A tabby in Japan got help after an elderly man fell into an irrigation channel.
When an elderly Japanese man fell into an irrigation channel and couldn’t get out under his own power, it was a cat who got the attention of a neighbor, leading to the man’s rescue.
The incident happened at 7:30 p.m. on June 16 in Toyoma, a city of about 413,000 people about 300 miles northwest of Tokyo on Japan’s main island, Honshu.
Koko the cat, a gray tabby, managed to catch the attention of a 77-year-old neighbor, leading her to the spot where the man had fallen into the irrigation channel, Kyodo News reported. The neighbor enlisted the help of her daughter — Koko’s owner — Tomoyo Nitta, and her two grandsons — ages 20 and 18 — who pulled the victim to safety.
Civic duty is a big thing in Japan, and Japanese police agencies in turn honor civilians who go out of their way to help or rescue others. (US police agencies, which are desperately trying to repair their tense relationship with regular Americans, could learn a thing or two from the Japanese model of community policing.)
The humans involved got an official calligraphic thank-you citation from the cops, while Koko got cat food. We’re sure she’s not complaining about her reward.
“I want to tell her well-done,” Nitta said, cradling the usually shy Koko in her arms during the brief recognition ceremony on June 28.
A cat and a group of people who rescued an elderly man from an irrigation ditch were honored by police in Toyoma, Japan, earlier this week.
Supermodels, actresses and minor royalty were among those determined to win the dinner date with Little Buddy the Cat.
LAS VEGAS — Lunch with Elon Musk, a Fender Telecaster signed by Elvis and a date with Buddy the Cat were among the big-ticket auctions expected to help raise millions on Saturday for non-profits at the fourth annual Bucks 4 Buddies charity drive.
The proceeds from the event will be divided among animal shelters and veterinary clinics across the country, helping them stay afloat during difficult economic times and the height of kitten season.
Bidding for the Elvis-signed Telecaster had reached almost $160,000, while the top bidder pledged $75,000 for lunch with Musk, the billionaire founder of Tesla and SpaceX.
A Fender Telecaster signed by Elvis fetched a pretty penny.
Neither matched the frenetic bidding war that had erupted over a dinner date with Buddy the Cat, insiders said. By early Saturday evening the top bid had reached almost a quarter of a million and showed no signs of slowing down.
”Ladies and gentlemen, a quarter of a million dollars!” the auctioneer announced. “Do I have $275 thousand? Two hundred and seventy five, two hundred and seventy five to the elegant lady in the swan dress! Do I have 300? Three hundred thousand! Three hundred to the young lady in the back! Do I have three fifty?”
A female bidder celebrates her $500,000 bid for dinner with Buddy before an Austrian princess raised the bidding to $550,000.
One woman sighed and hung her head in frustration as the bidding surpassed $400,000, leaving the auction to bidders with fatter wallets.
“I came here specifically for this auction,” said the woman, a European aristocrat who asked that she not be identified by name.
“Don’t feel too bad, darlin’,” said another woman, the well-coiffed wife of a Houston megachurch pastor who was fanning herself with a copy of the auction program. “I had to quit at three hundred thousand. Shame, too. Buddy looks so adorable in his little tuxedo!”
Cleans up nice: Buddy proved irresistible to the ladies in his tuxedo.
The auction’s organizers said they were delighted by the bidding war over dinner with the gray tabby after other auction items — including a night on the town with Rob Schneider and a weekend hunting pheasants with former Vice President Dick Cheney — fell short of expectations.
Other items on the auction slate did considerably better. A personal performance of “One Night In Bangkok” by Mike Tyson fetched $45,000, while a gold-plated dinner bowl encrusted with 24 karat diamonds — which belonged to Paris Hilton’s dog before she purchased a more ornate bowl for the pooch — brought in $92,500, auction organizers said.
Regardless, the date with Buddy the Cat was poised to bring in the biggest haul and easily garnered the most interest among female attendees of the charity auction.
A woman representing Charlotte, 6th Countess of Tussaint, enters a bid for dinner with Buddy the Cat.
The bidding was expected to last well into the night, with several determined parties — including supermodel Gigi Hadid, Big Bang Theory actress Kaley Cuoco and a white Persian believed to be the foundress of Fancy Feast — each looking to outbid the others for the privilege of dining with Buddy.
