Category: cat behavior

Lebowski Cat Named ‘Dude’ Makes Bowling Alley Home, Plus: A Nightmare Vet Visit

A bowling burglar turned out to be a cute tuxedo cat looking for a warm, safe home.

Yianni Mavrakis already has a full plate as the owner-operator of two bowling alleys, so when the alarm at one of the locations kept going off in the middle of the night, he wasn’t a happy camper.

Each tripped alarm resulted in a response by police, and Mavrakis had to physically check the premises for signs of intruders in the Chicago-area business.

Eventually he found the culprit — a stray tuxedo cat he named “Dude,” after the beloved, bowling-obsessed protagonist played by Jeff Bridges in the 1998 crime comedy The Big Lebowski.

Credit: Yianni Mavrakis

After it became clear a huge space with lots of moving machine parts and noisy crowds was no place for a feline, Mavrakis took the little guy home, where he now has a much quieter, more calm territory to call his own.

Like his film counterpart, the Dude abides. Someone get that cat some bowling shoes and a White Russian!

A viral nightmare vet visit

A woman named India, who goes by the TikTok screen name “the_unhinged_queen” says her cat returned terrified and soiling herself after one of those “we have to bring your cat to the back” moments during a trip to the veterinarian’s office.

India related the story on TikTok and says the vet’s staff acted like all was normal despite the distress the kitty was in, except for calling her cat “difficult.”

“She was covered in urine, soaking wet. They plopped her in my lap, and she’s crying,” India said in a video she recorded about the ordeal.

Back at home, the distressed British Shorthair was dragging her back leg and was in pain. India says the veterinarian called later to apologize and conceded maybe the techs had pulled her cat’s leg “farther than what, maybe, was comfortable for her.”

An examination by a second veterinarian, India said, concluded the vet techs had pulled the cat’s leg out of its socket.

This is a one-source story based on a TikTok short, published by an online site that is often credulous, so caution is warranted. Grain of salt and all that.

Still, it reminded me of my own anxiety when two vet techs couldn’t handle Bud during a visit and did the whole “we’ve gotta bring him to the back” bit.

Unlike India, who insisted her cat is sweet and gentle, I gave ample warning to the vet techs.

“Don’t worry, we deal with cats like that all the time,” one of them said.

“I don’t think you do,” I told her, urging them both to be careful.

When he mauled one of them and the tech acted surprised, I gave her an apologetic shrug. I did try to warn her.

Then they announced they needed to bring him “to the back,” which was an examination room where, I presumed, they had equipment to constrain “difficult” cats.

I sat there wincing as I heard the carnage despite the closed door. In true Buddinese fashion, it sounded like an enraged Elmo murdering half the residents of Sesame Street. I imagined dismembered Muppets and humans retreating with deep scratches on their arms as I heard Bud’s kittenish howls of indignation.

When they brought Bud back to me in his carrier he had a look that said “Chumps think they can poke me with needles? Hah!”

But the thing is, it’s a matter of trust because you really don’t know what they’re doing back there. You’re at a veterinary practice, which means you’re dealing with people who chose to work with animals. That should mean they wouldn’t harm anyone’s beloved pet, but sometimes that’s not true.

It’s a good reminder for us to check that our feline overlords are okay after vet visits, even if we’re sure the vet staff is trustworthy. If a cat is in obvious distress it means the pain must be unbearable, but it’s precisely because cats are great at hiding their pain that we should be on the lookout for signs of something wrong.

The Bathroom Without A Cat?!?! Unthinkable!

I’ve learned that traveling with cats isn’t too bad if you prepare yourself and your feline overlord(s).

This is Big Buddy with a live dispatch from the Hyatt Garden Inn, where Little Buddy has spent much of the past 24 hours hiding under a hotel room bed.

Sources say he poked his little head out overnight to deliver a few “Mrrrrps,” finally emerging this morning to eat and use his litter box.

But seriously, two things I wasn’t prepared for: Bud being almost completely silent, and the ability to use the bathroom without a loud, talkative cat screeching at me! I’d forgotten what it was like.

In case you missed the earlier posts, we’re here for two nights because of a bathroom renovation. I weighed whether it was better to leave Bud alone with contractors coming in and out and lots of noise, or to bring him with me. I still think I did the right thing in bringing him here, even though he was not amused in the slightest about being brought to a strange place for reasons he doesn’t understand.

Eating for the first time since leaving home.

Still, as long as I’m here with him he’s cool, and yesterday I sat down next to his hiding place and spoke to him in a reassuring voice, telling him what a brave little dude he is.

Today’s been much better and I’m reasonably sure that he’ll spend most of tonight alternating between sleeping on top of me and standing on my head, shrieking for snacks.

