If your cat is terrified by Floppy Fish, use it as a Ssscat to protect your stuff from getting swiped to the floor!
I promised an update on Buddy and his new Floppy Fish toy, confident he would get over his trepidation and start playing with it eventually. More than half a dozen attempts later I’ve succeeded only in making him more skittish.
Our readers will recall Buddy got his first look at his new toy last week, and he was terrified of it.
He stepped back warily as I flipped the on switch and placed the flopping fish on the floor. When it stopped thrashing — which it does after a few seconds to save battery life, relying on a motion sensor to tell it to move again — Buddy slowly, cautiously edged his way over.
With a wary eye on the toy fish, Buddy gave it a nudge with his paw, then jumped back as it sprang to life again, making a mechanical SWISH-SWISH sound as it thrashed.
I tried to get him interested in the fish the next day and again the following night. It was late. Buddy hopped up to the coffee table and padded over to me, nuzzling me with his cheeks in hello.
He’s relaxed, I thought. Good opportunity to try the fish again!
I should have kept the power off. He wasn’t playing with the fish, but he wasn’t hissing at it or running away.
Stupidly I allowed impatience to get the better of me. I switched it on, and he freaked out and ran away. After that he wouldn’t even go near the thing even as it sat dormant. He probably thinks it’s like Ssscat, the motion-triggered compressed air spray that startles cats to keep them off kitchen counter tops, tables and other surfaces.
Come to think of it, maybe I can find a use for the fish yet. If I want to protect a fragile item on a flat surface, all I need to do is place the fish in front of it and Bud will never go near the thing. 🙂
Local papers are calling the mystery cat the Canterbury Panther.
A New Zealand man says he filmed a “panther” after taking blurry footage of a house cat.
Kyle Mulinder does his best Steve Irwin impression with a breathless “Look at that thing! Amazing!” while zooming in on what looks an awful lot like a domestic cat.
Mulinder continues to provide commentary and generously estimates the cat at “four foot high” as it dashes off a dirt road into a wooded area in New Zealand’s Hanmer Springs Heritage Forest.
Here’s a screenshot of the cat. I wasn’t able to embed the video, so you’ll have to visit the New Zealand Herald to watch it.
A handful of New Zealanders have said they’ve seen a large cat since at least this summer, long enough for the local press to dub the cat the Canterbury Panther. Various reports identify the cat as grey, tawny or black.
Mulinder, who calls himself Bare Kiwi online, demonstrated a flair for the dramatic while telling his tale to the Herald.
“It was about 50 metres away, strolling in the other direction but it sat down, turned and looked into my soul,” Mulinder said. “It was a very emotional experience. I was fearing for my life.”
(Insert terrifying Buddy joke here.)
Yolanda van Heezik, a zoologist at New Zealand’s Otago University, said the chances of a big cat on the loose are “extremely unlikely.”
Aside from the lack of convincing footage of the Canterbury Panther, there aren’t any obvious signs of a mountain lion, jaguar or leopard, van Heezik said. Those signs could include scratches from large claws high up in trees, widespread scent-marking and the trail of prey that would be left by a large carnivore.
“No one’s ever caught one, no one’s ever got really good evidence that they are something different from just a large feral cat,” she said earlier this month. “And there’s also a complete lack of evidence that is indirect like if you had a really big cat like that you would expect there to be more stock kills, for example, but we don’t really have that evidence either.”
Aside from the cat’s small size, there are other obvious reasons why it’s unlikely to be a panther. The word panther can refer to a cougar, also known as a mountain lion or puma. It can also refer to a jaguar or a leopard.
None of those cats are found on New Zealand: Pumas and jaguars are native to the Americas, while leopards exist in Africa and parts of Asia.
Of course it’s possible someone purchased a big cat from the illegal wildlife market and the animal escaped or was let go, but those cases are rare and big cats tend to be the “toys” of the ultra-wealthy. Local authorities have ruled out the possibility of a large cat escaping from any nearby zoo or wildlife facility, according to the Herald.
Presidential cats have been the subject of protests and budget inquiries, starred in video games, and eaten from the leader of the free world’s table. Welcome to the weird history of White House cats!
Did you know there’s a Presidential Pet Museum? Or that protesters in India burned effigies of George W. Bush because they felt naming his cat India was “an insult” to their country?
Or that one Republican congressman was so incensed by Socks, the Clintons’ cat, that he wrote a letter demanding an accounting for how much taxpayer money was spent on postage to write back to Socks’ fans?
