Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Why a cat would lick plastic bags
And why a dog would eat Tupperware lids
M. Alice: Ever since I began to choose the plastic bags over the paper ones to bring my groceries home, I've observed a very strange behavior in my cat. She seems obsessed with licking the plastic bags! A friend’s cat seems to be hooked on them too. What’s in the plastic that’s driving our cats crazy or are they just crazy? — Kristi, New Orleans
In the course of tracking down an explanation, I encountered several others who’d notice same behavior and one person with a dog that ate all her Tupperware lids. Perhaps it’s just the animal kingdom adapting to our all-petroleum-byproduct world.
But I think we’ve found a logical answer to this poser. Or at least semi-logical, giver the question has to do with cat behavior. Lightweight plastic film products are manufactured with something called a slip agent, which makes the film easier to handle. The slip agent is added to the resin and “blooms” to the surface of the extruded film. The base for the slip; is often a processed form of vegetable oil or animal fat. So the best guess is that the cats are licking bags made with an animal-fat-based slip agent.
The FDA mandates the types of slip agents that can be used on plastics destined for grocery bags, and none of these can be toxic. Most people I talked to guessed that no harm come to the cats from licking the bags, but you might check with a vet to be on the safe side.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Why a cat would lick plastic bags
And why a dog would eat Tupperware lids
Why a cat would lick plastic bags
And why a dog would eat Tupperware lids
M. Alice: Ever since I began to choose the plastic bags over the paper ones to bring my groceries home, I've observed a very strange behavior in my cat. She seems obsessed with licking the plastic bags! A friend’s cat seems to be hooked on them too. What’s in the plastic that’s driving our cats crazy or are they just crazy? — Kristi, New Orleans
In the course of tracking down an explanation, I encountered several others who’d notice same behavior and one person with a dog that ate all her Tupperware lids. Perhaps it’s just the animal kingdom adapting to our all-petroleum-byproduct world.
But I think we’ve found a logical answer to this poser. Or at least semi-logical, giver the question has to do with cat behavior. Lightweight plastic film products are manufactured with something called a slip agent, which makes the film easier to handle. The slip agent is added to the resin and “blooms” to the surface of the extruded film. The base for the slip; is often a processed form of vegetable oil or animal fat. So the best guess is that the cats are licking bags made with an animal-fat-based slip agent.
The FDA mandates the types of slip agents that can be used on plastics destined for grocery bags, and none of these can be toxic. Most people I talked to guessed that no harm come to the cats from licking the bags, but you might check with a vet to be on the safe side.
Comments