So, I could post an SNLC on this article from Slate, where Daniel Hemel positsthat the recent budget deal may have left a loophole for Traitor Drumpf to get his stupid, useless wall built (enabled at the outset, of course, by the stupid, useless purity trolls who put him in office in the 1st place – you know, the same fools who claim to be the best ones to fix the horrific mess that they themselves unleashed). Or I could post an SNLC that is a sequel to this prior SNLC from 10.5 months ago, about Mauhaus, the first (and only, to date) cat café in STL.
OK, let’s go with kittehs. Towards the end of that earlier diary, self the loser stated:
“It’ll be interesting to see how long Mauhaus keeps going, not least to see how long it will take for another 100 cats to be adopted.”
Well, happily, Mauhaus is still going, and perhaps more importantly (?), at least in terms of self’s pointless verbiage, the answer is, as stated above, 10.5 months. The 200th cat adoption from Mauhaus was earlier this week, as posted here on Instagram, with Riz as # 200. (Yes, social media can be toxic, but this is one of the happy exceptions.) Showing the monthly adoption numbers since the last SNLC:
April 2018 = 10 adoptions
May 2018 = 8 adoptions
June 2018 = 9 adoptions
July 2018 = 8 adoptions
August 2018 = 11 adoptions
September 2018 = 10 adoptions
October 2018 = 13 adoptions
November 2018 = 4 adoptions
December 2018 = 10 adoptions
January 2019 = 11 adoptions
February 2019 (month-to-date) = 6 adoptions
In other words, compared to the 1st 100 adoptions, the rate for the second wave of 100 has been a fair lick faster, with 10.5 months on the 2nd 100 compared to just shy of 17 months on the 1st 100.
Granted, it hasn’t been completely smooth sailing along the way. Two cats got returned in the 2nd wave of 100, namely Junkrat and Roadhog, and much more sadly, while waiting for an adopter, Mighty Joe Young died from feline infectious peritonitis (FIP). From a scan of the scientific literature, FIP is much more of a risk in venues with multiple cats, such as mentioned in this 2014 review article from The Veterinary Journal by Niels C. Pedersen at UC-Davis:
“FIP occurs commonly in catteries (pedigreed cats), shelters, kitten foster/rescue facilities and dense free-roaming colonies….
FIP virus (FIPV) arises through specific mutations in a common feline enteric coronavirus (FECV) that is ubiquitous in cats throughout the world and not in itself an important pathogen. FECV is shed in the feces of most apparently healthy cats in large multi-cat environments and transmission results from direct ingestion of feces or contaminated litter and other fomites. Kittens usually become infected at around 9 weeks of age. Mutants of FECV capable of causing FIP are probably generated in large numbers during this initial infection, when levels of FECV replication are extremely high. However, only a small proportion of cats exposed to these mutant viruses will develop FIP.”
I suspect that the Mauhaus staff does its best to keep the litter boxes clean and such, but they obviously can’t humanly monitor them all 24-7 in person Another Mauhaus alum, Monterey Jack, sadly died from FIP not long after being adopted. However, such incidents do seem rare statistically, as terrible as they are for the cats in question.
On the much happier side, Mauhaus took in its first FIV-positive cat, Cy, who got adopted at the turn of the New Year, as part of the 2nd wave of 100 adoptions. The full Mauhaus “Wall of Fame” with all 200 adoptions is here. Interestingly, just one duplicate name shows up AFAICT, namely ‘Goldie’. The café had their earlier book on the 1st 100 adoptions, and a sequel is in the works. To repeat the closer from then now, we shall see, barring the apocalypse, how long it takes Mauhaus to get to cat adoption # 300. Best of luck to Mauhaus and the cats there.
With that, time for the standard SNLC protocol, namely your loser stories for the week….