We were recently contacted by KatKin to see if our cat Sonya wanted to try out their cat food. Unlike most canned and sachet cat foods, KatKin is not super heated to kill off any bugs or nasties. It means it won't last for months in your kitchen cupboard, but it also means it has retained more flavour and nutritional value. This is fresh meat, cooked, and frozen.

We were sent a 2 week trial box, with 14 portions of food in a variety of flavours (each approx 147g), plus Chicken Nibbles (50g) and Chicken Sprinkles, which are both made from freeze dried cooked chicken.

The Secret Life of Pets 2 is now available on DVD, Blu-ray, 4K Ultra HD and Digital Download from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment. They've sent us a copy to review and I have a Blu-ray to give away to one of my readers too!

What are your pets doing when you aren't at home?


This heartwarming animated sequel from Illumination, the studio that brought us Despicable Me, Minions and Sing, is also led by a star-studded comedic cast. All of our favorite Pets and their growing families are back in a new chapter which really examines the deep bonds between them and their humans.

The voice cast includes Patton Oswalt (A.P. Bio), Kevin Hart (Ride Along Series), Eric Stonestreet (Modern Family), Jenny Slate (Despicable Me 3), Tiffany Haddish (Girls Trip), Lake Bell (Children’s Hospital), Nick Kroll (Sing), Dana Carvey (Wayne’s World), Ellie Kemper (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt), Hannibal Buress (Neighbors) and Bobby Moynihan (Saturday Night Live).

Excitingly for me, Harrison Ford takes his first ever role in an animated film as new addition Rooster, the very mature farm dog who they meet later on in the movie.

This month didn't exactly go as expected for us, in fact the last week has been a bit of a roller-coaster of emotions. We had an excellent 4 days at Timber Festival (as guests and I will get my review live this week), but we came home to find that Gary the cat was not well.

Gary was an internet star from the moment he arrived, and possibly my glowing review helped. He lived his life on the internet and I know a lot of people cared about him. He owed a lot of people a coffee.


Gary was really poorly. He didn't survive the night and died in the early hours - peacefully and not in pain. We all had an extra day off work and school to say goodbye and help bury him. I think it was harder because Gary arrived at a time when we really were feeling the huge gap left by Elspeth. Losing him was like losing another part of her, but it was right I told everyone, and I did so in a blog post eulogy. 

He brought us joy and laughter, love, and someone warm who was always willing to have a cuddle. I admit it, my opinion of cats has changed somewhat. I miss him. He's left a shredded stair carpet, a box of chewed cat toys and a small cat-shaped hole that will never be filled in.


The universe realised we were short of a pet and needed a distraction, so it intervened and sent us another to save. My eldest son saw a magpie fighting a tiny bright green budgie near a park in Withington, stepped in and rescued the little fella.

He might be a full grown bearded adult, but he did what all kids do when they aren't sure what the next move is, he took it to his Mum. That's me. In his pocket, on the tram. I preferred it in a cardboard box (it's a proven rescue animal storage method).

Gary was left outside our house. At first we thought he was a lost kitten, and we printed off big photos and put up posters looking for his owner. No-one rang and we were sad for an imaginary young family of children or elderly lady pining for her cat.


When he arrived, despite the fact I had a strong dislike for cats, Gary was determined he was at the right place. He knew how soft I am really and he knew he could break me down. I think he knew everything. Cats are smarter than we realise.

Thing is, he was really scared of outdoors and he really didn't want to go back out. He stayed with me all day, following me around the house and climbing onto my knee whenever I sat down. His eyes barely left mine and I chatted away to him the same as I did with my toddlers. Sometimes he even replied.


No-one ever came forward to claim Gary - who was named Gary by our youngest "because that's his name". We fed him boring dry food and left the door open for him to leave, but he didn't. He even went to the toilet inside - in the actual toilet (or the bath). It's one of the things I particularly liked about him.

Wild Nature Press have two excellent book releases for children this spring and they've sent us a copy of each for review, plus I'll be giving away a copy to one of my readers. Amazing Pets & How To Keep Them is a beautiful hardback large scale book written by Stewart McPherson, and crammed with information and full colour images.

Perfect for any young nature lover, Amazing Pets lets you explore some of the more exotic and usual small creatures you can keep in your own home, sensibly and ethically, and gives you an idea of just what you'd need to look after them...


