thebigbuddy

Happy 5th Of July: Buddy Is Back!

Happy 5th of July from Bud!

We wish you a very Happy 5th of July: The Return of Buddy!

To mark the occasion, we sat down with everyone’s favorite ridiculous cat for a short interview:

Hey Buddy! What’s up with you lately?

I took a short hiatus. That’s pronounced HI – YAY – TUSS. It sounds like a snack little Roman boys would eat.

We noticed. What have you been doing for the past few weeks?

Eating turkey, working on my meowscles, eating more turkey, and learning to tapdance.

Tapdance?

Yeah, well, I figured if I was gonna wear the hat you see in the picture, I should at least know how to tap dance.

So we hate to rain on your parade, little guy, but shouldn’t it be Happy FOURTH of July?

No.

Why not?

Because the 4th has those infernal things humans call fireworks! I’m not as bothered by them as the dogs in my neighborhood or some of the cats I know, because I’m very brave, but the locals have been setting off fireworks for the last few days you know, blowing off their fingers and stuff, and it’s very taxing when I’m just trying to enjoy a nap.

There’s an amusement park a few miles away, and that interrupted my traditional Sunday Evening Nap. It was vexing.

Right. Just a minor annoyance for you, but fireworks can be very frightening for our lesser four-legged friends.

Exactly. July 5th has no fireworks but it has barbecue leftovers, so you get the barbecue without the explosions.

Also — and this is important — the Yankees don’t play on July 5, which means they can’t possibly lose, which means Big Buddy won’t be all annoyed and stuff, and half-ass my massage.

They suck this year, don’t they?

That’s what I’m told. I usually sleep through their games.

Well it’s good to have you back, Bud!

I’m glad to be back. And to my loyal fans, you can start sending me turkey again. It’ll go to good use! SEND SEND!

Of Claw Sheaths And Sky Raisins

No, the “sky raisins” don’t hurt your cat.

First I’d like to thank everyone who chimed in to reassure me that little Buddy lost his claw sheath, not his entire claw.

I’d never seen such a complete piece of claw come off like that, which is what got me worried. Buddy has the best readers who not only tell him he’s a handsome cat, but look out for his safety too!

The little dude appears just fine and there’s no indication of any injury on his paws.

Which brings us to our next subject: The sudden glut of “sky raisins” for pets living within the cicada “Brood X” territory.

Billions of the large, winged insects have emerged from the ground in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Delaware and parts of Michigan, Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee and northern Georgia. The current brood, dubbed Brood X, is near the end of its 17-year life cycle, and the cicada’s songs are at their most deafening this summer.

Screenshot 2021-06-15 at 05-34-19 Active Periodical Cicada Broods of the United States - CicadaBroodStaticMap pdf — Source: US Forest Service.

As cats and dogs are wont to do, they go after the larger-than-usual insects, and for them, a successful swat out of the air means a tasty treat.

That has lots of people wondering: Is eating cicadas harmful to my pet?

The answer is no, according to veterinarians who spoke to the New York Times, NPR and other press outlets in recent days.

There’s no truth to the rumors that a fungal toxin which affects cicadas can do any harm to cats and dogs, veterinarians say, and at worst, your pet might throw up the exoskeletons if they’ve snacked on a few of the relatively large insects.

“Most pets who ingest a few cicadas will only develop mild stomach upset,” Tina Wismer, a veterinarian with the ASPCA’s Poison Control Center, told the Times.

That said, veterinarians also caution that you shouldn’t let your furry friend gorge on “nature’s snacks.” One or even a few won’t cause any harm, but making an entire meal of them could make your little buddy sick.

Speaking of meals, lest we judge our four-legged pals for their nasty eating habits, it’s worth nothing that plenty of our own species eat cicadas too. Yuck.

Deepfried_cicada — Source: Wikimedia Commons

Buddy ‘Declaws’ Himself

Buddy tears a claw off accidentally.

Despite having real scratchers, including the biggest-available tower scratcher sturdy enough for him to stretch out completely, Buddy likes to scratch anything and everything he can get his paws on.

The couch, area carpets, the screen door leading to the balcony, even my brand new La Z Boy desk chair.

Without fail he gets his claws stuck on things he’s not supposed to scratch, and then he mews pitifully in his kitten voice until I find him and gently lift him up to get him unstuck.

After I free him he gets all affectionate, and then he forgets all about it until the next time he decides it’s a good idea to scratch on things he’s been snagged on before.

