Review: The Chronicles of Zee & Zoey
As I mentioned in the Paws and Effect Holiday Gift Guide, I recently received a review copy of The Chronicles of Zee & Zoey: A Journey of the Extraordinarily Ordinary by Deborah Barnes. Today during my lunch break, I carved out some time to read the last few pages of the book, and I can finally write the review. At its heart, The Chronicles of Zee & Zoey is the tale of a pair of unlikely feline soul mates and the family with whom they share their lives. Although the publisher’s blurb describes the book with all the hackneyed words you’d expect to hear — heartwarming, humorous, heartfelt, compelling, heartbreaking, and so on — the…
The Paws and Effect Holiday Gift Guide
Over the last year, we’ve found so many wonderful goodies for cats and their people that we honestly can’t remember them all. But today we’re going to share some of them with you, in the hope that you’ll consider doing some of your holiday shopping with these wonderful craftspeople, authors published by small houses (or even self-published), and independent merchants. So, without further ado, let’s get on with it! Okay, maybe just a little more ado: You can click on the photos to enlarge them, and prices listed are in US dollars. Gifts for Cats The Beautiful Basics Cat Bucket, hand-made by designer Barb Joyce exclusively for Moderncat Studio, is the perfect napping spot….
Book Review: “Sex and the Kitty”
Just over a year ago, five kittens were born in the small town of Harpenden, England. In those early days, filled with the kittenish delights of eating, snuggling and napping, nobody suspected that one kitten, a then-unassuming black female would become the instigator of antics that would rocket her to local, regional, national — and perhaps even international — fame. Sex and the Kitty: A Celebrity Meowmoir is written by Nancy the Cat. Although she’s not even two years old yet and acknowledges that she may still be just a bit young to tell the story of her life she takes her inspiration from jailbait-age celebrities like Justin Bieber. “Plus, I am not stupid,” she…
Review: Castor & Pollux Organix Cat Food
Castor & Pollux Pet Products is probably best known for its super-premium dog foods. But the company makes cat products as well, including Ultramix and Organix cat food. Recently I had the opportunity to review the Organix Indoor Adult Cat Food kibble and a sampler pack of the four different Organix canned food flavors. I’m lucky that the cats of the Paws and Effect Gang aren’t finicky about their foods, so it’s not difficult to get them to eat anything. The person you really have to convince is me, because I am very particular about the foods I feed them. After doing some initial research and finding that these products are (mostly) organic and made…
Product Review: Tipsy Nip Organic Catnip
The entire population of Paws and Effect HQ was delighted when we were asked to review a smorgasbord of Tipsy Nip organic catnip products. Siouxsie, Thomas and Dahlia were waiting with bated breath, hoping each night that I’d come home from the office bearing a box full of nippy delight. When I finally did walk in the door after work one day and plunked the big white package down on the coffee table, the purrs of delight must have registered on the Richter scale. The sniffing investigations started right away, and it wasn’t long before Siouxsie, Thomas and Dahlia started tapping the box with their paws and shoving it around with their noses. I decided…
Product Review: Nature’s Variety Limited Ingredient Diet Kibble
Hi everyone, “Mama” here. As long-time Paws and Effect readers probably know, Thomas has a very sensitive stomach which has resulted in a more or less chronic case of soft stools or diarrhea. I’ve taken him to the vet and had a fecal sample examined to check for parasites; the sample came back negative, he doesn’t have any tumors, and the vet told me that his problem is almost certainly a food intolerance issue. I’ve been trying literally for years to find a food or combination of foods that his digestive system can handle. I very rarely do product reviews on this site, but when I got the opportunity to review a new kibble specifically…
Book Review: “Dear Sparkle: Advice from One Cat to Another”
We let Mama write the review of this great book. For some reason, people seem to trust book reviews written by humans more than those written by cats. Go figure! And we decided we’d let her get away with saying “she” writes this column. We supposed that technically it’s true, since she does all the typing. As the editor (or rather, personal assistant) of the world-famous Paws and Effect Gang, I’m always curious to check out books written by other cat advice authorities, so when I got a chance to get a copy of Dear Sparkle, I took it. I’d read Sparkle’s online advice column, so I expected that her book would be as entertaining…
