thebigbuddy

Found Frozen To The Ground In Record Storm, Michigan Cat Is Recovering At Clinic

After a close brush with death during the severe winter storm over the holidays, a former stray cat is recovering and will get a forever home.

Elliot the cat was near death when Kelli Vanderlaan found him literally frozen to the concrete in the early morning hours of Dec. 26, during one of the coldest, most severe storms to sweep the US in decades.

Initially unsure whether the white and gray stray was still alive, as his eyes were frozen shut, Vanderlaan wriggled him free and took him to the Big Lake Community Animal Clinic in Muskegon, Michigan. Although barely able to move and unable to vocalize, Elliot seemed to be grateful for the car’s heat.

“You could tell that he was obviously frozen, so he needed warmth and touch and everything, I think he was pretty happy when I got him into the truck,” Vanderlaan told the local ABC affiliate, WZZM.

Staff at Big Lake Community Animal Clinic have been nursing Elliot the Cat back to health. Credit: WZZM

Once Vanderlaan and the stray arrived at Big Lake, staff there immediately began gently raising the little guy’s temperature, wrapping him in warm blankets and giving him fluids.

“We weren’t sure what he’s been through,” said Alexis Robertson, executive director of the local Humane Society. “He’s definitely been out there for a while trying to take care of himself, just trying to survive, but it was at a critical point where he was ready to pass.”

After giving Elliot a veterinary exam, cleaning his eyes and making sure he was snug, the staff at Big Lake Community Animal Clinic monitored him closely overnight. His organs had been dangerously close to shutting down when he was brought in, and he still wasn’t out of the woods yet.

Elliot, who was named after the storm that swept the region over the holidays, has continued to improve in the days since. He’s since been able to stand on his own and has regained his appetite, the clinic’s staff wrote on Facebook.

“We are so happy to say he is doing much better and was monitored during the night,” staffers wrote. “He reaches out his paw to the vet tech that has been caring for him overnight, showing her just how happy he is that he is being helped. He still has a long way to go, but we won’t give up.”

Elliot, who was described as an “older” cat who’s been fending for himself, will come out of the ordeal with his life much improved. After surviving the storm — which plunged temperatures well into the single digits, set record lows across much of the midwest and claimed the lives of at least 56 people across the country — Elliot will be put up for adoption, and the clinic has already received inquiries from people who want to open their home to the little survivor. If his will to live and his gratitude toward his rescuers are any indication, the little guy has a lot of love to give.

“It’s the most heartfelt feeling in the world to see this cat come from basically nothing and being vocal and happy to be touched and fed, it’s just an amazing thing to watch,” Leah Wetmore, the clinic’s manager, told WZZM.

elliotcat_save — Kelli Vanderlaan was the Good Samaritan who saved Elliot’s live. Credit: WZZM

Angry Cat Refuses To Relinquish Chicken Wing

Why not let our feline friends have a taste of human-grade food every once in a while?

The star of the internet’s newest viral cat video knows what she wants, and she isn’t going to part with it easily.

In the video below, kitty growls at the humans who want to take away her delicious chicken wing. Ultimately it requires three people to take the wing from her, and she licks her lips before the evil humans can wipe the hot sauce away too:

@coachmeeks

#question from @coachmeeks

♬ original sound – Tomika

Personally I’d have let her keep it. It’s already in her mouth. Clearly she’s not bothered by the hot sauce. And maybe it’ll be a good lesson if she eats the wing and doesn’t feel well afterward, so she won’t go for a plate of wings next time.

This reminds me of the time I made a late-night Burger King run when Bud was just a kitten, before I went vegetarian. I came home, unwrapped my burger, removed the fries from the bag and went to the kitchen for napkins or ketchup or something, only to return and find the burger had vanished!

Bud left a trail of discarded pieces of bread leading to his eating nook, where he’d unceremoniously dumped the rest of the bun.

It was my fault and it was funny, so how could I be mad at the little guy? I don’t remember if the burger upset his stomach, but I do clearly remember he paid dearly and learned another kitten lesson when he scarfed down a bunch of pistachios. He even ate the closed nuts, shells and all! Several hours later he was in his litter box, straining like someone who’d taken three times the recommended dose of ex lax and hadn’t pooped in a week.

Sometimes you can’t teach things. If an upset stomach or a rough evening in the litter box is the price of a lesson, and the food isn’t going to kill your feline friend, why not let them learn the hard way?

As for Buddy, would he have turned into the strapping and meowscular cat we know today if he hadn’t learned those lessons?

buddy_accurate2 — A very accurate drawing of Buddy the Cat.

Buddy Commissions Fresco Of His Great Victory Over Rodent

Buddy the Cat revises history and imagines defeating a rodent instead of sleeping while it invaded his territory.

NEW YORK — Buddy the Cat’s human servant returned home Friday to discover the buzz of craftsmen and smell of fresh paint after the silver tabby commissioned a fresco to celebrate his recent victory over a menacing rodent.

Amid the commotion was Luigi Tettamanzi, 62, one of Italy’s foremost Renaissance revivalists. The artist crouched on one knee, applying fine brush strokes to render the beginnings of a sun beam illuminating a powerful feline form in mid-leap with claws extended.

The fresh plaster had already been painted with a luminous sky blue, and broad strokes outlined the suggestion of mountains and forests in the background.

