Enlarge / Farm cats drinking from a trough of milk from cows that were just milked. (credit: Getty | )

On March 16, cows on a Texas dairy farm began showing symptoms of a mysterious illness now known to be H5N1 bird flu. Their symptoms were nondescript, but their milk production dramatically dropped and turned thick and creamy yellow. The next day, cats on the farm that had consumed some of the raw milk from the sick cows also became ill. While the cows would go on to largely recover, the cats weren't so lucky. They developed depressed mental states, stiff body movements, loss of coordination, circling, copious discharge from their eyes and noses, and blindness. By March 20, over half of the farm's 24 or so cats died from the flu.

In a study published today in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases , researchers in Iowa, Texas, and Kansas found that the cats had H5N1 not just in their lungs but also in their brains, hearts, and eyes. The findings are similar to those seen in cats that were experimentally infected with H5N1 , aka highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAI). But, on the Texas dairy farm, they present an ominous warning of the potential for transmission of this dangerous and evolving virus.

The contaminated milk was the most likely source of the cat's fatal infections, the study authors concluded. Although it can't be entirely ruled out that the cats got sick from eating infected wild birds, the milk they drank from the sick cows was brimming with virus particles, and genetic data shows almost exact matches between the cows, their milk, and the cats. "Therefore, our findings suggest cross-species mammal-to-mammal transmission of HPAI H5N1 virus and raise new concerns regarding the potential for virus spread within mammal populations," wrote the authors, who are veterinary researchers from Iowa, Texas, and Kansas.

Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Galena survived six days of travel with no food or water before being discovered in relatively good shape by Amazon employee

In the famous Schrödinger’s cat hypothesis, a cat in a box is both alive and dead until someone looks inside – and in the case of one mischievous cat from Utah discovered inside an Amazon return package, it was very much alive.

The cat, Galena, survived being shipped all the way from Lehi, Utah, across the US to California after sneaking into the package. Galena, six, an indoor-only cat, traveled more than 500 miles in a 3-by-3ft shipping container, according to NBC .

hear

He looked like Brendan Gleeson and carried himself like a mob boss. Naturally he was my dad’s favourite child

My dad is not a religious man – he goes to the pub when my mum goes to mass – but I’m sure that meeting Oscar was a spiritual experience for him. When they locked eyes across the scrubbed concrete floor of the shelter that Oscar presided over with mob-boss-like remove, an oath of loyalty was sworn. The other cats mewled in vain.

I had walked in hoping for a grey kitten akin to Berlioz from The Aristocats and walked out with an aloof ginger tomcat who looked like Brendan Gleeson and possessed the world-weariness of someone who had seen unspeakable things. If cats smoked, he would have been on 30 a day. Everybody loved Oscar. He deigned to tolerate only my dad.

Whether by striking workers, poets or Pussy Riot, our feline friends have long been used as a symbol of resistance – radical by nature, they refuse to be tamed

In the 60 years since Julie Andrews sang about the cheering possibilities of whiskers on kittens , the fetishisation of the feline form has only grown stronger. Earlier this year, Somerset House even opened a Hello Kitty caf e as part of its Cute exhibition . By way of balance there is, of course, a jokey online culture about the unspeakable evilness of cats. These are the ones who deliberately sabotage your printer, or post video diaries commenting on the futility of your dating life. But beyond this binary, there is a more nuanced narrative of the cat as a figure that makes a virtue out of complexity and ambivalence. So perhaps we would do better to think of the cat as dissident, oblique, even radical.

Rudyard Kipling caught this attitude best in his Just So Stories of 1902, a series of whimsical origin myths. In The Cat That Walked By Himself, Kipling tells how Wild Dog was the first animal to venture into the cave of stone age humans, attracted by the smell of roast mutton. The dog becomes a couple’s “First Friend”, a devoted and useful hunting companion and security guard who is happy to submit to the collar of domestic servitude. Wild Cow and Wild Horse soon follow suit, eager to labour in return for plenty of hay. Finally comes Wild Cat, who stalks up to the entrance of the dwelling and proceeds to lay down his terms. “I am not a friend, and I am not a servant. I am the Cat who walks by himself, and I wish to come into your cave.”

It’s a calendar! And it’s available to pre-order now!

https://publishing.andrewsmcmeel.com/calendar/they-can-talk-comics-2025-day-to-day-calendar/

£150 for a dog’s injection. £900 to monitor a rabbit overnight. Thousands for cat surgery. How did pet care become such big business?

One crisp Sunday afternoon in late February, Louise Taylor noticed that one of her family’s two pet rabbits, Honey, couldn’t stand up properly. “We got an appointment at the emergency vet and they gave her painkillers and drugs,” says Taylor, a 46-year-old civil servant. “But she still couldn’t stand. The vet said he thought she should stay in overnight, and it would cost £900, or we could take her home, and it would be £200. It didn’t feel like much of a choice.” She believes it was presented as: you have to, if you care about your rabbit.

Thinking back on it now, Taylor says the family, which did not have pet insurance, had been prepared to be pragmatic. “She was eight and a half years old; that’s quite old for a rabbit. They tend to live eight to 10 years. But we did what the vet said.”

He was the perfect childhood companion, until he grew weary of wearing Al Capone and Lawrence of Arabia costumes. Then he went missing ...

I grew up on a bleak and windy smallholding in Cornwall, deep in the Methodist farming hinterland between the Lizard and Land’s End. We had pigs, cows, geese and hens, dogs and cats, 13 acres and no money. Aged eight, I was told I could have my own kitten, and was taken to a tumble-down granite barn belonging to the sister of one of our neighbours. There I fell for a grey-green tabby. Taking him home that Saturday morning, I was the happiest girl in the world.

During lunch a rat-a-tat-tat of potential names gunned out of my mouth in hope of my parents’ approval. Fluffy? Toffee ? Each met with gagging noises. Later I played with him as my parents watched the Ascot races on our tiny black-and-white TV. In the mix, running the Coventry Stakes, was a handsome bay called Tachypous (meaning “swift-foot” in Greek). My parents, lovers of Greek and Roman history, seized upon this, and before I knew it my kitten was called Tachypuss.

Pet food is a £120bn industry, with vast resources spent on working out how best to nourish and delight our beloved charges. But how do we know if we’re getting it right? By Vivian Ho