Cat safe after 300 mile journey in coach engine!

A mechanic described his shock after finding a cat had travelled 300 miles from Scotland to Yorkshire in the engine compartment of a coach.

The young ginger tom, who has been nicknamed Gulliver because of his travels, is believed to have got in the National Holidays coach at Arrochar, north of Glasgow, at the weekend.

He was only found by mechanic Daniel Parnel after the driver returned to his base in Hull on Sunday.

Mr Parnel, 27, said he found Gulliver when he opened a panel to clean the radiator.
The cat was sitting on the radiator itself and the mechanic first thought it was a rat or a squirrel.

Mr Parnel said he decided to take the cat home and keep it after it was checked out by a vet. He has been told there a lot of feral cats in Arrochar.

He told the Hull Daily Mail: 'The most likely thing to have happened is he will have been attracted to the heat of the engine, gone to sleep on the radiator and been driven away.

'He hasn't done badly getting to Hull. It gets really hot in there.'

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Abandoned baby panda adopted by cat.

A house cat nursing her own kittens has adopted a baby red panda abandoned by its mother.

The panda's mother, Gladys, rejected her two cubs after they were born on June 30.

"She left them there, lying in the cold," said a spokesman for the Artis zoo in Amsterdam, Holland.

The zoo initially kept the cubs in an incubator. But a keeper's tabby cat had just given birth to four kittens, and let the two panda cubs join the crowd.

One of the cubs was too weak and died last Thursday.

The surviving cub is still smaller than the kittens, who were born three days before her. However, if she survives to be an adult, she will be slightly larger than a cat.

The cub will drink milk for about three months, after which she can start eating bamboo and fruit, the spokesman added.

The cub doesn't have a name yet, but the zoo says that, through its adoption program, anyone willing to sponsor her will be allowed to name her.

The red panda is an endangered species that lives in China, Bhutan, Nepal, India, and Burma.

It has a striped tail like a raccoon and is only distantly related to the much larger giant panda.

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'Cat with no face' becomes a blogging success

A cat who became disfigured after losing her face in a road accident is working to help humans come to terms with their own disabilities.

Chase, who is now three, was left without a nose, eyelids and skin on her cheeks after being hit by a car as a kitten.

Plastic surgeons were unable to rebuild her features and were pessimistic about finding her new owner, until one of the vet technicians who had helped treat her offered to take her home.

Chase, who requires daily drops to keep her eyes moist, now works at a “therapy cat” touring schools and hospitals, helping boost the confidence of people with disfigurements.

She has also become something of an internet celebrity, thanks to a blog set up by her owner Melissa Smith.

The site, written from Chase’s perspective, features daily updates on her adventures, health and charity work, as well as dozens of photos.

Despite her appearance and disabilities – she also had a leg amputated after the accident – she is pictured playing with other cats and dogs and fooling around with her owner.

“I'm a happy kitty and hope to help other humans (especially those disfigured) thru my work as a therapy cat feel just as great about themselves and realize that not everyone looks perfect and that is OK,” Chase writes on her blog.

She also makes light of her appearance, writing that her chief talent is that she has “never lost a staring contest”.

Reassuring readers about her condition, she writes: “I have great vision and love to catch flies and crickets.

“My face looks pink but it is just tissue and the fur will never grow back. I am not in any pain!”

The blog has already attracted more than 10,000 visitors and hundreds of well-wishing comments from cat lovers.

Chase was saved by the Chevy Chase Animal Clinic in Lexington, Kentucky, and now works with the Paws for Friendship charity.

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Read Chase's blog!

Video: Kitten Stuck In Pipe For Days Is Sucked Free!

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A kitten was rescued from a drainage pipe at an auto shop -- but the rescue was no easy task.

The kitten somehow fell down an open drainage pipe at a Zeibart location over the weekend, NBC 4's Lauren Diedrich reported.

The kitten meowed for days as workers tried to free it from the pipe.

Workers began digging a hole around the pipe on Tuesday and eventually called the fire department for help.

The Capital Area Humane Society responded to the scene, but no one could rescue the kitten.

Agents flagged down a nearby Roto Rooter worker who ended up suctioning the cat out with a large vacuum.

The cat was taken to an area veterinarian hospital and is expected to be fine.

Employees at the auto shop said they plan to adopt the kitten and keep it at the shop.

Video.

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Cat adopts rat!

A pet cat in China has adopted a rat which she is nursing alongside her four kittens.

Sun Shujun, of Yantai City, says the rat has been living with her cat since the kittens were born four weeks ago.

Sun, 81, says that a neighbour came to see the kittens on the day they were born and was amazed to see a rat suckling alongside them.

"At the beginning, I thought I must have seen wrong. So I took a flashlight and had a clear look," said the neighbour.

The rat not only drinks cat's milk, but also plays with its kitten 'brothers and sisters', according to the Qilu Evening Post.

The cat reportedly treats the rat exactly the same as her natural kittens and it has become part of her family.

Sun reckons her maternal instincts must have overwhelmed her predatory instincts to allow her to adopt an animal she would normally see as prey.

Cat & Bear Make A Wonderful Odd Couple!

As far as lifelong friendships go, Muschi thinks her large and loveable friend Maeuschen is the cat's pyjamas.
The feline, which struck up the unlikely friendship with the 40-year-old Asian bear eight years ago, now can't bear to be apart from her friend.

In fact, the pair are so close that zookeepers at Berlin Zoo had to reunite them after Muschi, or 'pussy' in German, pined for Maeuschen - 'little mouse' - after they were separated.

The pair were split up last October when the bear was locked in a cage while her living space was enlarged.
The distraught cat soon caught the attention of zoo keepers after she remained sitting outside the bear's cage pining for her friend.
This week, keepers took the unusual step of allowing the feline into the cage with her shaggy-haired pal.'They greeted each other and had a cuddle and now they're happy,' said Heiner Kloes, a member of the zoo's management board.

'The cat has a real fan club, mostly among our older, regular visitors.'
But where Muschi, a normal black domestic cat, came from remains a mystery.
'She appeared from nowhere in 2000 and we decided to leave them together because they got on so well,' Mr Kloes said.

'They sunbathed together and shared meals of raw meat, dead mice, fruit and bread.'

The enlarged enclosure will reopen in the spring.

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