@ Vampy:

This is definitely NOT about jumping to conclusions at all. We all have eyes, and we see what this lady is doing! She may want the best for her cat but a cat is not a child. It’s likely that the cat ate with its paws already, but that doesn’t mean you should force it (yes, FORCE because the fork and chopsticks are obviously tied to the paw – I highly doubt the cat did that to itself!) to eat with a freaking FORK! And feeding it noodles and icecream? Good Lord, it’s a miracle this cat doesn’t have serious health issues (yet).

And come on, “sucking the joy out of everything”? How can you possibly justify letting your cats eat at the table, dip its paws in a bowl of water (while cats are very capable of cleaning their own paws thankyouverymuch) and feeding them icecream and noodles while forcing them to eat with a fork and chopsticks? Let the cat be a cat!

Sometimes, just sometimes, I wish I could get rid of the morbid curiosity that takes me whenever I see ‘<150' comments for a cute post and makes me read all of them. I'll keep trying.

so what you’re saying, fluffy, is that things things we’ve been saying here have been…

sweet nuffings?

(i am so so sorry.)

Speaking of “Jumping to Conclusions”, most of the nuffing hasn’t claimed that she only feeds her cat spaghetti all day. The cat appears quite accustomed though to eating various people foods. Feeding junk food on a regular basis (as you would probably need to do to train the cat to eat with chopsticks) to your cat is a bad habit- ask your Vet or local SPCA- and open to criticism. No, I doubt she starves the cat, beats it, or that we need to take the cat away from her. But that doesn’t mean she’s kitty-mom of the year or that we should think what she’s doing is cute instead of weird or creepy.
Pets often are neglected, injured, or mistreated not because the owners are mean and want to hurt their animal- they simply are uninformed or misinformed and believe long discredited old wives tales. i.e.: they might not know that you shouldn’t strike a cat when it “misbehaves” or that a cat won’t just survive by hunting if you leave it behind after moving, or that most outdoor dogs need some shelter in especially cold weather, or that 3 big goldfish don’t belong in one small bowl or that overfeeding a pet can lead to many health problems. When pet stories are in the news, they can either encourage these myths or provide sound info. One little error in a soft human interest might not seem like a big deal, but if these stories could be more informative over time we might weed out some of myths. That’s why this story could use a little nuffing.

I don’t understand why some people think something has to be physically painful in order to be cruel. You could be healthy, well-fed and even generally happy if I forced you to eat all your meals with a baseball glove for my amusement… but that wouldn’t mean I wasn’t being a cruel asshole.

1. Cruel? Let’s try reading back over the various comments and the simple fact that others have stated that their cats eat with their paws and take it from there. No need to jump to the ‘cruel’ accusation.

2. I’m guessing the paw washing takes place in that horrible, nasty, evil, cruel substance called water.

3. There is no proof whatsoever that all the cat eats is spaghetti. All you are going by is a heavily edited soft news piece, and please note that in several segments in that very soft news piece, the cat is eating something I like to call Cat Food.

4. I seriously doubted the cat ever went hungry a day in his furry little life.

5. Cat likely already ate with his paw, as is shown to be the habit of some cats indicated by comments right in here. Simple to gently train to eat with a utensil, and without cruelty at that.

6. Jumping to conclusions. It’s an extreme sport.

ummmm…..

Spaget!!!

http://www.truveo.com/Spaget/id/2962984066

Spoogato?

Allow me to introduce myself: The nuff nuff.
the reason her method is a secret is that it is probably cruel. what IS she washing his paws in? how long did he go without proper food before he decided it’s spagetti or nothing.
How did she encourage him NOT to eat directly with his mouth to the food?
this vid creeped me out bigtime.
cute? I dont think so.

Not knowing this woman, it’s obviously difficult for us to make accurate statements about her life. However, I suppose that a few observations are in order…

One, there’s no indication that her children ever visit her to begin with, so this isn’t simply “my kids are away at college” kind of empty nest — they’ve left for good, and I don’t get the feeling that they come back too often, so that speaks to a deeper sense of loneliness and a certain sense of estrangement.

Two, I think something like this indicates a prior condition — it’s not empty nest syndrome, the issues were there before the children left. I think it’s just that the leaving tipped the scale, per se, and she made Tessa the child who would never leave her.

Three, poor husband. I think he loves his wife, despite her desperate attempts at making her cat seem more humanlike. I mean, how does that make him feel? “I wanted someone else to eat dinner with” seriously! There are two types of people who don’t get divorced: the religiously convicted and those deeply devoted. I’m guessing he’s one or both, and kudos to him, but if this woman fell into the psychologically disturbed category, I would understand why he perhaps silently suffers at being displaced for a cat with a rubber band and a plastic fork.

Four, I don’t know whether human food is okay, and from some comments here it seems to be okay, but it’s more disconcerting to me what this woman might do once the cat dies. Attachment is a powerful thing.

Five, mmm Joel McHale.

Weird… sad…

That lady needs a hobby.