MSI Press Blog

  Kokee (Sophia) posing with her owner by her choice Sophia came to me courtesy of the one and only local TNR volunteer. Normally, cats in her situation would go to a shelter—but no shelter would take Sophia. She was “too wild.” She’d earned that reputation. The first time she was trapped, she somehow escaped the cage, streaked through the room like lightning, clawed her way up the curtains, hissed, spat, and evaded every attempt to recapture her before vanishing. When she was finally retrapped, she was put under close observation. Snipped, but not subdued, she allowed no one near her. “Not adoptable,” they said. Like so many of my cats before her. Sophia—whom the four-year-old in the household quickly nicknamed Kokee for her Sokoke breed—was special even among the feral arrivals. The Sokoke, from Kenya, is considered the last truly wild domestic cat breed. They are rare in the United States, known for their intelligence, agility, and fierce independence. We placed Sophia in the c...

  Question: What is a precerpt? Answer: A precerpt is a brief excerpt or preview of a book (or other text), used to give readers a taste of the content before they read the full piece. It's like a sneak peek that hooks the reader's interest (or at least, we hope it will hook yours).  This Friday's precerpt is from  Raising Happy Cat Families  by Luna Norwood --  GAINING A CAT'S CONFIDENCE (part 2) So, how did Boulder became Bobolink? How did I gain the confidence of this scared baby? In the following ways that can be generalized to a number of scaredy cats:   LEAVE THE INITIATIVE TO THE CAT; RESPECT THE CAT’S SPACE. I left the initiative to Bobolink. He could join the rest of the family when he was ready and was not forced to do so before he was ready. Bobolink’s cubby on the cat tree was there as his protective fortress; I did not disturb him there—did not feed him there, did not try to pet him there, removed him from there only once a day for his so...

  Question: What is a precerpt? Answer: A precerpt is a brief excerpt or preview of a book (or other text), used to give readers a taste of the content before they read the full piece. It's like a sneak peek that hooks the reader's interest (or at least, we hope it will hook yours).  Beginning today, we will offer Friday precerpts from our forthcoming books. Some are closer to being released than others, but you can anticipate that once a month another precerpt from the same book will be presented so that you can get a pretty good taste for the flavor of the book buy the time it is released. At the moment, the four forthcoming books from which we will share precerpts are: Grandma's Ninja Training Diary (Renz and Leaver) on the first Friday of the month Charming Cats, a series of books, the first of which is Raising Happy Cat Families  (Norwood)  The Curse of the Maestro (Walker) on the third Friday of the month Nothing So Broken (Richards) on the fourth Friday of ...