“We’re going to Tavern on the Green in Central Park,” a confident Hadid said, “where we’ll toast with champagne before I squeeze those adorable little cheeks! He’s so dreamy!”
The nip trade is threatened by a new product, Blue Sky Temptations.
MIAMI — Forming a tenuous alliance to combat an existential threat to their hold on the feline illegal narcotics market, the western hemisphere’s most prolific niplords gathered for a summit at Meow-a-Largo on Friday.
The fact that Los Gatos, the Cattazio crime family and the Buddy Organization gathered under one roof without the threat of spray salvos, hissing or violent clawing served to underscore how seriously the niplords are taking the emergence of a new narcotic on the street, and the shadowy players pushing it on young kittens and adult cats alike.
The new product, Blue Sky Temptations, has taken the country by storm, laying waste to entire communities of cats with its unprecedented purity and addictive potential.
“Rumor has it a fella named Heisenpurrg is behind the Blue Sky,” said Anthony “Fat Tony” Purrtelini, the recently jail-broken capo of the Cattazio family. “We got our guys shakin’ down the neighborhoods for more information on this Heisenpurrg.”
Blue Sky Temptations are laced with a mysterious chemical cats can’t resist.
Pawblo Escobar, the mercurial leader of the Gatos’ Medellín Hierba Gatera, shook his head.
“Is just a name, this Heisenpurrg,” he said quietly. “We don’t know the first thing about this pendejo, yeah?”
“Das right, patrón,” said Escobar’s most trusted lieutenant, Furrnando Prado. “He’s a ghost.”
Purrposition Joe, the Baltimore-based nip OG who brokered the tenuous peace between the attending parties, raised both paws, signaling the others to let him meow. Springer Bell and Brother Pawzone, two other cats from the Baltimore contingent, slapped their paws on the table to get everycat’s attention.
Heisenpurrg’s minions, Purrposition Joe reminded the other niplords, were all over the streets pushing “free samples” of the Blue Sky to get cats addicted. Tracking down Heisenpurrg, he said, should be as easy as interrogating cats up the ladder until they lead to the big bosses.
“The question isn’t ‘Are we going to find this guy?'” Purrposition Joe said, pausing to flick kibble crumbs off his belly. “The question, gentlemen, is what are we going to do about him when we do find him?”
All eyes turned toward the back of the room where a lone cat sat in darkness, a silent silhouette for the duration of the meeting.
“That’s a question for the most brutal of us, hermano,” Escobar said, looking at the shadowy figure at the end of the table.
The mysterious cat leaned forward, his face moving into the light, revealing long whiskers, grey-white fur and subtle grey tabby stripes.
“Leave that to me, gentlemen,” the grey tabby said quietly. “When I’m done with him, Heisenpurrg will be nothing more than yesterday’s kibble upchucked on the carpet. Muahahaha!”
Bob the Street Cat represented hope, second chances and the unconditional love between humans and animals.
Back in 1 AB (that’s After Bud, for those of you who don’t use the Buddesian Calendar) my mom got me a copy of A Streetcat Named Bob, which told the story of a recovering heroin addict and the cat who literally walked into his life.
James Bowen was in a rehab program and was living for the first time in his own apartment when the injured but insistent orange tabby showed up at his door. Though dirt poor, Bowen scraped together enough money from busking — playing his guitar in public for tips — to bring Bob to the veterinarian and buy the basics he’d need to care for the cat.
After adjusting to life inside the apartment with James, Bob decided one day he’d accompany his human to work, which for James meant standing outside major metro hubs and hawking a magazine called The Big Issue. For our readers who aren’t familiar with the magazine, The Big Issue exclusively employs the homeless and the struggling as magazine vendors, offering them an opportunity for employment when they might not otherwise be able to secure it.
Bob turned out to be an unflappable cat, calmly riding on James’ shoulders as they took the bus to James’ assigned vendor location. Whether perched on James shoulder or standing next to him, Bob became a fixture by James’ side, handling the crowds and the interested passersby with a calm not usually associated with cats.
Bob riding the shoulder of his beloved human, James Bowen.
Soon word spread of the magazine salesman with “The Big Issue cat.” A local newspaper ran a story about James and Bob, then a few Youtubers visited the duo on the street, uploading videos of man and cat selling magazines and busking for extra money.