This has been illuminating and now I know what to expect if I have to bring him to a hotel or somewhere else overnight in the future. I appreciate the earlier advice of PITB readers, and have found the process of staying in a pet-friendly hotel painless. I left the “Do Not Disturb” tag on the door to avoid a potential Bud freak-out over a stranger walking in.

It’s also interesting to see just how attached cats can be to their familiar territory, and how age changes that dynamic. Young Bud would be like “Where are we going, dude?” But I’ve seriously slacked on bringing him places, especially since the pandemic. Combined with his age (he’s 12 now and not the fearless feline he used to be), the difference is pronounced.

Update, Wednesday 10/21/2026: We’re home. The contractors are still at work but tell us we’ll have a functional bathroom by late this afternoon. Bud’s glad to be home. Still, this validates my decision to take him with me to the hotel the last two days. He’s huddled in my bedroom where I have the door closed so he doesn’t freak out over the sight of strangers working in the Buddesian Domicile, the sounds of drills and powered saws, and the temporary mess.

As expected he’s looking to me for cues on how to react, so as long as I’m here with him and I’m calm, he’s not freaking out. I’m proud of him for handling the temporary transition out of his territory and the major disturbance to his routine. By tonight all will be normal.

Study: Cats Have Figured Out How To Weaponize An Otherwise Friendly Behavior

Species: felis catus. Super powers: Teleporting, conscripting humans into their service, cuteness, being annoying.

Cats can be selfish jerks, but the fact that they’re willing to groom each other shows they have a selfless side too.

Doesn’t it?

Not so fast, say two scientists from Belgium’s Ghent University.

While allogrooming — animals socially grooming each other — is a sign of community, alliance and social bonds in other species, apparently cats have found a way to weaponize it.

By analyzing footage of cats grooming each other, the Belgian team confirmed cats groom the way other animals do, signaling closeness, trust and all that good stuff…most of the time.

But they also use it to seriously piss each other off, usually to take possession of territory they covet.

“I saw these weird grooming patterns in my own cats where I thought, ‘This is not super friendly at all,’” Morgane Van Belle, a cat behaviorist and co-author of the new study, told the New York Times. “Sometimes one cat would lay on the blanket near the window and the other cat would come up and start licking it — but in an annoying way.”

Credit: Francesco Ungaro/Pexels

The aggressor cat is hoping the other feline will get so annoyed with the invasive grooming that they’ll abandon their prize spot, whether it’s a sun puddle or a particularly comfortable spot on the couch.

The study’s authors believe there’s more to learn about this behavior, and understanding it can help people mitigate conflict among their feline overlords.

For readers who have multiple cats, have you witnessed this behavior?

For what it’s worth, allogrooming between cats and humans is a thing too. For example, I brush the Budster, and he grooms my hair when I’m in bed.

Some people find that gross, but I try to take it was the compliment it is. Thankfully I have not been subject to weaponized hair grooming, but I’ve seen examples of the behavior the Belgian researchers have identified, and once you realize what you’re looking at, it makes perfect sense. Taking a normal behavior and turning it into an instrument of annoyance is also a very feline thing to do.

Cats show great ingenuity, so we’re fortunate they’re extremely lazy. If sufficiently motivated, they could undoubtedly rule the world.

Newest Online Trend Has People Rage-Baiting Their Cats For Laughs

People are intentionally annoying/frustrating their cats and sharing the footage online.

It pays to make people angry.

Rage-baiting has existed as long as the internet has been a thing, but thanks to algorithmically-ruled social media, eliciting clicks through anger has become incentivized and normalized.

Monetized Facebook groups use rage-bait to drive engagement. Advertisers use it to break through the noise with carefully calibrated taunts: “Taylor Swift has an IQ of 165. Think you can beat her in this online test?” Unscrupulous online “news” platforms use it to keep readers in perpetual doomscrolling loops, which is easy to do in a politically charged environment.

But rage-baiting cats? Why would anyone do that?

Apparently some people think it’s funny, and the practice seems to have originated where all of our society’s most brilliant ideas are spawned: on TikTok, that virtual salon where towering intellects advance the causes of humanity.

Of course you can’t bait a cat with politics or culture wars, so the videos of feline rage-baiting compilations demonstrate trolling of a more physical nature: pulling tails, aggressively petting when it’s not wanted, poking cats in their tummies, picking them up and taking an agonizingly long time to place them back on the ground.

If it annoys a feline and provokes a reaction, it’s on the table.

We won’t link to cat rage-baiting videos, but suffice to say stuff like this does not benefit your relationship with your feline bud.

Rage-baiting is just another way to say they’re making their cats extremely frustrated to get a rise out of them.

When the cat reacts, that’s supposed to be the funny bit.

It’s not funny. Rage-baiting your cats, in honest terms, means doing things that make them deeply uncomfortable in their own homes where they’re supposed to feel safe. Arguably worse, the perpetrators are their humans, with whom they’re supposed to feel protected and loved.

