Good evening felinity assembled, Elvira Mistress of Felinity, here, with the latest edition of The Carnival of the Cats.
Welcome to the Grand-Daddy of pet blogging share-fests on the internet!
The Carnival has been shared, through good times and bad, every week since the Spring of 2004.
It's time for a change....
Long past time; Nikita knew it, at least 5 years before he went to Rainbow Bridge, Daddy Kiril has long known it, Miss Mog has long known it, and so have I.
Except for a few old timers and the occasional newbie, submissions had stopped coming in long ago. In case you might not have noticed we have long had many of the same contributors because we continued to share posts we liked by long time regulars and new sites we added.
That's no way to run a once great share-fest!
Call us old-fashioned, but we are not real fans of Mr. Linky and other such new-fangled ways of sharing posts, though we long have often submitted to the Cat Blogosphere and various Blog Hops, welcoming the few visitors who come by and checking out blog posts by other fellow submitters.
Most of those don't allow the submitter to impress upon the host and visitors just what it was about their submission that made them want to share it not just on their blog, but with a, hopefully, wider audience via the CoTC, allowing for the host to embellish a little in how they explained the post once they had also read it themselves.
Also, how many cat bloggers who have joined our ranks, in the past 5 years, even are aware of the CoTC and its history and importance for the pet blogging niche of the internet?
Before pet blogger conventions and awards, before the pet industry and rescues/shelters gave a hoot, before many other familiar aspects of the online pet niche, there was Carnival of the Cats.
Early last year Daddy Kiril was asked by our friend Susan (Miss Mog) to join her in running the home site and even trying to, slowly but surely, update it. In coming weeks Daddy hopes to finally update a few things to better reflect our change in the way things are done.
The most important thing is that we will no longer be looking for new hosts.
Attempts to solicit hosts for 2015 went nowhere.
This blog will be primary host, as it has been for some time, with occasional filling in by Miss Mog on her blogs and Samantha of Life From a Cat's Perspective and The New Tuxedo Gang Hideout blogs.
So what do I, as host, hope to do?
Poke the box...cardboard box, litter box, big box, small box, hell, any box will do, I am...YOU are, a cat...poking boxes is something we enjoy.
"Writing is hard. Making a difference is hard" - Seth Godin in Poke the Box
This blog has made a difference, over the years...CoTC made a difference once and I believe it can do so again.
For us Cat Bloggers the Carnival is a chance to discover blogs we might never have heard of, on subjects of all kinds!
It is an opportunity for us to reach an audience we might not otherwise reach.
It is a chance to promote a post or 2, each week, that we think will be of interest to others, and to pitch them using more than 140 characters or just a short sentence barely long enough to get a point across.
Submissions and tips can be sent to: carnivalofthecats(at)gmail (dot) com
They must be received by 3pm EST, each Sunday (ideally we'd like posts submitted by Midnight EST Saturday, but know regulars who share Sunday posts), so the host can have time to post the current CoTC Sunday evening, or no later than Tuesday evening.
Each Carnival will feature links to submissions with comments about them by the host.
We will also include links to our regulars that we have relied on for so long, and even posts we discover on our own.
The other 2 aspects to the new CoTC (for the most part only when this blog is host) will be ideas first begun by Nikita, as part of his blogging, years ago...
1. A round-up of a few other pet share-fests we are aware of, from the week before (Sunday-Saturday).
2. A news round-up: Nikita used to have a list of Google search words he used to find interesting cat related stories to comment on, in his own famous style, and share with his readers:
He WAS the original "Opinionated Pussycat" after all.
The Carnival Home Page, with an archive of past Carnivals, and the line-up for 2015, FAQ'S, and more, is HERE.
It is our hope that you will help us revive the fortunes of CoTC by submitting posts, telling us of pet share-fests we are unaware of, spread the word about each carnival on your blog and other social media platforms as appropriate and even send us tips about interesting cat related stories for us to consider.
It is our hope you will also visit the shared posts and stories, even commenting here, and/or there.
So...here's to a new beginning...
1. Over at StrangeRanger...Maddie celebrates the wedding anniversary of her humans!
2 and 3. Over at Sparkle Cat...Summer has an Interview With Crepes, Movie Star, Blogger and Author!
She also discusses the differences between human and feline litter boxes and related issues, hee, hee!
4. Over at Life From a Cat's Perspective...one of the best and funniest photos you will ever see of Samantha, hee, hee!
5. Over at Marian Allen's blog...Amidala takes back the caturday blogging from Sweetie Pie! Also, the weekly writing prompts for animals are well worth giving a shot at completing.
