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Free Matilda!!

Bruce Wayne

My Mail is Forwarded Here
I have successfully trained one cat to walk on a leash. (He was 15 and getting deaf, and was formally an indoor/outdoor cat. I trained him so I could take him out in the yard for walks the last three years of his life.) The other one I tried to train failed miserably and it seemed cruel to continue the training.

badass-pets-28.jpg
 

Dan Rodemsky

One of the Regulars
Messages
112
Location
Concord, Calif.
Maybe they have changed it, or maybe I'm just not tech savvy enough but I find no mention of a cat on their website. They put peanut warnings on foods that don't even contain peanuts.
 

W4ASZ

Practically Family
Messages
582
Location
The Wiregrass - Southwest Georgia
Lord Chief Justice Coke must have had just this kind of excess in mind when he declared :

"…when an Act of Parliament is against common right and reason, or repugnant, or impossible to be performed, the common law will control it, and adjudge such an Act to be void." (Bonham's Case, 1610.)

My cats are greatly offended, as am I.
 

Tomasso

Incurably Addicted
Messages
13,719
Location
USA
"Much to my surprise she doesn't mind [the leash]," said the cat's caretaker Alice Almeida. "Matilda is getting used to her new areas and was very happy posing this morning for the press. She is a quick learner and soon we will be able to take the leash off."
 

Connery

One Too Many
Messages
1,125
Location
Crab Key
For those interested here is a video that was produced by The Algonquin Round Table Org or http://algonquinroundtable.org/

If you want to see Matilda in the smoke from Benchley's Pipe go to approx 3:05. :)

Algonquin Round Table (2007)A video tour of the Algonquin Hotel and the Round Table itself.
[video=youtube;aRqoYuxKfoc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRqoYuxKfoc&feature=player_embedded#![/video]



Meet Matilda, the Algonquin Hotel Cat - CatChannel.com ...:)
[video=youtube;60aucB3XW8Q]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60aucB3XW8Q[/video]
 
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Tomasso

Incurably Addicted
Messages
13,719
Location
USA
I had no idea that the good people at the Algonquin had turned Matilda (or their feline history) into a marketing ploy. Kinda sad, really....
 

Connery

One Too Many
Messages
1,125
Location
Crab Key
That's Mathilda II. She was retired last year and was adopted by one of the hotel employees. The current Mathilda has only been there a few months.

Yes. The vids were provided for those who have never been to the hotel or were curious and wanted to know more about the Hotel's rich history as it relates to the Golden Age. Also, it represents yet another innocent tradition that will disappear at the hands of those who simply cannot appreciate the significance of preserving that which makes us who we are as a culture.

More importantly, they demonstrate the tradition of having Matilda, of any generation, who dates back to the 1930's as she is as important to the storied Algonquin Hotel as the "Round Table" is and why the decision seems so arbitrary. :)

Here is more history about Matilda.


The Algonquin Hotel's Feline Celebrity(2006)
Alice de Almeida, an administrative assistant at the hotel, says the cat tradition began with a general manager in the 1930s, Frank Case. "The story goes that a stray cat wandered in off the street," she says, "It was all raggly-taggly and everything. He felt sorry for the cat and he kept it."

That first cat reportedly drank milk out of a champagne glass. Actor John Barrymore insisted he have a theatrical name, so he was called Hamlet. The idea inaugurated a tradition: When the Algonquin cat is male, he's Hamlet; when female, she's called Matilda. No one knows why.

Over the years, the Algonquin cat has been memorialized in a children's book and a 24-karat gold pendant. Now, you can even send Matilda an e-mail. Hotel assistant De Almeida is Matilda's ghostwriter, and always closes Matilda's messages the same way: "Have a PURRfect day."

The reigning Matilda is an 11-year-old Ragdoll, an exotic breed that resembles a fluffy Siamese. She will be having a purrfect day in November, when she takes a limo to White Plains, N.Y. and is crowned cat of the year at the Westchester Cat Show.
 
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Connery

One Too Many
Messages
1,125
Location
Crab Key
I think all the Algonquin cats have been either strays, shelter cats, or rescues. Another very noble part to the tradition.

I beleive Matilda III is the ninth cat, but, Matilda II was purportedly a breeding cat whose breeder was Eileen Pickett.
 

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