PUMPKIN THE RACCOON (@pumpkintheraccoon – 1.2m followers)

MOOSE THE MUSTELID (@the.modern.ferret – 9k followers)

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MILLA, STELLA & PRINCESS (@lifeofmill – 160k followers) 

JUNIPER & FIG (@juniperfoxx – 1.6m followers)

MIEPS, WIES, PIEN (& ARCHIE) (@miepstheguineapig – 36k followers) 

WATSON & KIKO (@wat.ki – 212k followers)

SHOTA TSUKAMOTO (@darcytheflyinghedgehog – 336k followers)

Kate (@cat_effect – 32k followers)

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Some people call theirs “Wiener-Dog”, which was also the nickname of Dawn Wiener, the heroine of Solondz’s 1995 film Welcome to the Dollhouse. One character doesn’t call his dachshund anything, but morosely looks at a bunch of sausages, ie wieners, being grilled in a cafe window. Others decide on the name “Doody” or “Cancer”. In a weird way, Wiener-Dog reminded me of Anthony Asquith’s 1964 portmanteau film The Yellow Rolls-Royce, which was written by Terence Rattigan and tells three tales about different people who come to own the same yellow Rolls-Royce. We see how that extravagant car brings to the surface each of its owners’ vanities, yearnings, vulnerabilities and fears.

Wiener-Dog does the same thing, but in far gloomier style. We see how the dachshund is a child substitute, or an adult substitute, or a love substitute. Or, in the case of the second story – which, sensationally, almost suggests that Solondz is feeling good about himself and the world – it is the means by which love might be achieved. Actual love, not a pathetic or tragicomic parody of love.

And it is a very lovable-looking dog, in its goofily inelegant way.

In one story, Julie Delpy and Tracy Letts play Dina and Danny, an uptight, unhappy couple whose young son Remi (Keaton Nigel Cooke) is recovering from cancer. This echoes with a later story. Remi gets the dog as a present to cheer him up. In the next story, Dawn (Greta Gerwig), a veterinarian’s assistant, hopes the dachshund is the means by which she might be able to melt the heart of Brandon (Kieran Culkin), whom she knew in grade school as a notorious bully.

Solondz playfully creates a bizarre “Intermission”, virtually a short story in itself: a montage of Wiener-Dog walking through various famous landscapes accompanied by a country and western song about the nomadic dachshund roaming around. Then Danny DeVito plays Dave Schmerz (German for “pain”), a pathetic has-been screenwriter teaching at a film school where the students despise him and his only friend is his dachshund. Finally, Ellen Burstyn plays Nana, an ageing, blind, embittered woman visited by her granddaughter Zoe, a would-be actor played by Zosia Mamet, and her outrageous conceptual artist boyfriend, Fantasy (Michael Shaw). Fantasy is destined to create a Hirstian sculpture of Nana’s dachshund, an artwork which is suffused with the same deadpan, unreadable irony as the movie itself. Nana is incidentally visited by a number of hallucinatory replicas of herself as a little girl. Perhaps the Wiener-Dogs are supposed to be understood in the same parallel-reality sense.

Of all these stories, the most obviously alienated and horrible is the first. The parents are almost outrageously insensitive. They explain to Remi that “house-breaking” Wiener-Dog will help him to behave like a human: that is, go to the bathroom outside. The mother (Delpy) has a particularly crass way of explaining to Remi why Wiener-Dog has to be spayed (Solondz creates a ghastly echo of this image in the next story) and she tells him a story about an adorable little dog of her own childhood which discloses the Islamophobia and xenophobia of her upbringing.

Greta Gerwig’s performance in the next story is very controlled and almost demure compared to the leading roles she’s had. It’s a relief to see her underplaying. The adults played by DeVito and Burstyn have faces which have long since set into masks of indifference and disappointment.

As for the canine star himself, each dachshund is conceivably a variation on a theme, like a differently tinted Warholian pop art panel. Except that the dachshund is exactly the same in each case: very cute, and with a mute dignity that rises above the bickering humans. I’m still not sure what to make of the film’s almost-final moments. It’s as if Solondz is angrily reacting against suspicions that he is going soft: suspicions that he himself has created. It is a movie with a hard core of disillusionment.

Via: The Guardian

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The famous ginger Tom is the star of A Street Cat Named Bob, directed by Canadian Roger Spottiswoode, which is in cinemas from November 4, 2016.

The film is based on the bestselling book of the same title, which has shifted six million copies and tells the story of how Bob’s companionship helped homeless busker James Bowen to win his battle with drug addiction.

Originally, the London puss wasn’t supposed to play himself in the film. The producers had ten specially trained doubles flown over from Canada, but they proved scaredy cats when it came to filming in London at night, so Bob stepped in.
James, 37, tells The Sun: “Bob was never supposed to be in the film. The producer brought these cats over from Canada. They were great cats but they didn’t know London.
“As it was getting dark, Bob was with me and they were shooting near Bow Street Magistrates and they asked Bob to help out. They said Bob was doing ­brilliantly so would I mind bringing him in every day? I couldn’t have been more honoured.”
Crucially, Bob got on very well with Luke Treadaway, 32, who plays his owner James in the movie.
In the end, 11-year-old Bob appeared in more scenes than any of the other cats and is now set to tour the world promoting the film. It also proved very lucrative for him.

James used to busk in London’s Covent Garden market and sell copies of the Big Issue. But the ­presence of high-fiving Bob proved a bigger attraction than his guitar-playing. People wanted to have selfies taken with Bob, and James obliged.
A literary agent then signed them up for a book, which became a hit a year later. These days Bob has his own Twitter, Facebook and YouTube pages, plus an online shop.
Today, perched on a designer couch in a posh penthouse hotel suite in central London ahead of his ­photoshoot with The Sun, Bob looks like the cat who got the whole dairy, never mind the cream.
But for James, what having a feline friend like Bob means to him is far more important than any movie.
He says: “He’s my baby, he’s changed my life. I love him so much.”

Born in Surrey, James was a ­toddler when his parents split up.
He was moved between them in Australia and England, struggling to make friends because he never ­settled in one place. In his late teens he was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and manic depression. And despite having a comfortable middle-class upbringing he started sniffing glue, then smoking cannabis and finally taking heroin. James spent ten years on the streets of London until he was given a flat in a council block in 2007.
That was where he found Bob, a threadbare ginger cat sitting in the communal hallway.
Bob gave him a reason to live and the desire to be free of the heroin substitute methadone.
James says: “If I hadn’t met Bob I’d probably be dead or existing to survive. I had nothing, nobody. I had no reason before he came into my life. I went through the motions and those motions included staying off drugs on the methadone programme. It could often be so tempting if it hadn’t been for Bob.”

The movie is an uplifting and inspiring story, but while being undoubtedly feelgood it does not shy away from the horror of drugs.
James says: “It does drive home the dangers in that life, when you are living on the edge. I have lost many friends.”
Not only is James drug-free but he has also reconciled with his dad John in London and mum Penelope in Australia.

Fame and fortune has also changed life for Bob, who is now a house cat rather than a street one.
“Bob has just bought me a house in South London,” James says, proudly.

Bob is not stuck indoors — wherever James goes, he goes too. The busy pair are ambassadors for The Big Issue Foundation, a charity which helps homeless people, and the Blue Cross animal welfare charity.

James says: “I have been very lucky. I’ve been given a chance to change my ways and I think ­everybody else deserves another chance. That should be a requirement in life.”

Via: The Sun

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