As feline behavior consultant Julia Specht of Park Slope Paws told Upworthy, our furry friends are not in on the joke, they’re the butt of it.

“Cats can’t know what your intention is; they’re not capable of that tertiary-level thought,” Specht said. “All they know is that you’re doing something unpleasant that they don’t like.”

I’m not going for virtue signaling points when I say it’s a profound betrayal. I cannot fathom intentionally making my cat feel uncomfortable or frustrating him, let alone to do so motivated by potential attention from online strangers.

Your cat is supposed to be your pal. Your cat lives with you and loves you. Your cat is innocent. Why would anyone damage that relationship to bring a few seconds of misguided amusement to phone-addicted automatons who think messing with animals is funny?

Note To Self: Acting Like A Lunatic While Watching Sports Isn’t Good For My Cat

Cats are highly attuned to our emotions, especially when we share a strong bond with our little buddies.

I realized I needed to calm down when Bud turned and gave me a wide-eyed, uncertain stare.

It was the fourth quarter of the NBA Finals’ second game, and the San Antonio Spurs were chipping away at the New York Knicks’ lead with ample help from the referees.

The Spurs collapsed in as the Knicks’ Karl Anthony Towns (KAT, or Big Kat as he’s fondly known) drove the lane, pummeling him and grabbing at his shooting hand while the refs just watched.

It had been happening all night. Spurs star Victor Wembanyama even grabbed a much smaller Knicks player by the neck and tossed him at one point without so much as a peep from the refs.

(Above: 7’4″ Spurs center Victor Wembanyama grabs 6-foot Knicks points guard Jose Alvarado by the neck and tosses him. The refs did nothing.)

I shouted something not nice as the refs ignored the bludgeoning and the Spurs barreled down the other end for another bucket.

Then I saw Bud’s alarmed face and his uncertain crouch.

“Aw, sh–,” I said, softening my tone and doing my best to sound reassuring. “Not you, Bud. I love you, little guy.”

I held out my fingers, Bud rubbed his cheek against them happily, and we returned to watching the game as I scratched his head.

Still, it was a much-needed reminder that our little pals look to us for emotional cues, and our bad moods have a profound impact on them.

Jalen Brunson is the Knicks’ captain and point guard. Josh Hart (header image) is the team’s “Hart and soul.” Credit: Wikimedia Commons

I will never forget what my brother observed one day when Buddy was still a kitten: “You’re his whole world.”

Bud likes to pretend otherwise, of course, but the point stands. He picks up on everything, and it is deeply unfair for me to allow any outside emotions to impact him. Making sure he’s happy means everything to me.

The comedian Bill Burr has a bit about this, putting it in more crude — but much more hilarious — terms:

Happily, despite the abominable officiating, the Knicks won the game. They have now won 13 games in a row in the playoffs (!), they haven’t lost a game in six weeks, and after defeating the Spurs twice on their home court, the Knicks return to New York two wins away from being NBA champions…for the first time in 53 years.

It’s not only a big deal to me and millions of New Yorkers, it’s something I’ve wanted so badly since I was a kid watching the Knicks reach the Finals in 1994 and 1999, falling agonizingly short both times.

The Knicks came within a game of winning it all in the 1994 NBA Finals when Patrick Ewing (pictured) was the team’s leader.

Wembanyama, San Antonio’s best player, is a towering 7’4″ and doesn’t even have to jump to dunk the basketball, while the Knicks’ best player is Jalen Brunson, who at six feet tall is diminutive by NBA standards.

Wembanyama was the number one pick in his draft, already hailed as the future of the sport before he set foot on the hardwood. Brunson was the 33rd pick in the second round in his draft class, an afterthought who wasn’t predicted to be anything more than a bench player at best.

OG Anunoby, who hails from the UK, is a lockdown defender and explosive scorer. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

When the Knicks signed Brunson four years ago, the entire sports world laughed. One ESPN “expert” insisted the idiot Knicks had pinned their hopes on a “role player,” while another compared Brunson to one of the team’s all time great busts. A third declared the Knicks would never win anything with Brunson leading the team.

And yet here we are on the cusp of history. The Knicks aren’t just two games from a championship, and they haven’t merely punched their ticket to the Finals. They have absolutely obliterated every team they’ve faced, sweeping the last two series and winning by a margin of almost 24 points per game.

But it ain’t over until they win it, so I’m heartened by what the Knicks’ KAT and Mikal Bridges both said after the last two games: they’re treating each game as if they have no lead, as if they must fight tooth and nail to save their season. They are not resting on their laurels, they’re not taking anything for granted, and they refuse to underestimate their opponents.

So let’s hope they win two more and finally bring a championship home, at which time Bud and I will partay!