Hiya Snuzzsters! You may have heard from a little bird (a cute one, no less) that we were out looking for a new Snuzz expert to post the cuteness here on Snuzzy.com… and after reviewing LOTS of great resumes and holding a BUNCH of interviews with cool candidates, I found him! Yay!

Brad O’Farrell is on board now, and he’ll be dishing out the Snuzz going forward, making sure that your days continue to be filled with the cute and funny fuzziness that you’ve grown to know and love!

Among other Internet successes, Brad is the man behind the Keyboard Cat meme that hit the Internet strong in 2009 and continues to entertain millions. Over 4,000 versions of Keyboard Cat have been created – you can check out some of them on PlayHimOffKeyboardCat.com!

Brad is a also pet-owner and lover and wanted to take a few moments of your time to introduce you to his pets! Take it away, Brad…

In addition to introducing myself to the Snuzzy audience, I’d like to introduce my pets: My cat Amex and my hedgehog Max.

Amex likes to do cute poses for the camera in exchange for treats. Here’s her Caster profile.


Max enjoys running on his wheel and sticking his head into toilet paper tubes–don’t worry, it’s safe (as long as you cut a slit across it so he can’t get stuck) and the most common hedgie toy. I would make Max a Hedgehogster profile if such an adorable place existed. Here’s a better picture of him:


Isn’t he adorable? There’s more videos of him being cute here.

I’ll be sure to let you guys know next time they do something snuzzilicious.

Share the Snuzz with your pawple. Post it to your favorite service:

• Happy Birthday To Me
• Dogster Photographer Mark Rogers Knows His Snuzz
• Catster Guido to Compete for $1,000,000
• All Dogs. All Day. Capiche?
• Catster’s New Cat Blog IS The Cat’s Meow

Loki is a blogging and tweeting cat. Here he recites a sonnet about Tuscan Milk.

In a reader and can’t see the video? Watch it here.

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• Snuzzy Welcomes Brad O’Farrell!
• Ma Ro… Arr Ra Ra Ro… Ma Ro… Ma Ra Ra Ro
• Opposites Attract: Dog and Cat Playing
• How to Sleep Like an Italian Cat
• Happy Birthday To Me

Guido the Italian Cat sent this in to me – this is how he spent his Saturday. I’m jealous…

The Italian Kitty catnapped, readying himself for the 1 hr “shut the lights off for Earth Day” at 8:30pm. He maneuvered the 60 minutes of darkness just purrfectly…

Share the Snuzz with your pawple. Post it to your favorite service:

• Snuzzy Welcomes Brad O’Farrell!
• Happy Birthday To Me
• Daisy the Curly Cat Gets Snuzzy for Veterans Day
• Catster Guido to Compete for $1,000,000
• Dream Dog

Oh my goodnesses. In near Sixteen Candles-like form, I almost forgot a very important occasion that is happening this week –

That’s right, it was a year ago when we decided to introduce Snuzzy.com to the world, ransacking the Internets like a bunch of furry, out of control puppies in attempt to bring you some of the cutest and fuzziest stuff on the web.

I was looking back at the first post (and this one went up before the actual site launched, sort of a test run of sorts, I guess) on March 27, 2008, and there wasn’t a single image involved. Yikes…

Wow. That sucked. And the first actual image to hit the snuzzosphere? Um ,well… it was this one, posted on April Fool’s Day, which (appropriately) is Snuzzy’s official date of birth:

Yeah, that’s right. Another beauty. Things do take a little time to get going, but it wasn’t long before Snuzzy.com was attracting some attention and getting some hits. The first major success was this post, 25 Bits of Snuzz to Improve Your Health, with almost 10,000 pageviews on May 29. To date, this post has been viewed over 70,000 times!

And as things go in cyberspace, we’ve had some other winners, and some real losers on Snuzzy. That’s the fun part about blogging cuteness – you never really know what’s going to strike a chord and what’s not.

For the rest of the week, I’ll be re-posting some of my favorites (both the popular and the unpopular ones) and encourage you to send me suggestions for posting. As you browse back over the snuzz from the past year, feel free to send me links to posts that you really enjoyed this past year!

As always, thanks for tuning in and sharing your thoughts and images with me, and for telling your friends about Snuzzy.com!

Launching into year number two with a promise to keep you pleasantly bombarded with cute and fuzzy collisions, I remain,

Very snuzzily yours,

Snuzzy

Share the Snuzz with your pawple. Post it to your favorite service:

• Some Snuzz to Remember: Curly Cat Curiosities
• Snuzzy Welcomes Brad O’Farrell!
• Some Snuzz to Remember: I Can Be Hot Dog
• Dogster Photographer Mark Rogers Knows His Snuzz
• Snuzzy’s Favorites: Cat Massages Dog

Today is Veterans Day, and I’m honored to hand it over to my cute little furry friend Daisy the Curly Cat, who has a great Veterans Day outfit on, along with a nice piece about this special day over on her blog.

I am wearing my most patriotic outfit, because today is a special holiday where we honor all of our military veterans. Here are some things I learned about this day:

It was in 1938 that Armistice Day was enacted as an official American holiday. But eventually after WWII, citizens felt that the veterans of all wars should be recognized, not just those of WWI. So in 1954 Congress changed the name from Armistice Day to Veterans Day. In America, the holiday now celebrates the approximate 2.9 million U.S. veterans with parades and ceremonies among other events.

Thanks for the great info, Daisy, and for the beeyootiful pictures!

You can see the rest of Daisy’s Veterans day post here.