Catmander in Chief. I’ll see myself out now…
I did a little delving into the world of presidential pets after writing about president-elect Joe Biden’s plans to bring a cat to the White House along with his two dogs.
And man, it’s a weird world. To start with, the Presidential Pet Museum’s Andrew Hager told the New York Times he thinks Biden’s choice is subtly political.
“Maybe this is symbolic of Biden’s oft-repeated desire to unify the country,” he said. “I know that that’s kind of trite, but I’m very curious to see how this goes.”
That didn’t work out so well for Bill Clinton, whose cat Socks famously feuded with Buddy, the awesomely-named Labrador who was the Clinton family’s second pet.
“You know, I did better with the Arabs, the Palestinians and the Israelis than I’ve done with Socks and Buddy,” Clinton lamented during the final days of his presidency in 2001, just before his successor, George W. Bush, was about to take office.
Socks remains popular to this day, with a dedicated group of “Socks enthusiasts” who not only love the former White House cat, they raised more than $33,000 to finish and release a cancelled Super Nintendo game called Socks The Cat Rocks The Hill.
Yeah, Socks had his own game. It was apparently anticipated enough to lead to early reviews and previews in magazines at the time, and featured Socks repeatedly saving the world from nuclear apocalypse at the hands of — and I’m not joking here — “Arab terrorist felines,” bulldogs in Army helmets, and Ross Perot.
According to a preview in 1993’s Playthings magazine:
“In his video game debut, entitled ‘Socks Rocks the House,’ he will venture from the basement of the White House to the Oval Office to create havoc with the President’s allergies. Along the way, while the cat’s at play, Socks must push Millie the dog out the front door as well as avoid Arab terrorist felines.”
There’s a joke in there somewhere, but I value my life so I’ll restrain myself. In any case, the game was finally released in 2018, a quarter century after it was supposed to land on store shelves.
As the president’s pet, Socks became the most famous feline on the planet.
India, the Bush family’s cat, was often overshadowed by the dogs. While First Lady Laura Bush was often photographed holding India, the president himself was frequently seen walking his pups on the White House grounds.
In July of 2004, a crowd in Kerala, India, gathered and condemned Bush for his choice of name for the cat, a wire service report noted at the time:
Members of the citizens group Prathikarana Vedi assembled before the Kerala assembly saying that Bush calling his cat India was an insult to the country.
“This is a disgrace to our great country and this has come from none other than US President George W. Bush,” said M.A. Latheef, president of the group. “He should make amends.”
It turns out India wasn’t named after the country: Bush’s daughter, Barbara, named the American shorthair after Ruben “El Indio” Sierra, a rightfielder who spent his early career with Bush’s Texas Rangers.
India, former presidential cat. (Wikimedia Commons.)
In this photo from the 1920s, US Navy Officer Benjamin Fink holds Tiger, President Calvin Coolidge’s cat. Tiger often rode around on the president’s shoulders in the White House. (Library of Congress)
Perhaps the greatest cat-lover among presidents was Abraham Lincoln, who once vented that one of his cats, Dixie, “is smarter than my whole cabinet! And furthermore, she doesn’t talk back!”
Lincoln “doted on his cats,” and to the horror and amusement of guests at a formal White House dinner the president fed Tabby, his other cat, from the table. When his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, expressed her embarrassment, the president shrugged it off.
“If the gold fork was good enough for [former President James] Buchanan,” Lincoln quipped, “I think it is good enough for Tabby.”
Lincoln with Tabby.
Lincoln was known for doing his thinking with a cat in his lap, sitting silent while petting Tabby or Dixie and drifting into deep thought. U.S. Navy Admiral David Dixon Porter later wrote of watching Lincoln caring for a trio of stray kittens, which the president later left in the care of US military officers, along with specific orders to treat them well and make sure they were well-fed.
“It well illustrated the kindness of the man’s disposition,” Porter wrote, “and showed the childlike simplicity which was mingled with the grandeur of his nature.”
The Bidens will bring a pet cat to the White House. Also: A Manhattan man has filed a lawsuit to get his cat back after he claims a cat sitter won’t return the kitty.
President-elect Joe Biden will bring a pet cat with him to the White House.
CBS News wants us to know this is an “exclusive” report!
