cat behavior – Page 35 – Pain In The Bud

Buddy’s Mailbag: How Do I Open Doors?

Thousands of years ago an evil human was looking for a way to annoy cats and invented the first door.

Dear Buddy,

What is the sick human fascination with doors? Who invented these vile things?

Better yet, how do I get them to open?

I hate doors!

– Hater in Honolulu

Dear H in H,

Welcome to the club, hermano!

No one really knows for sure where doors came from. Our best scientists have a working theory that humans invented doors thousands of years ago as a way to torture us cats.

It worked.

Not much foils us, mind, but doors are a uniquely anti-feline feature of human homes, and we all loathe them. But take heart! They can be defeated.

The Handle Twist — Doors with handles are the easiest to open!

If the doors in your home have handles instead of knobs, and they’re low enough that you can reach them without jumping, then what are you writing to me for? Go open them!

However, if your humans were evil enough to buy doors with knobs, or if reaching the handles requires you to jump, you’re going to need a little more finesse, my friend.

I call it the jump-and-twist. You’re going to need to leap up toward the knob while at the same time twisting your body in mid-air — a trivial move if you’re muscular like I am — so that your back feet catch the door frame. Then use the leverage from your back paws to push while keeping your front paws on the knob. Make sure you turn it!

cat-door — A kitty successfully completes the jump-and-twist and even manages to avoid the water trap his evil humans have laid for him. Kitty 2, Humans 0.

Finally, if you’re not athletic or the door is too difficult to open (or if you’re just lazy), you can employ what I like to call The Buddy Special.

The Buddy Special is very easy: Simply stand next to the door and cry, making your meows more pitiful-sounding by the second. Be sure to hit the sweet spot frequency that mimics a human baby’s cries: Humans are compelled to get up and investigate when they hear that sound!

Good luck and stay Buddy, my friends!

– Buddy the Wise

Under the door — Not proper technique: Going under the door is a good way to get stuck! However, a single paw under the door is a good way to remind human that you are watching them poop.

Buddy’s Mailbag: Oh Sh#t!!!

For the first time ever, Buddy is at a loss for words.

Little Runt Who Talk Too Much,

Me hear fat little tabby cat claiming he is strongest cat in world. Me crush fat little tabby cat! He is perfect size for breakfast sandwich! I put him between slices of bread and mayonnaise. Muahaha!

Name place and time, we see who is strongest cat. Hint: It is me.

– Murderclaw the Disemboweler

My Servant Has Returned!

Buddy’s servant has returned to do his bidding!

Buddy gave me the cold shoulder after I returned from Japan and it lasted all of 30 seconds before he couldn’t contain himself and began rubbing up against me to mark me with his scent.

Cats have scent glands all over their body, including their cheeks and foreheads, and scent is one way they establish familiarity and “ownership.” They’re comforted by the presence of their own pheromones, which is why products like Feliway — an artificial cat pheromone in a spray bottle — can help anxious cats chill out.

When a cat rubs up against a human or another cat, they’re essentially saying “These are my people!”

Or in Buddyspeak: “This guy is my servant! My servant has returned!”

Upon my return from an extended absence Buddy will not let me out of sight and will cry loudly and incessantly if I so much as use the bathroom without allowing him in, as is tradition. And this time around he puked when I returned, as is tradition.

I suspect it’s his way of processing relief, similar to the way some animals shake when overcome with anxiety or emotion. I try to remind myself that if it feels like I’ve been away a long time, for Buddy it must feel like a much longer time has elapsed — and there’s no way I can communicate to him that I’ll be back soon, so there’s an additional element of anxiety-provoking uncertainty.

Regardless, the king is happy again. Long live the king! Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a plate of turkey pate to serve…

‘Hey, This Is Buddy’s Site! More Buddy!’

Buddy isn’t happy with being upstaged by snow monkeys on his own blog and demands his servant return to him immediately.

Buddy tells me he’s not happy that his blog — which is supposed to be about all things Buddy, after all — has been taken over by snow monkeys and the bright lights of Tokyo.

