Pain In The Bud

It’s Official: Buddy The Philly Cat Has A Forever Home

Buddy’s journey ends on a high note, with the former stray getting a forever home, people who love and care for him, and a feline pal to play with.

Buddy the Philadelphia cat is home for good.

The former stray captured the hearts of people around the world when he survived a brutal attack on the front porch of a Philadelphia home, with two dogs mauling him at the urging of their teenage owners. The attack, which was captured on video, prompted worldwide outrage from animal lovers and resulted in an outpouring of help, with well-wishers flooding the Pennsylvania SPCA with more than $100,000 in donations.

Dr. Katie Venanzi was the veterinarian who performed emergency surgery on Buddy in the immediate aftermath of the attack, when his survival was doubtful.

That was back in March. Since then, Buddy’s glorious will to live carried him through those perilous first few hours and days, and he eventually healed up enough to go to a foster home.

Buddy the Philadelphia Cat — Buddy’s adjusted to the indoors, where he enjoys a perk he didn’t have during his life outside: Toys. Lots and lots of toys. Credit: Pennsylvania SPCA

Venanzi felt an emotional attachment to the little guy and offered to foster him with the hope of providing his forever home. It wasn’t clear if that would be possible: Buddy’s original family failed at making him an indoor cat because he was too accustomed to the freedom of being a stray, so they fed him and took care of him as best they could.

His brush with death seems to have tamed Buddy, who has adjusted to indoor life with Venanzi, her husband and their other cat, Teddy. Buddy enjoys “basking in the sun on a windowsill or watching the world go by from the front screen door,” the Pennsylvania SPCA’s Gillian Kocher said, and his new family “fell more and more in love” with him as the days and weeks went by.

“He has all the toys a cat could want, though his favorite seems to be an empty cardboard box for lounging,” she said. “He is loved, and he is home.”

With his story of perseverance and bravery, Buddy “has become a symbol of everything we do here,” Kocher said. The money left over from donations after all of Buddy’s veterinary needs were taken care of will be used to help other cats and dogs just like him who have suffered abuse and neglect.

You can support the Pennsylvania SPCA by buying a “Save Every Buddy” t-shirt or other gear on the group’s site.

Frankie Sad Eyes Needs A Home

Frankie was surrendered at 13 years old and hasn’t had the easiest time adjusting to shelter life.

Even though I am the honored servant to the king, His Grace Buddy I, I am not immune to adoptable cats who tug at the heartstrings.

Frankie Sad Eyes is one of those cats. Just look at those eyes!

The little guy is 13 years old, and at an age when he should be enjoying a quiet, nap- and treat-filled life as the senior statesman among cats, he’s been surrendered by his people and has landed in a shelter.

Thankfully that shelter is Tabby’s Place, a no-kill, no-cage sanctuary in New Jersey that has a reputation for doing right by its cats. Still, any feline would be shocked by the experience of losing his or her family and ending up in a strange place with unfamiliar people and cats.

Frankie Sad Eyes — Frankie looks sad, and undoubtedly he’s finding it difficult adjusting to life in a sanctuary, but staff at Tabby’s Place say he’s a “joyful” cat with a zest for life.

Alas, I can’t adopt Frankie. Like the King himself, he’s not particularly keen on sharing his throne, so there can be no future where Buddy and Frankie are, well, buddies.

But Frankie, who is described as “a zesty, exuberant sweetheart” who still has kitten-like energy, is looking for a home where he can establish his new and forever kingdom, with a human or humans who will dote on him and see to his every need.

Visit Tabby’s Place to view their adoptable cats, make a donation or just brighten your day.

UK Soccer Player Pleads Guilty To Kicking, Slapping Cat

The 27-year-old UK soccer star was fined and lost sponsorships after the release of a video showing him brutally abusing one of his cats.

Remember Kurt Zouma, the soccer player who kicked and slapped his cat in a video posted online in February?

The West Ham United footballer pleaded guilty on May 24 to “causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal,” the BBC reported. His 24-year-old brother Yoan, who is also a professional soccer player, pleaded guilty to a single charge of abetting the crime when he filmed the violence and posted it to Snapchat.

An RSPCA investigation uncovered new details about the incident. Zouma was reportedly enraged when the cat scratched a chair.

“I swear I’ll kill it, I swear I’ll kill it,” he says in the video.

In the video, the elder Zouma, 27, drop-kicks the Bengal cat “like a football” in the prosecutor’s description, and slaps it hard in the face with a shoe. Both brothers were laughing in the footage, and Zouma’s child was present.

His brother Yoan uploaded the clip to Snapchat, and it would have remained private if not for the disgusted reaction of a woman Yoan asked on a date.

“I don’t think hitting a cat like that is OK – don’t bother coming today,” she wrote in a message to Yoan Zouma, canceling their meet-up.

“I do not want to associate with people who find that funny, in front of a child as well,” she wrote.

Bengal_Cat_(Fia) — A Bengal cat. Credit: Marius Engesrønning/Wikimedia Commons

The outraged woman reported the brothers, and condemnation was swift: Zouma lost several sponsorship contracts, including his most lucrative deal with Adidas, and he was fined $250,000 by his team, which is the maximum a Premier League club can levy against a player.

The brothers don’t yet know the full consequences of their actions. They’ll return to court for sentencing on June 1, and although Zouma has been contrite and has people vouching for him to the court, there may be other considerations after Zouma’s video apparently inspired others to hit their cats and post the videos online.

People who imitated Zouma’s animal abuse formed an online group, calling themselves the “Kick the Cat Club.”

