It’s that time of year when Buddy sprouts huge rabbit ears and becomes a cabbit– a hybrid cat-rabbit — for exactly 24 hours.
Although he’s preoccupied with thoughts that he probably tastes delicious, the Easter Buddy would like to wish all of you a Happy Easter!
The Budster and I would like to thank all of PITB’s readers, and we hope you’re getting to spend some time with your family if you celebrate Easter.
A cat eating at the table with his humans? Let’s hope Bud doesn’t get any ideas!
File this under “Information that must be hidden from Buddy at all cost, lest he get ideas.”
Franklin, a cat who lives in Brooklyn, has gone from fending for himself on the streets of New York to a very comfortable indoor existence with two humans who are happy to let him sit at the table with them for meals. Bowls? Pfffft. Franklin drinks from his own glass:
As the dutiful servant to a cat who most definitely believes he’s a human — or should have all the privileges and none of the responsibilities of one — this makes me uneasy. If Bud were to somehow find out about this, all hell would break loose and before I know it he’ll be demanding custom cutlery and a silk pillow on which to rest his behind and elevate him to the level of the table.
As a vegetarian I don’t necessarily have to worry about Bud eating my food, but he sure does love sticking his face in it and giving it an exploratory lick or three.
“Is that…? Dude, let me in there, I just wanna stick my face in your mashed potatoes and confirm I don’t like them,” I imagine him saying. “Yep. Still don’t like them. Oh stop being so dramatic, you can pick the fur out!”
The Grist has a new story about the alleged connection between an “increase” in kittens and climate change, and while it unfortunately links to one of the bunk studies that uses meta-analysis to make wild claims about feline impact on the environment, it does include the most measured and reasonable take so far on the claims:
“Others, like Peter J. Wolf, a senior strategist at the Best Friends Animal Society, think the increase comes down to visibility rather than anything biological. As the weather warms, Wolf said people may be getting out more and noticing kittens earlier in the year than before. Then they bring them into shelters, resulting in rescue groups feeling like kitten season is starting earlier.”
As we noted on Sunday, the claim that there are more kittens, or that kitten season is longer, is entirely dependent on anecdotal evidence. Unfortunately no one has any data for baseline population numbers when it comes to cats in the US, let alone historical data that allows us to say there are more kittens born in recent years.
The best we’ve got is the excellent but single-city DC Cat Count, and to establish a convincing link between climate change and kittens we’d not only need hard data, but we’d also need to eliminate dozens of other potential factors like ever-increasing light pollution, urban heat islands and wave effects from 2020, when society went into lockdown and animals were mostly left to their own devices.
Once again, there’s only one measurement that really matters in the end, and that’s the number of cats euthanized annually because there aren’t homes for them. Spaying/neutering and education efforts have driven that number down dramatically over the past 20 years, and ultimately that’s the best solution we have.
The challenges of getting a lazy cat interested in play time and toys again.
Buddy is friendly, outgoing and incredibly vocal, but he’s always been a bit lazy.
His preferred method of getting down from the couch isn’t jumping — although he does jump sometimes — it’s slowly oozing off the cushion like he’s liquid, taking the path of least resistance and letting gravity do all the work until he drops down and lands with a “Mmmrrrrrppp!”
When we wake up, the first thing he does is demand a snack, then he lays down for First Nap, apparently because the act of chewing and swallowing is so demanding.
While he used to chase the laser with a fury and jump several times his own height to paw at it — even after figuring out it’s light fired out of a pen held by me — nowadays he can’t be bothered. At best he halfheartedly chases it for a bit and then loses interest even though I make an effort to move the laser like prey, as I do with his wand toys.
Worst of all, catnip makes him even lazier because he doesn’t just sniff the damn stuff, he eats it. I try to get him interested in his favorite wand toy when he’s buzzing on a heady combination of ‘nip and silver vine, but he won’t chase it. He just rolls onto his back and paws at it lazily, maybe getting in a few “rabbit kicks” if he’s feeling feisty.
All of this would be funny if he wasn’t about to turn 10 years old and if he didn’t tip the scale at about a pound and a half to two pounds above his normal body weight when the vet weighed him a few months ago.
“Hey fat boy!” I tell him, getting the familiar “Brrrrrr!” in response. (He’s a big time triller. Feline linguists estimate at least 60 percent of the Buddinese dialect consists of trills of various pitch, length and intensity.)
Fat Boy lost most of the excess weight during a particularly brutal stretch when he screeched at me for snacks constantly and I had to deny him most of the time. At least with kids you can explain things to ’em. I’ve got no way of communicating to the Budster that he’s a Chubster.
Since then he’s put some of the weight back on, so I’ve gotta do something.