6. Over at CatSynth...a tribute to Leonard Nimoy, who played the cat loving Mr. Spock on Star Trek.
7. Over at Brian's Home...In praise of Trader Joe's paper bags!
8. Over at Animal Shelter Volunteer Life...Sundays are an opportunity to do a little "relaxamicating", hee, hee!
9. Over at Traveling Cats...a French kitty!
10 - 12. Over at 15 and Meowing...Lucy and her human recommend a quite remarkable cat themed book that daddy is going to add to his Amazon Wish List if it's available...for our own collection.
Also her human made a Krinkle Kicker and the gang shares selfies!
13. Over at Marks Mews...just WHAT is Iza thankful for, anyway?
14. Over at Create With Joy...Tsunami shares a selfie and a Maine Coon’s First Encounter With Snow is shared by video!
15. As for us....
Sneakers thanks everyone who liked her Texas Tuesday debut post and shares links to our Texas related links pages.
News round-up from the Feline News Network (FNN)
1. Cnet has a cool story about a human artist who re-imagines famous pop culture characters as cats through her wonderful drawings.
My favorite is the Catvengers.
2. Black Cats are un-photographic/difficult to photograph and hard to tell apart?
And this is supposed to be why they are hard for shelters and rescues to find homes for?
Really?
An interesting piece, from ABC News, with perspectives from Great Britain and America that put the spotlight on the difficulty of finding homes for black cats.
3. Felinity Assembled has always known this, but humans seem surprised....
Cats are more popular than dogs in many places around the world.
"market research firm Euromonitor suggest these differences extend beyond individual preferences and to the realm of geopolitics: it turns out there are cat countries and dog countries, too."
A Washington Post report via The Daily Journal.
4. Ever hear of The Amazing Acro-Cats and The Rock Cats?
Me neither!
Check out their website and, especially the videos and "about" page to learn more. It's well worth your time.
Share-fests
1. Friday Ark took the week off, but here is the previous one...#509
3. Rascal & Rocco has Pet Parade #81
4. Blog Paws hosts the Wordless Wednesday Blog Hop
5. Athena and Marie host the Caturday Art Blog Hop
6. The Cat on My Head hosts the Sunday Selfies Blog Hop.
March 5/6 2015 UPDATE:
Thank you, so very much, to our friends at Create With Joy, for the huge plug to lead off the latest edition of their Friendship Friday Blog Hop!
Paws crossed that this new approach works out!
Posted by: Summer | March 03, 2015 at 12:42 AM
Wow, gang! There truly are some big and wonderful changes afoot for the Carnival of the Cats! We are so thankful that we all have you to champion the cause, dear friend. We will tweet about this. Maybe the CB can post something about it, too?
Posted by: meowmeowmans | March 03, 2015 at 06:38 AM
Oh, and we just thought of two share vests...
Thankful Thursday at Pepi Smart Dog, and Opt to Adopt Tuesday, which I believe is hosted by Dogz and Pawz. :)
Posted by: meowmeowmans | March 03, 2015 at 06:42 AM
Oh We are so excited on all the new changes! We can hardly wait for our turn to host! I know of a One Cat Share-Fest PepiSmartDog.com!
I think you will like it!~
Hugs, Samantha & Mom
Posted by: Samantha & Mom | March 03, 2015 at 10:53 AM
Sounds like a great plan. I will do my best to spread the word. Thank you for puttig it all together.
Posted by: Pilch92 15andmeowing | March 03, 2015 at 05:42 PM
Change is hard, too. Thanks for including the Pet Parade! I do love the CoTC, though, sadly, it hasn't been on my radar of late.
Thank you for all the work you and kitties mentioned put into it. I love finding out about new blogs and the way you describe them, rather than just a link up, makes me want to visit them much more. Glad you are breathing new life into it!
Posted by: Rascal and Rocco | March 04, 2015 at 03:30 PM
We hope the changes work out. The homeschool carnival was running into the same problems you mentioned.
Posted by: ATCAD | March 05, 2015 at 05:54 AM
We have never participated in the CoTC before, but it sounds like fun! We will make note of this and try to add it to our list of shares! Thank you for this. Looking forward to it.
Posted by: Kitty Cat Chronicles | March 05, 2015 at 09:17 AM
Happy birthday, Kiril. We know you are thinking of Nikita on this day.
Posted by: jansfunnyfarm | March 05, 2015 at 11:48 AM
Happy Birthday and congrats on being featured as the Friend of the Week!
Posted by: Nicole | March 05, 2015 at 07:34 PM
Thank you for including my blog in your updates :-)
Posted by: Traveling Cats | March 07, 2015 at 05:59 AM