Fancy while it lasted

December 4, 2014 1:28 PM

Cat Fancy & Dog Fancy Magazine going to the big food bowl up in the sky The print magazines will be replaced by Dogster and Catster, which until recently were only digital publications.

"We feel that the tone, content and frequency of the new titles are a better fit for the contemporary pet owner and how they consume their pet-related information," says Kim Huey-Steiner, I-5 Publishing's chief sales officer.

Cat Fancy and Dog Fancy were 50 and 45 years old respectively, or roughly dead in dog years.

posted by St. Peepsburg (38 comments total)

My mom is going to be mopey about this for years, probably.
posted by trunk muffins at 1:31 PM on December 4, 2014 [1 favorite]

Huh. I guess this sorta explains why, after not logging into the site in ~5 years, I recently started receiving Dogster spam promotions again.
posted by Ufez Jones at 1:33 PM on December 4, 2014

Already happened to Bird Talk.
posted by kinnakeet at 1:33 PM on December 4, 2014 [2 favorites]

They're just changing the names, right?

To names that were ripped off from friendster.

Huh.
posted by mr_roboto at 1:37 PM on December 4, 2014 [1 favorite]

It an early goal of Catster and Dogster according to ex-founder Ted Reinhold*

*disclosure: Ted is a personal friend of mine.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 1:38 PM on December 4, 2014

Hah, I was going to blame Napster, but Friendster makes more sense, especially as the latter was formed in 2002, and Dogster opened in 2004.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:38 PM on December 4, 2014

ex-FOUNDSTER Ted Reinhold

ftfy
posted by thelonius at 1:42 PM on December 4, 2014 [9 favorites]

I think it's more than the names - the style / tone / content will be updated.

Funny this happened just as I was considering a subscription (you know you're old when...)
posted by St. Peepsburg at 1:42 PM on December 4, 2014

No way to subscribe to print Dogster and Catster that I can see. Am I just missing it somewhere?
posted by rabbitrabbit at 1:46 PM on December 4, 2014

Also: no Birdster?
posted by rabbitrabbit at 1:46 PM on December 4, 2014 [1 favorite]

The 'Fancy' of the title refers to the eugenic project, right? I can't say that Catster is for me, but it seems a bit less queasy than a publication celebrating body forms more destructive and distorting of their subject than a glossy fashion rag.
posted by wotsac at 1:47 PM on December 4, 2014 [1 favorite]

Those names are actually cringey. They sound like a joke some try hard politician who thinks he gets it, and knows what the "youth are about" because he saw a website this one time in 2004.

I don't know if that type of guy was the prime audience of cat fancy, but it's like really hamhanded cargo cult marketing to millennials and wow.
posted by emptythought at 2:00 PM on December 4, 2014

how they consume their pet-related information

I detest everything about this phrase. The person who uttered it should feel horrible about the direction their life has taken.
posted by Celsius1414 at 2:09 PM on December 4, 2014 [8 favorites]

wait what

what will i read at the vet's after giving up trying to comfort my cat
posted by Kitteh at 2:11 PM on December 4, 2014 [5 favorites]

what will i read at the vet's after giving up trying to comfort my cat

If your vet doesn't subscribe to The Bark, then you need to either A) find a new damn vet or B) Gift them a subscription this holiday season.

It really is the best animal publication I've ever laid eyes on
posted by Ufez Jones at 2:30 PM on December 4, 2014 [2 favorites]

Some of my earliest strong internet memories involve hanging out with cat fandom (which was/is strangely A Thing) on the CATS magazine public bulletin board, until the site rolled out a user-unfriendly board redesign that wiped out message archives and made long threads impossible to read. There was much ruffled fur user protest and canceling of magazine subscriptions. I helped organize a mass community exodus to the Cat Fancy bulletin boards, which got me very angry private messages from CATS mag board admins. Which I found thrilling as a 12-year-old, since it was proof I was FIGHTING THE SYSTEM with POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

Eventually the Cat Fancy board move was successful, and not long after CATS magazine folded and IIRC was swallowed by Cat Fancy. I haven't thought of either magazine in years, but I'm going to pretend my part in the Cat Fancy-as-user-shelter movement helped the magazine survive a little longer, maybe a day or two. I wonder if any CATS BB veterans are still there to make the leap to Catster?

Man, I love(d) cat magazines. The only thing better than wallowing in the luxuriant consumer excess of glossy mags is wallowing on behalf of YOUR CAT, who definitely deserves that $5,000 hand-carved cat tower.
posted by nicebookrack at 2:37 PM on December 4, 2014 [6 favorites]

I was endlessly entertained by Cat Fancy's dogged (ahem) insistence on describing every cat breed as somehow "friendly" and "playful." Siamese? Friendly and playful! Ragdolls! Friendly and playfull! Persians? Friendly and playful! ("Have you ever met a Persian?!" I asked, in some astonishment.)
posted by thomas j wise at 2:39 PM on December 4, 2014 [4 favorites]

I don't know if there was ever a time when Cat Fancy and Dog Fancy weren't a complete waste of paper, but if there was, it wasn't during my life time. Toodle-oo, guys.
posted by Wolfdog at 2:51 PM on December 4, 2014

I used to have a subscription to Cat Fancy, when I went through my super-cat-geek phase as a teenager. It had an advice column called "Cats on the Couch," and I wrote to it once, because my new kitten (a Turkish Van, because my super-cat-geek self thought they were the coolest cats ever) was annoying the crap out of my older cat (a domestic shorthair but also the coolest cat ever). My question didn't get published in the magazine, but the columnist sent me a handwritten note with advice. That was unexpected and awesome.