Here’s my plan:
Okay that last one is a joke, mostly because I’m pretty sure he’ll just admire his “meowscles” in the mirror. Cats are masters of self deception. Bud is scared of rustling paper bags and absolutely terrified of vacuums, yet he still thinks he’s a hulking tiger. That’s impressive cognitive dissonance.
So we shall embark on this grand endeavor, and I’ll report back here to catalog successes and failures. Hopefully more of the former.
Buddy will always be like a baby to me, and I can’t quite wrap my head around the fact that he’s now a “senior” cat, but he is and it’s on me to make sure he remains active so he hopefully lives at least another 10 years in good health. There are many adventures yet to be had, many more schemes for world domination to hatch, and more turkey to eat.
There’s a lot to admire about tigers, jaguars and other big cats, and a lot we need to do to safeguard their existence in the future.
This momentous occasion marks only the second time PITB has participated in the daily writing prompt via WordPress, and the reason we’re participating is to bring more awareness to the meowscular and powerful Buddinese Tiger — and its threatened cousins, the majestic tigers, jaguars, lions and leopards.
Known in scientific nomenclature as panthera tigris muscularis handsomus, the Buddinese Tiger is an apex predator who rules over his natural habitat, the living room, with an iron paw. No one is safe from the Buddinese Tiger’s charms or its rage when sufficient snacks are not provided.
All jokes aside, I’d compare myself to tigers and jaguars because they’re awesome and they’re my favorite cats, aside from the above-mentioned panthera tigris muscularis handsomus. Cats are solitary hunters, they don’t like to be disturbed when they’re sleeping, and they appreciate the value of a good nap as well as a good snack. They are creatures of extraordinary taste!
Most of all, we need more people to appreciate big cats because the future doesn’t look good for them if we don’t do more to save them. Although tiger numbers have rebounded somewhat thanks to concerted conservation efforts in places like India (Bengal) and Russia (Amur), they’re still extremely vulnerable to habitat loss, poaching and revenge killing by farmers and rural villagers who often blame the big cats for being cats and going after livestock.
Likewise, while jaguars were once the sole success story in the big cat world thanks to their isolation deep in the Amazon rainforest and their elusive nature, they face a massive threat to their existence from deforestation and from the Chinese presence in countries like Brazil and Peru, where Chinese nationals poach the majestic felids to fuel the destructive Chinese traditional “medicine” market.
Just as TCM has devastated tiger, lion, elephant, rhinoceros and pangolin populations, it’s moved on to jaguars. Even vast “tiger farms” in places like South Africa, which cater to canned hunts and the TCM market, aren’t enough to meet the demand for big cat parts for use in folk “medicine,” in which ground tiger bones, fur, claws and other body parts are included in various elixirs people believe will cure everything from baldness to sexual dysfunction.
Check out Panthera for more information on conservation efforts and how you can help.
Realizing he could leverage his popularity to improve snack and head-rubbing service, Little Buddy demanded his human “bend the knee.”
NEW YORK — Tensions between the Buddies threatened to reach an all-time high on Wednesday after Little Buddy the Cat sought to formalize their alliance by having Big Buddy the Human swear fealty to him.
“I’ve been thinking,” Little Buddy the Cat said, padding into the living room, “and I’ve got an idea!”
“This should be brilliant,” his human replied, not bothering to look up from his newspaper.
Little Buddy the Cat nodded in agreement.
“It is! It is!” he said excitedly. “I was thinking that since I have my own website, you know, and people all over the world love me, it’s time to reevaluate my options. There are people who would love to spoil me, you know.”
Big Buddy glowered.
“So I’m going to need an essay of no less than 800 words on why you should be allowed to continue serving me,” the feline continued. “Offer specifics, please. I’m gonna need that on my desk by 0800 tomorrow.”
“You don’t have a desk, you Tribble with a tail,” Big Buddy pointed out.
The tabby cat became exasperated. “My office! My…my eating nook where my bowls and all my important papers are stored! So you’ll submit your essay there, okay?”
Big Buddy nodded absentmindedly, flipping his newspaper to the sports section.
“Uh-huh. Whatever you say, little dude.”
Buddy clawed at the paper. “I wasn’t finished!”
When he had his human’s attention again, the silver tabby dragged out a crude replica of Game of Thrones’ Iron Throne made of cardboard, grunting with the effort.
“Now if I can just…get my feet up here…grip on the cardboard I can…grrr…okay. Whew!”
The feline settled onto the throne, the corrugated cardboard sagging beneath his weight, and tried to look regal.
“You may now bend the knee,” he said matter-of-factly. “Oooh! Ooh! Get your replica samurai sword, draw it and hold it as you kneel to me! That would be really cool.”
As of press time, Big Buddy had not stirred from the couch, retrieved his samurai sword or bent the knee.
“This is my fault,” he told a reporter. “I never should have let my cat watch Game of Thrones.”
Pain In The Bud 