On a whim, Andrew my husband, picked up
Catster Magazine for me because he knows I'm a crazy cat lady and this cover of the May/ June 2017 made him think of me.
I saw it and said, "Oh, no, a lame cat magazine." I always hated
Cat Fancy Magazine for it's focus on breeders, professional cat shows, and the importance of purebred breeds. It was the one thing that turned me off years ago to cat magazines...they can be snooty. Well to my surprise,
Catster is informative and focuses on adoptions AND...wait for it... it used to be the snooty
CAT FANCY MAGAZINE! In 2014,
Cat Fancy realized they needed to update their focus because of the proliferation of cats everywhere online ~ they had to appeal to all cat lovers, not just breeders ~ now they are
Catster.
The first thing I was impressed by was that they talk about REAL fur parent issues like keeping your house clean with a cat. There's several good articles on ~ believe it or not ~ cat butts and all
the things you're afraid to ask, what it's like adopting a kitty with
special needs, cat art exhibitions, and the fights over declawing. (You can read my declawing blog
here.) Yay for useful information!
On the downside, they still have a section in the back called "Breeders Club" where you can email or go to websites to adopt a certain kind of cat. Well, I guess it's not necessarily a "downside", but I was a little disappointed when I saw it. To me this is a little creepy. It reminds me of the classifieds at the back of a free news weekly where you can arrange a meet-up to get a"sensual massage". I'm all for mixed breed cats, purebred cats, and adopting locally,
BUT the cats should pick you, not the other way around. I wish they had a listing in the back of the magazine for shelters in each state, or something like, "...say you saw this article in
Catster and at any of these participating shelters they will waive the adoption fee." Or something for the mixed breed cats. Anyway, I'm glad that people are adopting ALL cats and that
Cat Fancy Magazine solved their identity crisis for the better.
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