President-elect @JoeBiden and his wife @DrBiden won’t just be bringing their German shepherds, Major and Champ to the White House. The Bidens tell us exclusively that soon they’ll be joined by a cat. #sundaypetspic.twitter.com/KCkNV6jNpH
The Bidens don’t actually have a cat yet, according to media reports. It’s not clear if they plan to adopt or purchase one, although my best guess is that an image-conscious First Family will go with the former route.
When they do, they’ll put a cat in the White House for the first time since George W. Bush’s India, who lived to the ripe old age of 19.
Jackie Kennedy and her daughter, Caroline, with a pair of kittens. Tom Kitten, right, was Caroline’s pet cat.
Before that was Socks (Clinton), Cleo and Sara (Reagan), Misty Malarky Ying Yang (Carter), Shan (Ford) and Tom Kitten (Kennedy). Misty and Shan were both Siamese cats. The Obamas had only dogs, as did most historical US presidents, while outgoing President Donald Trump and his family did not have any pets.
Man files lawsuit for return of stolen cat
Pro tip: If someone is obsessed with your cat, comes by just to see him, and repeatedly offers to buy him, it’s probably not a good idea to allow that person to cat-sit your furball.
Zivadin “Chris” Krstic, a 79-year-old shop owner in Manhattan, has accused a woman named Amanda Walker of turning a pet sit into a cat heist after she offered to take care of his cat, Sammy.
Sammy at Krstic’s plant shop in Manhattan.
Krstic was stuck in Florida during the early days of the Coronavirus epidemic, with travel severely restricted and doctors advising him not to risk it at his age. (New York was also a complete mess at the time, and travel was severely restricted.)
One of his employees was taking care of Krstic’s cat, Sammy, when Walker offered to “help” by taking him.
When Krstic returned, Walker kept asking “to keep Sammy for a few extra days,” according to a lawsuit filed by Krstic seeking the return of the four-year-old ginger-and-white cat.
Finally, Walker told Krstic she wasn’t giving Sammy back to him. The reason? Walker told Krstic he didn’t clean Sammy’s teeth properly, and the cat was “good company” for her.
After that, Krstic alleges, Walker ghosted him and wouldn’t return his calls. She even threatened to take out an order of protection against him, according to the New York Post.
“The cat is perfectly healthy. I take care of him like my own children,” Krstic, who’s had Sammy since kittenhood, told the tabloid. “It’s very sad. I can do nothing. My cat is like part of me. [Walker] is hiding. I tried the nice way and then finally I say … we have to go to the court and let the court decide.”
Back in July I wrote a humor post about Buddy “generously grooming” me while I slept:
“It was early and I hadn’t started meowing into my human’s ear at 106 decibels yet,” Buddy recalled. “Big Buddy looked so peaceful as he snoozed, so I decided I’d let him sleep and catch up on grooming myself.”
It was then that the spirit of altruism struck the normally selfish gray tabby cat.
“As I was licking my butt I thought, ‘Buddy, why are you being so selfish? Doesn’t your caring human deserve a little grooming too?’ So I stopped licking my butt and started grooming Big Buddy’s face with my tongue. Got it nice and clean while he slept, so he wouldn’t have to wash when he woke up.”
Satisfied with a job well done, Buddy hopped off the bed, walked to the corner of the bedroom and stepped through the flap of his litter box for his 8 am bowel movement.
After burying his business like a gentleman, the considerate cat quietly climbed back into bed.
“I looked over and realized I’d missed a spot right on Big Buddy’s lip,” Little Buddy recalled. “I’m nothing if not thorough and a perfectionist, so I promptly corrected my mistake, licking my human’s lip clean.”
It is, of course, completely disgusting and precisely the sort of dry, absurdist humor typical of this blog. Readers can draw comfort from the fact that their own cats, whatever their faults or annoying habits, don’t groom their humans’ lips. Because that would be gross.
As for me and Bud, well, he mostly contented himself to grooming my beard. The problem? I shaved it off just the other day.
So last night I was a dreaming a dream whose details have faded from memory, but one thing remains distinct: In my dream, fat wet raindrops began to fall on my face and lips.
I woke with a start to find Buddy grooming my chin, lips and right cheek, blurted out an “Ugh, Bud!” and vigorously wiped my mouth dry with a tissue.
I can unfortunately confirm it’s not nearly as funny when it really happens to you.
![Screenshot_2020-11-29 Tyger [i e Tiger], White House cat](https://littlebuddythecat.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/screenshot_2020-11-29-tyger-i-e-tiger-white-house-cat.png)
Pain In The Bud 