thebigbuddy

CatRank Is A Battle Of Feline Good Looks

No money, no prizes, just cute cats and bragging rights.

A post on BoingBoing Tuesday alerted me to the existence of CatRank, a site that allows users to view cat photos two at a time and pick the one they like better.

Or as the site puts it, “tap the superior cat.”

When you make your selection, the page instantly refreshes with two new cats. Per BoingBoing:

“A big part of winning seems to have to do with getting the right photo of your cat, which is a challenge on its own — anyone who has tried to photograph a cat knows they rarely cooperate on command. All cats are created equally, of course, but this site is like an online pageant they’ll never even know they participated in.”

I decided to volunteer Bud for the “pageant” and uploaded a derpy photo of him looking excited. If memory serves, he was happily pawing at a wand toy at the time.

He was #34 on Tuesday, #12 last night, dropped all the way to #68 earlier today, and was #22 last time I checked.

A screenshot from yesterday when Bud’s derpy grin was winning him points.

The rankings have a simple win/loss component and a weighted ELO component, borrowed from chess and sports, that awards more points for “wins” against high-ranking “opponents.”

As for my own voting habits, I tend to vote for photos more tightly focused on the kitties since the images are relatively small as presented on the site. It’s difficult to see a feline’s features if the image isn’t cropped properly. I’ve got a subconscious bias toward clear, well-lit photos of voids since they’re notoriously difficult to shoot, and because they’re often unfairly overlooked.

My only real complaint is the top photo for most of this week is AI-manipulated, and at least one other is an AI creation. It looks like the vast majority are legitimate photos of real cats, though I’m sure we’ll see more generated images as the site becomes more popular.

You can upload as many as three of your own cats and write short bios for them.

Which is pointless because there’s no prize or money involved, just bragging rights, but people can be weird.

Ah well. Naturally, Bud expects all readers of his blog to head to the site and vote for him, and if you don’t he’ll do something ferocious and meowscular.

“They better vote for me or else!” he says. “If they don’t I’m gonna do something tremendous, something the likes of which they’ve never seen before, believe me. A lot of people are saying I’m the most handsome cat, a lot of people are saying it. I’m the most — and by the way, no other cat is as stylish as me. It’s incredible. So readers better vote for me by 10 am tomorrow and if they don’t, I’m gonna make more threats and extend the deadline. It’s tremendous.”

Home Inspector Freaked Out By Large Maine Coon [VIDEO]

The surprised home inspector made a phone call from inside the owner’s living room, reporting “an intimidatingly large cat.”

Home camera footage shows a housing inspector who enters a family’s living room and stops dead in his tracks because he sees…a Maine Coon?!

The inspector was concerned enough that he phoned back to the office to report an “intimidatingly large cat.”

“I’m doing a home inspection now and, like, there’s this cat here, and it’s a very large size cat,” he tells the person on the other end of the line. “You know how you see a cat and they have a cute face? This cat is like… I might eat you later.”

What’d he think it was, a lynx?

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Of course we get this sort of thing all the time here at Casa de Buddy. Oftentimes people will hear Little Buddy’s terrifying roar and cast an uncertain glance my way.

“Dude, you got Elmo locked in a room or something?”

Followed inevitably by Bud’s indignant reply.

“I do NOT sound like Elmo! I’m a tiger, I just haven’t hit my growth spurt yet.”

So there you have it. Weird things can happen when you have a huge cat in your home…or one who sounds like Elmo.

Colony Feeders Assaulted In The Latest Example Of Australia’s Freak-Out Over Cats

Vigilantism against stray cats and their caretakers is on the rise in Australia and New Zealand amid increasingly pitched rhetoric from conservationists who say felines are responsible for driving other species to extinction.

Antone Martinho-Truswell wants to get rid of every free-range cat in his native Australia and says “it’s time we outlawed pet cats” as well.

The University of Sydney academic, who styles himself as a zoologist and makes impossible claims about the number of animals supposedly killed by felines every year, doesn’t mince words when presenting his argument, which boils down to a logical fallacy. He says he’s an expert, he says cats must be driven to extinction, ergo it must happen.

“Your cat is a killer and it cannot be permitted to live here,” Martinho-Truswell said.

With rhetoric like that, and special interests groups claiming cats are the primary force behind the pending extinctions of native flora and fauna, it’s not a surprise when people think they should take the problem into their own hands. In Australia and New Zealand we’ve already seen vigilantes who fail at hiding their joy at killing felines, and now volunteers helping cats have to worry about their physical safety.