I don't remember the advice, but my cats got over their animosity, and eventually got intimate enough to groom each others', uh, litter-box areas. Thanks, Cat Fancy!
posted by Metroid Baby at 2:51 PM on December 4, 2014 [9 favorites]

Cat-Internet nostalgia! Apparently CLAW.org is gone, but oh my god, Lisaviolet's Cathouse is still there! Frozen in the '90s of my soul!
posted by nicebookrack at 2:52 PM on December 4, 2014 [2 favorites]

These were two of the magazines which, upon spying them on the rack, always made me think "Magazines are going out of business left and right and somehow these still exist?"
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:53 PM on December 4, 2014 [2 favorites]

I NO CAN HAS MAGAZINES?
posted by entropicamericana at 3:02 PM on December 4, 2014 [2 favorites]

I can't see Cat Fancy without thinking of this vintage Onion piece.

TW: ironic bestiality
posted by dr_dank at 3:04 PM on December 4, 2014

My question didn't get published in the magazine, but the columnist sent me a handwritten note with advice. That was unexpected and awesome.

Awww! In my own tween super-cat-geek phase, I read a Cat Fancy article about cat coat color that quoted a Tufts University veterinary researcher. My own cat's coat didn't seem to fit the article, so I wrote a letter (on purple cat-shaped stationery) to Tufts University asking for clarification and enclosing a picture of my cat. I got a letter back on Official Tufts Stationery™ (not cat-shaped) complimenting my handsome cat and explaining that he was a red or orange tabby. Scientists wrote to me about science!!!

Thanks, Tufts and Cat Fancy!
posted by nicebookrack at 3:07 PM on December 4, 2014 [15 favorites]

Somewhere, there is a lovely handwritten rejection letter sent to twelve-year-old me who thought I could send in my cat humour article and get it published in Cat Fancy. The editor told me that they didn't take unsolicited submissions but that she loved the essay, it made her laugh and even quoted a line from it. I will always have a place in my heart for Cat Fancy because of her kindness.
posted by ilana at 4:03 PM on December 4, 2014 [10 favorites]

nicebookrack: " In my own tween super-cat-geek phase"

In mine, two of my best friends and I read Cat Fancy at the library every month, then spent 8 hours of a Saturday, every month, painstakingly creating our own similar magazine called "The Daily Mews," copying out by hand all of the "articles" we wrote and drawing the same pictures three times and so on, binding it with staples, and so on. We rotated houses but all of our mothers fed us mac & cheese and pink lemonade for lunch. I do not know why. We'd go to the library during the week and research on the cat breeds and stuff we were going to write articles on. When we'd kept this up for over a year, our moms (who were not friends with each other) got together and had shirts made for us with cats on them that said "The Daily Mews" for Christmas. We shrieked with joy. We kept it up for a whole 'nother year, WITH SPECIAL SHIRTS.

I hadn't thought about that in years and now I'm having like overpowering sensory memories of my friends' basements. I bet the issues are all still at my mom's house somewhere.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 4:21 PM on December 4, 2014 [21 favorites]

Some of you people really like/are cats eh? Interesting.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 4:55 PM on December 4, 2014

If they really wanted to be "more up-to-date", they should be "Dogstr" and "Catstr".
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:00 PM on December 4, 2014 [2 favorites]

So, is there a Hamsterster?
posted by amtho at 6:02 PM on December 4, 2014 [4 favorites]

groom each others', uh, litter-box areas

If that's not a winner of a first date I don't know what is.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:16 PM on December 4, 2014 [1 favorite]

We rotated houses but all of our mothers fed us mac & cheese and pink lemonade for lunch. I do not know why.

Because that is what all the finest cat journalists eat, of course.

Now I really want to see a copy of The Daily Mews.It sounds adorable.
posted by louche mustachio at 7:27 PM on December 4, 2014 [4 favorites]

What about Fancy Feast cat food, will that become Feaster.com?
posted by not_on_display at 7:56 PM on December 4, 2014

I too want to see the Daily Mews, Eyebrows McGee! TheDailyMews dot tumblr dot com
posted by nicebookrack at 8:10 PM on December 4, 2014 [1 favorite]

Dogster and Catster

Sure, you can illegally download canines and felines over your smokin’ fast university internet connection, but their tags will be all messed up.
posted by blueberry at 8:21 PM on December 4, 2014 [3 favorites]

I just remembered a short story I wrote in sixth-grade English class based on a Cat Fancy article: my devastatingly clever locked-room murder mystery that somehow hinged on the fact that fertile male calico cats are incredibly rare. No reader would ever figure out my obscure clue in time!

As a bonus, I borrowed all the character names from The Cat Who mystery books.
posted by nicebookrack at 8:21 PM on December 4, 2014 [3 favorites]

After googling for Cat Fancy scans, I now really want to read this paper:

Chubby puppies and fat cats: Gendered deviance through overweight pets

by Craven, Nena Sechler, M.A.
The objective of this thesis is to research whether advertisements for pet weight loss products and services systematically target women as consumers because women's fears of acquiring the stigma associated with being overweight could compel them to act in a certain way or to buy certain products. A systematic content analysis of articles and advertisements dealing with pet weight loss in the industry's two leading pet magazines, Dog Fancy and Cat Fancy, is employed in this study in order to address these questions.

posted by nicebookrack at 8:38 PM on December 4, 2014 [1 favorite]

I feel like I should be making a Fishster pun here, but I can't quite bring myself to do it.
posted by Katemonkey at 3:15 AM on December 5, 2014

Also: no Birdster?

Well, rabbitrabbit, there is a Bunspace.
posted by tommasz at 11:35 AM on December 5, 2014