“Since this footage was put in the public domain there has been a spate of people hitting cats and posting it on various social media sites,” Thames Magistrate’s Court prosecutor Hazel Stevens said.

In the meantime, Zouma’s two Bengal cats have been in the custody of the RSPCA. The cats, Bonbon and Cherie, didn’t suffer any lasting physical injuries from the abuse, and despite enduring trauma, the RSPCA said both cats are friendly and will be ready for rehoming soon.

“What makes this case even more sad is the way the video was filmed and shared, making light of such cruelty,” the RSPCA’s Dermot Murphy said. “We hope this case will serve as a reminder that all animals deserve to be treated with kindness, compassion and respect, and that we will not tolerate cruelty.”

Letting Your Cat Outside Could Cost You $50k In This German Town

Town officials say the step is necessary to protect a ground-nesting songbird native to western Europe.

Elected leaders in Walldorf, Germany, are worried about the crested lark — so much so that they’ve decreed cats must be kept inside, with prohibitively painful fines for anyone whose cat harms one of the birds.

According to the decree, anyone who allows their cat(s) to roam outside from now until August will be fined €500, which is about $527. But if a cat kills or injures one of the European songbirds, Walldorf’s local government will fine the cat’s caretaker up to €50,000, almost $53,000 in USD.

That’s an eye-watering amount of money, especially in light of the fact that the crested lark is listed as a species of “least concern” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Experts say humans, not cats, are the biggest threat to the bird.

Officials in Walldorf — a town of about 15,000 people more than 600 kilometers southwest of Berlin — cited the same thoroughly-debunked studies that claim cats kill some 25 billion birds and small mammals annually in the US alone. They say they’re worried because the crested lark nests on the ground, making the birds, their eggs and their chicks particularly vulnerable to predators like domestic cats.

If you’re skeptical that local government officials — a mayor and town councilmen, essentially — are qualified to legislate on matters of conservation, you’re not alone. The decree has been met with pushback from animal rights advocates and feline fans.

“Suddenly preventing cats that are used to going outside from doing so, means immense restrictions and stress for the animals,” German animal welfare group Deutscher Tierschutzbund wrote in a statement. “The negative influence of cats on the population of songbirds is in any case controversial and, to our knowledge, has not yet been proven for the crested lark in Walldorf.”

And that cuts to the heart of the matter, doesn’t it? Like politicians in Australia and parts of the US, Walldorf’s elected leaders aren’t making decisions based on studies or reliable information. They’re taking action based on emotion and deeply flawed meta-analyses that aren’t even applicable to Europe.

We’ve always taken the position here at PITB that cats are much better off indoors. They’re domesticated animals, meaning if they have a “natural habitat” it’s human living rooms. They live much longer, healthier lives indoors and can be happy and fulfilled with a little effort on the part of their humans.

But we also believe decisions impacting living creatures should be based on real information gathered by people who don’t have an agenda. The landmark Washington, D.C. Cat Count is a great example, with birders, conservationists and cat lovers working together to complete an accurate census of domestic felines within city limits.

Now that they’ve established how many cats live in D.C. (about 200,000) and how many are truly feral without anyone caring for them (about 3,000), they can enact sensible solutions that are much more likely to successfully protect wildlife and cats without hysteria, agendas or inhuman proposals like enacting “cat hunting season” (as one US politician proposed), killing millions of cats with poisoned sausages (as Australia has done), or outright gunning cats down, as a rogue conservationist in California’s Bay Area did last year.

Cats are thinking, feeling animals. They deserve better than becoming the victims of human policies based on ignorance.

Buddy Denies Responsibility For Errant Turd: ‘I Am Not The Poopetrator’

Denying the allegations against him, Buddy the Cat suggested a certain Aquaman actress was likely responsible.

NEW YORK — Buddy the Cat denied he had anything to do with an errant turd found approximately two feet from his litter box on Friday, instead blaming actress Amber Heard for the breach of poopiquette.

The stool in question, a roughly cylindrical piece consistent in color and texture with typical cat feces, was discovered at approximately 10:52 a.m.

“I am not the poopetrator,” a defiant Buddy said in a statement issued through his attorney. “It’s obvious that someone out there is hell bent on destroying my reputation as a good boy who always does his business in the box.”

The silver tabby’s lawyer, Johnny Clawchrane, told reporters he intends to prove his client could not have been responsible for the mystery stool. He said he would prove to the court that Buddy had an alibi, could not have produced the offending nugget, and has a long history establishing him as a consummate user of the litter box who never exits without meticulously burying his business.

“Buddy the Cat has a staunch record of being a very good boy and is personally offended at the suggestion that he could have been responsible,” Clawchrane said.

Instead, the high-powered attorney said, he intends to prove the offending party is none other than actress Amber Heard, who is currently embroiled in another lawsuit centered around the mysterious appearance of feces.

“Who was responsible? Let’s look at Occam’s Razor, folks,” Clawchrane said. “There is a very famous person whose modus pooperandi, such as it is, involves retaliatory defecation.”

Clawchrane pointed to testimony in the ongoing trial between actor Johnny Depp and Heard, his ex-wife. Depp and his house manager testified that Heard dropped anchor on the bed she shared with the Pirates of the Caribbean actor. Heard herself called it a “practical joke gone horribly wrong.”

“We will prove that Ms. Heard had the motivation and means to, uh, smear Buddy the Cat,” Clawchrane insisted. “Justice will be served!”

Heard’s attorney, Benjamin Rottenborn, said the accusation was “patently ridiculous.”

“My client doesn’t even know Buddy the Cat,” Rottenborn said. “Furthermore, just look at him. He looks like precisely the kind of scoundrel who would poop outside the litter box.”