Recommended for readers aged around 8-12, Amazing Pets is split into sections, starting with 'Golden Rules'. This is a serious book for people who care about creatures and it's right that it starts with some simple rules to prevent anticipated errors which might end very badly.

Mainstream books can be great, but they can also simply be popular because they have a lot of money for advertising. It's easy to miss real gems amongst the mountains of titles available, and so whenever I have chance I like to review books from smaller publishers and self-published books. Here are 3 shorter books for children from Matador Press.


My boys and I snuggled up and looked at them, because even at 8 and 9, sometimes it's nice to read a book together...

Sgt Stubby was released in cinemas in the UK this weekend. An animated movie which is a more grown up film than you might at first expect, especially as the star is a very cute little stump-tailed Terrier dog. This is the story of the official mascot of the 102nd Infantry Regiment (United States) and America's most decorated dog.


The movie is set in wartime and features wartime events, including frontline battles and infantry in trenches. It's noisy and honest, and my boys at 8 and 9 understood the storyline with depth.

The film tells the story of the real four-legged American hero, Sgt. Stubby, and when it starts he is a stray, rescued by a young 'doughboy' just as America declare war they are joining World War 1 and havoc really begins. The young man takes Sgt. Stubby with him as his infantry mascot.

Interplay have an awesome range of children's My Living World sets created in conjunction with Nick Baker, the Really Wild Show presenter and naturalist. The sets help children get up close and personal with nature, supporting science and building STEM skills, as well as teaching about caring for living creatures. We've been given Ant World to review.


There is a backstory as I actually requested this review for my 9 year old. He came home from school one day, incredibly excited about the idea that people can keep ants as pets and see into their usually hidden world. I'd previously been offered this set, so I went back to Interplay and asked if we could still review.

Staggeringly it's exactly 2 years since Gary turned up on my doorstep, howling and terrified and unable to pee, but we gloss over that nowadays. I've discovered a lot about cats in the last 2 years, or maybe it's just Gary, I have no idea and never intend to. As it's his Garyversary, and the internet saved my cat, I thought I'd share what I've learnt.


1. Cats can sleep anywhere. Gary has his luxury Amazon Prime Cat bed at the end of our bed, and a smaĺler, cosier box on the floor for when he doesn't want to risk being kicked in the head at night. He will however sleep anywhere. Window ledge, under the bed, on a cushion, clothes line, bag of marbles, IN the LEGO box. Whatever cats are made of, it's some sort of pain resistant cloud magic in a loose bag, and if we can harness it then we can be pain-free millionaires. Forget Tesla, this is where the real future lies.

The secret life of pets is an animated family movie from Universal pictures, and is released on released on Digital Download tomorrow Monday 31st October. The movie tells the tale of Max and Penny and a host of family pets. Max is abandoned and Penny finds, and rescues him. She takes him home and they spend the next few months getting to know each other and keeping each other company in the flat.


One day Penny brings a new dog home from the pound, Duke. Max is very jealous and decides he needs to get rid of Duke, but it goes wrong and both Max and Duke find themselves lost.

Max and Duke need to find their way back home, but are being watched by the evil fluffy white bunny Snowball and his ragtag gang of escaped pets. They encounter several adventures along the way, including nearly drowning after Duke is taken by the Animal-Catcher, and the van has an accident on the way to the pound.

Until 2 weeks ago we had a tired 10 year old vacuum cleaner and a hairy carpet. I felt it could be better, but had no idea just how much better until we got a chance to try out the Gtech AirRam K9. This is a 4 x 4 compact cordless stick vacuum cleaner which is especially designed for homes with pets.


I can't actually applaud the AirRam K9 enough. It is handy, light, quick, easy to empty, the charge lasts ages and it actually does the job it promises it will. Our Dwarf Lop Rabbits shed more hair than you would ever think possible, I should take up knitting. Two rabbits plus Gary the surprise cat means that our before/after photos are pretty striking.

I've never liked cats and so Gary The Cat wouldn't have been the sort of thing I'd have thought to buy, but Gary has been with us a week now and although we've not had chance to test all of the features, we've found he's been popular with pretty much the whole family.


Gary was delivered by means unknown, without so much as a note or delivery ticket, and as soon as he realised we were awake, screeched and scratched and cried at our door for an hour until we gave in, opened it and let him in.