A colony manager and two other volunteers were feeding strays in western Sydney on April 17 when a man in a gold Nissan stopped and asked them if they were helping the cats.

When they said they were, the man became violent and attacked the colony manager, a 31-year-old woman, and a volunteer who tried to protect her, a 33-year-old man who was knocked unconscious by the suspect, police said. The man drove off before officers arrived.

The victims were treated at a local hospital. Police have a description of the suspect and a license plate number, according to local media in Sydney, but it isn’t clear if they know his identity.

A spokeswoman for the volunteer group, Community Helping Campbelltown Cats, told Sydney’s 9News that the resources the government makes available are “simply inadequate,” leaving volunteers to do the bulk of the work and fundraising for trap, neuter, return (TNR) and colony management.

“It is left to volunteer rescue groups and members of the community to do what they can to stop the breeding and get cats off the streets when they can,” she said. “These individuals risk their welfare day in day out; it is simply not right.”

As for the conservationists who advocate extreme measures, they need to dial it down a bit with the apocalyptic talk. There are productive ways to handle this problem, and they don’t involve demonizing animals for behaving the way nature intended, whipping people into a frenzy, and calling for the violent extinction of an entire species. Cat owners will need to be onboard for any effort to come up with a meaningful solution, and you won’t secure their cooperation if you’re constantly telling them their companion animals are “murderers” who need to be killed.

Cat Lady Day: Celebrating The Unsung Heroes Who Improve Life For Felines

From TNR to managing colonies and finding homes for friendly strays, cat ladies never stop working to make life better for our furry friends.

Hat tip to Mollie Hunt for making us aware of Cat Lady Day, an unofficial holiday that is part of an effort to reclaim the concept of the “cat lady” through positive association.

That’s a noble goal, and at PITB we’ve long scoffed at the idea that gender makes a difference in appreciating felines.

Cats are paradoxically regal yet derpy, imperious yet loving, and their antics are always amusing. Those are qualities that can appeal to anyone regardless of gender, nationality, age or cultural background.

But I think we should also use a day like this to thank the innumerable cat ladies in every city, town and village across the country who work tirelessly to improve the lives of strays, ferals and shelter cats.

These are the people who walk the walk, who do the hard work of TNR (trap, neuter, return), managing colonies, and protecting cats without homes from animals and mean-spirited humans.

Cat ladies find homes for friendly strays, keep colony cats fed, and obtain veterinary care for the sick and injured.

More often than not, they provide help out of their own pockets when donations can’t cover all the costs.

Not only is it thankless work most of the time, but misguided bureaucrats sometimes take it upon themselves to make life more difficult for the cat ladies caring for local strays and ferals.

Yet these women persist because they’re driven by one thing — love for our furry friends.

That’s absolutely worth celebrating.

Happy 12th Birthday, Little Buddy!

Let the catnip flow and the good times roll.

This weekend marks 12 years since I took home an energetic, bold, curious, talkative gray tabby kitten.

In some ways it feels like it can’t possibly be 12 years since I adopted the Budster, but it also feels like the little dude has been around forever. He’s such an outsize presence with a huge personality, and he never lets you forget he’s around.

As we celebrate the loudmouthed, opinionated, turkey-loving little guy, here are some of his adventures as chronicled here on PITB:

The time he was named Sexiest Cat Alive by CatPeople magazine.
The time he broke into the tiger enclosure at the Bronx Zoo to hang with his “homies” and was claimed as a cub by a tigress who gave him big, sloppy tongue baths.
The time he traveled to the Amazon to hang out with jaguars and was oddly accepted by them after he shared turkey and showed them how to make more comfortable beds.
The time Sir David Attenborough made a documentary about “the silver-furred Buddy” in “his native habitat, the living room.”
The time he was tricked by a Nigerian scammer, then got revenge by sending a lion to recover his money.
The time he issued his little red book filled with his wisdom, like this nugget: “Observe the human, and its wretched species, always in thrall to an invented concept called time. The time is what you say it is. I say it’s time for a snack.”

Bud must have been born some time in February of 2014, but since I don’t know the day, his adoptiversary is his de facto birthday.

We’ve got a long weekend ahead of us, including a party, a dance contest, a cocktail hour with Bud’s jaguar friends, and of course the grand fireworks display on Sunday night. There will be catnip and turkey for all.

Happy birthday, Bud!