Thus we interrupt our regularly scheduled travelogue to check in with His Grace and see how he’s doing.

Yesterday was my brother’s birthday so we FaceTimed with mom back in New York — morning for her, evening for us. Of course I asked if Bud was driving her crazy (she says he isn’t) and called out to him.

He made his way toward the direction of the sound, the iPad, and appeared confused.

“He’s looking for you,” mom said.

She picked him up and showed him the screen, and Buddy started vocalizing with a unique mix of meows and mews. He blinked at me and I blinked back. He kept talking.

But did he really recognize me in the screen? What would serve as a signal?

Buddy the Dapper — This is an outrage! Who is going to scratch my chin precisely in the way I prefer it? You must return, servant!

That’s when I did the slow one-eyed blink, and he returned it immediately! It’s anecdotal, but I think I can safely say my cat most definitely recognized me on a screen from halfway around the world. He doesn’t do the one-eyed blink unless it’s deliberate, and only as a way of communicating to me.

Now if I could translate those meows and mews I think they might mean something like this:

“Where are you?! The fact that you’re having fun without me is not cool! This servant has been…adequate…but I demand you return to the Kingdom of Buddy immediately and resume your minionly duties! I need my chin scratched, and your mom won’t let me groom her hair. Unacceptable!”

Sorry, little dude. You’re just gonna have to make do without me for a little while yet. And hey, you should appreciate mom. She’s treating you well!

Note: Welcome Japanese readers! I didn’t realize I’d see a flood of new traffic from Japan after enabling location-tagged posting, so this is a pleasant surprise. Yes, this is normally a blog about a cat, but at the moment I’m in your beautiful country and enjoying every minute of it. I hope I’m doing justice to Tokyo and the surrounding areas, and if I’ve gotten anything wrong, please don’t hesitate to correct me. Cheers!

Six Trees

Hello from Tokyo!

I’m here! Not much to show yet, as I didn’t quite nail the settings for properly shooting such a light-ambient city on my first night walk around Tokyo.

The immediate neighborhood is midway between Roppongi and Akasaka, not far from Tokyo Midtown. The word Roppongi means “six trees,” and the name dates back almost four centuries when the area was marked by half a dozen distinctive zelkova, also known as Japanese elm.

Here’s an aerial photo of the district:

As you can see, there’s a nice balance between green areas and urban density. Whereas New York has a very straightforward grid layout and you can get a feel for the dimensions of the city by looking down certain avenues running the length or width of the island, it’s easy to see why some people say Tokyo feels never-ending, one big sprawl of twisting streets, hills and alleys.

There’s also a verticality that gives it a different feel from American cities. Manhattan is famous for its urban “canyons,” but oftentimes there’s a clear demarcation between residential and commercial, both horizontally and vertically. Stores and restaurants are almost always on street level, while upper levels are either apartments or offices.

In this part of Tokyo the restaurants, shops, karaoke bars and movie theaters are just as likely to be on the 10th floor as the first, and the signs are often inscrutable even when they’re in English: A sign for one place, called Seven, includes no information about what kind of establishment it is beyond a cryptic piece of text that reads “I like when fight pure.”

Maybe it’s a boxing gym where they’re really sensitive about the rules. Or maybe it’s a bar where Japanese women mud-wrestle. Either one seems just as likely.

Below are some day shots, including a koi pond in the courtyard of my brother’s building. I’m not sure if Buddy would lick his lips or run in terror from these koi. They’re pretty big. And orange. And they jump! Any one of those things are enough to strike fear in the heart of the scaredy cat. Strange to think they can live as long as 35 years.

Meanwhile back in New York…

Looking at this photo, it almost seems like Buddy’s laying there dejected, thinking “Woe is me! Where has my Big Buddy gone? I am lost without him!”

Yet my mom reports Buddy waited for me and barely ate the first night, then by the second night he realized he’s still getting treated like a king, so he’s over it. The little jerk!