“You see, yes, I use bright and dramatic colors on the arriccio, paint you very heroic, ah?” Tettamanzi told the famously egotistical feline as they conferred during a break. “Not to worry, my friend. I make sure is okay with you before I apply intonaco, yes.”

At Buddy’s instruction, Tettamanzi had begun to render the mouse as a savage and menacing beast several hundred times its actual size. The painting shows a trail of death and destruction behind the mouse, with terrified onlookers pointing at the majestic feline leaping to engage the monstrous rodent. His outstretched paw connects with the enemy, the strike represented with a brilliant flash of energy in chaotic brush strokes.

A cartouche above the painting identifies it as “The Battle of the Rodential Interloper: Year 7 A.B. Resulting In Glorious Buddesian Victory.”

giantrat — An early concept drawing of the intruder.

For several long moments, Big Buddy could only stare, dumbfounded.

“Buuuuud!” the human finally said, incredulity in his voice. “What the hell are you doing?”

The tabby looked up from some concept drawings he was reviewing with Tettamanzi.

“Commemorating my victory, of course,” Buddy replied. “The painting represents my heroic actions that day, when I saved many humans from a sinister and vicious rodent-beast.”

The human sighed.

“No, you did not!” he said. “You slept through the whole thing. You didn’t even know the mouse was here until you woke up from your nap an hour later.”

“Fake news!” Buddy said, turning back to Tettamanzi to confer on palette choices and urge the artist to make him look more muscular.

As of press time the fresco had been extended to a second wall, with a new panel depicting a powerfully built Buddy atop a throne adorned with lion motifs, and humans bending the knee before him as he magnanimously accepts oaths of loyalty.

buddybattleinstructions — A “more accurate” version, according to Buddy, but still not as dramatic as the real battle.

How Cats See The World

Cats see the world differently, in objective physical terms as well as psychologically.

Have you ever wondered what the world looks like to your cat?

Veterinarians, animal ophthalmologists and researchers from the University of Pennsylvania’s ophthalmology group provided insight for this article and the accompanying images, which show how scenes look to us humans and to our feline friends.

The images are striking and show the relative strengths and weaknesses of feline vision. While cats see the world in muted colors and in less acuity than typical humans, they make up for it with their astounding night vision and their ability to instantly detect motion within their visual fields.

This image shows feline night vision at work thanks to the tapetum lucidum, a layer of tissue that acts as a retroreflector, increasing the amount of light that makes it to the photoreceptors in cats’ eyes. The tapetum lucidum is best known as the reflective “lens” that makes cat eyes appear to glow in the dark:

This image shows the trade-off compared to human vision. Cat eyes have a wider field of view, seen below, but they don’t pick up reds or greens, and their overall vision is blurry compared to average human eyesight, represented in the top image:

Night vision and extreme visual sensitivity to movement are important to cats as crepuscular hunters, allowing them to spot prey in low light conditions and to negate advantages from natural camouflage, as motion gives away the presence of prey animals.

Cats have a slightly wider visual field than people do, at approximately 200 degrees compared to the human 180 degrees, while most cats have between 20/100 and 20/200 vision. (That’s much better than Big Buddy sans glasses, whose 20/600 vision enables him to see blurry, colorful shapes and not much else. No wonder Little Buddy likes to torture his human by swiping his glasses.)

Of course, these images do not entirely account for how cats see the world, which is why I’ve created my own image. Behold a Buddy’s Eye View, showing how the world — and humans — look to him:

Downton Buddy — From Buddy the Cat’s perspective, humans are all servants, constantly standing by to attend to him.

Happy Festivus 2022!

A Festivus for the rest of us who reject the relentless commercialization of the holidays.

Are you fed up with the relentless commercialization of the holiday season? Take heart: You’re not alone!

The late Jerry Stiller, in his iconic role as Seinfeld‘s Frank Costanza, explained the origin of his anti-consumerist celebration in a now-infamous 1997 episode titled “The Strike“:

“Many Christmases ago I went to buy a doll for my son. I reached for the last one they had, but so did another man. As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way … Out of that, a new holiday was born. A Festivus for the rest of us!”

On the surface Festivus — celebrated annually on Dec. 23 — looks like any other family gathering for the holidays, but the details make it special. They include a Festivus pole instead of a tree, the Feats of Strength — in which a younger relative attempts to pin the family patriarch — and the Airing of Grievances:

“At the Festivus dinner, you gather your family around, and you tell them all the ways they have disappointed you over the past year,” Frank explains.

Festivus is completely absurd, which is what makes it fun, but it’s also a strong reaction against the all-encompassing commercialization of the holiday season. Every year it seems like the retail industry nudges the season a little further back. At first it was a few weeks, then the end of Thanksgiving marked the beginning of the holidays.

Now it’s not unusual to see lights, wreaths and images of Santa popping up in early November, setting the tone for more sales, more gifts, and more spending.

Of course if you’re reading this site, you’re a cat lover and you’re probably intimately familiar with the non-stop meowing of a dissatisfied cat. Not enough food, not enough snacks, not enough space on the bed, not enough scritches. To a cat, the Airing of Grievances can take place on any day of the year — and it often does. But that doesn’t mean there can’t be a special edition of it on Festivus.

Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for me to sit down to the Festivus table and get berated by Bud. I’m told his list of grievances is quite long this year.

Happy Festivus!