Share the Snuzz with your pawple. Post it to your favorite service:

• Catster Guido to Compete for $1,000,000
• Catster’s New Cat Blog IS The Cat’s Meow
• Dogster Photographer Mark Rogers Knows His Snuzz
• Eyes You Can’t Say ‘No’ To
• Snuzzy Welcomes Brad O’Farrell!

Having you been losing sleep wondering about what ever happened to Chuck Woolery? Well, Guido knows where he is!

Catster’s very own Guido the Italian Cat hung out with Woolery a couple weeks ago and is now getting ready for his big night! Guido will be competing on The Meow Mix Think Like a Cat Game Show, which will air this Saturday, November 15th, on the Game Show Network.

Here’s a clip about the show–you can see Guido at the 00:13/00:14 mark. Go Guido! (If the video doesn’t appear in your feed reader, you can watch it here.)

Link: [Guido on Catster]

Share the Snuzz with your pawple. Post it to your favorite service:

• World’s Coolest Round One Ends Soon!
• Catster’s New Cat Blog IS The Cat’s Meow
• Dogster Photographer Mark Rogers Knows His Snuzz
• Snuzzy Welcomes Brad O’Farrell!
• No Really. I’m Walkin’ Here…

These are just a couple of the hilarious shots that are a part of Costume-Shopping 101 by Karen Nichols. If you’re still trying to figure out what you are going to do with your pet for Halloween, you need to read this super informative piece over at one of our other cool pet blogs The Cat’s Meow. It’s primarily written with cats in mind, but I found that a lot of the advice carries over into the doggie costume world as well.

Share the Snuzz with your pawple. Post it to your favorite service:

• Dogster Photographer Mark Rogers Knows His Snuzz
• ghoUltra Kawaii Gets Their Spook On
• More Snuzzy Halloween Pet Costumes
• Newsflash: We CAN Just All Get Along!
• Snuzzy Welcomes Brad O’Farrell!

Part 4 got us into the car from the house, and this video takes us from Grythyttan, Sweden, to Stockholm. Tailer was pretty verbal the first few minutes, as we made our way over the dirt roads, calmed down for the majority of the trip, and then got a little talkative as we hit Stockholm. Check it out:

(If you don’t see the video in your reader, you can watch it here.)

Here’s a sneak peak into what you’ll see in part 6, assuming that I can get a little shuteye and edit some of the in-air footage (yes, IT’S OVER!) tomorrow…

Link: [Cat ster Video]

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• Flying with a Cat: From Sweden to SF, Part 6
• Flying with a Cat: From Sweden to SF, Part 3
• Flying with a Cat: From Sweden to SF, Part 2
• Flying with a Cat: From Sweden to SF, Part 4
• Flying with a Cat: From Sweden to SF, Part 1

Any time you move with an animal across a border, state or international, it’s important that you get a check up before you start the journey, and obtain all of the necessary documents and vaccinations. Generally, you want to get this done about a week before the trip begins.

Tailer went to the vet last week to get his check-up, and getting there involved spending a little travel time in his cat carrier. He’s had the past two months to get used to it, something that Dr. Barchas recommended in my interview with him. This is him on the way there:

And when he got to the vet, his doctor gave him the once-over and checked him out:

And then she signed his papers and stamped them, giving him a clean bill of health. Right on, Tailer!

She then gave us a calming spray to use on and in his carrier, something that will hopefully help him to relax in his cozy little world for the duration of the trip. I totally like the idea of that and am thinking of dousing my body in the spray as well.

And that was that and he got to go home. When the car made it to the last stretch of the dirt road that leads to the house, Tailer got to get out and check things out:

He’s a pretty good co-pilot, but I wouldn’t trust him behind the wheel.

We spent this afternoon out in the forest, picking mushrooms. Tailer usually likes to come along for these excursions, and today he was along for the stroll. Seeing him out there, though, reminded me of the fact that one of the things that I am still worried about is that he’ll be leaving a forest life and entering a city one, and, as Dr. Barchas suggested, he’ll basically be becoming an indoor cat. It will obviously be a tough adjustment for him, even if for the past year and a half or so he has been sleeping most of his days away on the sofa or in bed… in the house.

Nonetheless, I have wrestled with this over and over again, feeling guilty for the fact that he’ll be making a life adjustment for my sake. And as much as I try to tap dance around it, I can’t–that’s pretty much the deal. The truth of the matter is that my life has changed–I am no longer living in the middle of the Swedish forest–and I am back in the states, back in San Francisco. And as any pet lover will tell you, walking away from a furry little friend is often a nearly impossible thing to do. Call me crazy or call me a jerk–heck, call me a crazy jerk–walking away from Tailer is just not in the plans for me right now. So, San Francisco, here we come.

Plus, if he gets through this trip without too much trouble, he’ll be coming back here with me in June to celebrate midsummer.

Sure, why not?

So tomorrow we’ll head to Stockholm, a car ride that accounts for about four hours of the (door-to-door) 20-22 hour trip. Thankfully, he and I are staying in Stockholm tomorrow night before we get up at the crack of dawn and head to the airport on Tuesday. From that point, it’s just a hop, skip and a (6,500 mile) jump home.

Seriously.

Leaving you with a few pix from today’s last mushroom-picking excursion–

Check back tomorrow for more!

Share the Snuzz with your pawple. Post it to your favorite service:

• Flying with a Cat: From Sweden to SF, Part 2
• Flying with a Cat: From Sweden to SF, Part 6
• Flying with a Cat: From Sweden to SF, Part 5
• Flying with a Cat: From Sweden to SF, Part 4
• Flying with a Cat: From Sweden to SF, Part 1