One of James and Bob’s biggest breaks came when Sir Paul McCartney heard their story and visited them in person as they were hawking magazines in London.
From there, as the Legend of Bob grew, a shrewd literary agent saw potential in the story of the recovering addict and the cat, and inked Bowen to a book deal. The rest is history: The book propelled James and his feline friend to stardom, leading to a handful of additional books, a cartoon and a 2016 movie about the duo.
“He taught me that I had to buckle up…because he was following me around and stuff like that, I had to take responsibility for him,” Bowen recalled in a 2016 interview. “I didn’t know it then, but the love that he was giving me was helping me to change my ways.”
For many people, the story of James and Bob represented not only the unconditional love between cat and human, but also hope and the promise of second chances in life.
Bud is no Bob — he’d run screaming at a book signing with hundreds lined up to greet him — and I’m no James, but my mom thought I’d enjoy the book because I was also going through a tough time when I adopted Buddy — though nothing as dramatic as James’ situation — and like James I found a measure of peace in taking care of my cat, which allowed me to look outward and gave me a responsibility that took my mind off my own problems.
Actor Luke Treadaway, left, who played James Bowen, right, in the movie based on Bowen’s book. Bob played himself!
After finishing the book I pulled up a few of the early videos of James and Bob on Youtube and, among the streetside interviews and other clips, I found a vid of James and Bob appearing on a British morning television show.
For the most part the interview went the way you’d expect those things to go: James and Bob were there to promote their book, James gave Bob a treat in exchange for a high-five, and the questions were rote.
All except one, when the male anchor turned to James and asked him if he’s thought about what he’ll do when Bob dies.
As his female co-anchor stared daggers at the man, James swallowed, hesitated, and said he doesn’t like to dwell on that thought, that he prefers to focus on the moment, being grateful for having Bob in his life and appreciating him.
Bob became an international celebricat, with his book tour taking him and James to Japan and other countries.
At the time the eventuality of Bob’s death seemed remote. No one was sure how old Bob really was, but veterinarians estimated he was eight or nine years old.
Now, at age 14, Bob has passed away.
Bob’s fans are legion: They lined up in their hundreds and thousands for his book tours, they sent thousands of scarves as gifts to the orange tabby and they made him the most celebrated cat in the UK.
Now they’re flooding The Big Issue with condolences and letters about Bob, and we hope James takes comfort from the fact that his little buddy touched so many lives.
Bowen, understandably, is devastated.
“There’s never been a cat like him. And never will again,” he said. “I feel like the light has gone out in my life. I will never forget him.”
For the rest of us, it’s a reminder that our cats are only with us a short while, and that there will come a day when we wish they’re still around to annoy us by jumping on our keyboards or rousing us from sleep with urgent meows for breakfast.
Appreciate them. Love them. And pay attention to them, which is all they really want from us.
“I’m a damn cat!” Brimley said. “Beverly, can you believe I’m a cat?!”
SALT LAKE CITY — American actor Wilford Brimley was reincarnated as a kitten this week, retaining his trademark mustache — and his beloved diabeetus — in his new feline form.
Brimley, who is known for appearing in films like 1982 classic The Thing, 80s sitcom Our House and decades of commercials raising awareness about diabeetus, said he went to bed Tuesday night feeling sick and fatigued.
“I thought I had that there Corona flu,” the 85-year-old American actor said. “I had me one of them dreams about heaven, where I met Jesus and we talked about diabeetus. Then when I woke up I went to reach for my glasses and realized, ‘Holy mackerel, I’ve got paws!‘”
(American actor Wilford Brimley in his human form, left, and as a kitten.)
Brimley, who is known to generations of Americans as a Quaker Oats spokesman, said he suddenly had an urge for raw meat.
“But that don’t sit well with my diabeetus,” he said. “So I went downstairs and I called to my wife Beverly, and I says ‘Beverly, I’m a kitten!’ And Beverly, she says ‘Wilford, is that you? Oh my stars, you still have your mustache!’”
Although it’s been years since Brimley’s days as a pitchman, the actor says he’ll return to TV — this time in commercials for Blue Buffalo canned food.
“Blue’s all natural ingredients will keep your cat healthy,” Brimley says in one of the new adverts, “whether she has diabeetus or not.”
Pain In The Bud 