff is named icee. he was nearly frozen to death when rescued and brought into a colorado animal shelter. read the story of his miraculous survival here. shelters across the country are performing little miracles everyday. with every adoption is another life saved.

a recent cat-cam experiment documented a cat's normal day at home through photos. the results were very interesting; contrary to what we might think, the cats only slept about 6 percent of the time.

and thanks to a comment from feline underground reader, kevin, we've done a little research on the toxicity of poinsettia plants. it turns out that there are different ideas as to whether they are toxic at all. there is evidence that it is all overblown and stems from the 1919 death of a 2-year old child, wrongfully assumed to have eaten poinsettia leaves. even the aspca's toxicity chart has it listed as both "toxic to cats" and as "irritating to the mouth and stomach, sometimes causing vomiting, but generally over-rated in toxicity." huh. good to know. it's still something to keep out of reach, though, if you don't want to find any christmas presents from kitty on the carpeting.