Today the little dude was having another go at the new desk chair and got his claws stuck on the protective cover that’s there to stop him from clawing the chair in the first place.

I stood up to help him and he yanked on the cover, pulling his paw loose but dislodging something in the process.

Sure enough, when I looked on the floor, this is what I found:

As you can see, he tore off his entire claw.

I’m surprised he didn’t give any outward indication of pain. He’s been walking around just fine without a limp. I know his instinct will be to hide the pain, like all other cats, but he doesn’t seem very good at that: Just last night he was crying for a few minutes because of an upset stomach, after he’d regurgitated his dinner. (I sat with him and scratched his head. He felt better within 10 minutes.)

I’m pretty sure the claw came from his right paw, but I haven’t had the chance to examine him yet. I’ll have to wait until he’s in a chill mood to handle his paw and take a closer look.

I don’t see anything to indicate the quick was ripped or dislodged in any way. Still, I can’t imagine it’s not bothering him.

Have any of you guys dealt with anything like this before? Is there any reason to worry?

Oregon Cat Is An Accomplished Kleptomaniac

Esme the cat once stole 11 masks in one day.

Esme the cat loves bringing gifts back to her human, so when she started bringing home inanimate objects instead of prey, owner Kate Felmet lavished her with praise.

“When she brings them, she comes to the back door and yowls, like ‘Wooooar!’ until I come and tell her she’s done a good job,” Felmet explained.

While Felmet’s glad her three-year-old kitty had stopped going after living creatures, the sheer volume of stuff Esme’s brought back — and her singleminded devotion to collecting it — prompted the Oregon woman to find a way to return the items to people in her neighborhood.

Felmet found a solution when she constructed a cat-shaming lost and found in her front yard, marked with a sign that reads: “MY CAT IS A THIEF” with the stolen items hanging from an attached clothesline.

0_PAY-CAT-BURGLAR-Owner-publicly-shames-her-feline-for-stealing-dozens-of-gloves-face-masks-and-even-a — Esme the cat.

The sign has a well-drawn likeness of Esme with a glove in her mouth, and a smaller line of text that reads: “Please take these items if they are yours.”

So what does Esme steal? A little bit if everything, apparently.

The most popular objects of her pilfering exploits are gloves and masks, but the little cat burglar has gotten her paws on “several bathing suits, knee pads, rolls of tapes, packages of paint rollers and lengths of fabric.”

“Esme’s thievery began last spring – she brought home 11 masks in one day,” Felmet said. “I was so delighted that she wasn’t bringing me birds and she got a lot of praise – and maybe a few treats for the gifts that weren’t recently alive.”

Esme’s a completist: If she steals one glove, she must have the other.

“She brings them separately but almost always goes back to get the second glove,” said Felmet, who is a medical doctor.

“As soon as I put the sign up, she went for a week of not bringing me anything,” Felmet told WKRG, the local CBS affiliate station. “I had the impression she was a little mad about it.”

0_PAY-CAT-BURGLAR-Owner-publicly-shames-her-feline-for-stealing-dozens-of-gloves-face-masks-and-even-a(1) — Esme’s haul from a recent pilfering expedition.

Why We Need Stronger Animal Protection Laws: Example #233

A Pennsylvania man faces a minor misdemeanor charge for disemboweling a kitten.

Take a good look at the mugshot.

That winner-at-life is 21-year-old Mylo Latour, who used a sword to attack a kitten and said the experience was “magic,” according to Pennsylvania State Police.

Latour, who lives in York, Pa — a city of 44,000 in southern Pennsylvania, about 50 miles north of Baltimore — is accused of slashing his sister’s kitten, Mittens.

Latour told the cops he killed the baby cat because “it came into his room and it had power over him,” adding “my eyes dilated and I chopped it with my sword. It was magic.”

Mittens “had injuries consistent with disembowelment,” according to WHTM, a local ABC affiliate. Paperwork from an arrest report reviewed by the TV news station noted “there appeared to be a clean cut to the rear of the cat’s body.”

Latour was charged with cruelty to animals, a second-degree misdemeanor in the Pennsylvania penal code. That’s a charge on par with shoplifting, bigamy or stealing property worth less than $200. If he’s convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of $5,000 and up to a year in jail.

A more severe charge, aggravated cruelty to animals, does exist in the state. It’s defined as torturing an animal or “causing serious bodily injury to the animal or the death of the animal.” It’s not clear why Latour was hit with the lesser charge, and only one of more than a half dozen media reports specifies the charge against him.

We’ll keep an eye on this case and update accordingly.