Category: cat stories

Catstronauts Vol. III: Star Commander Bud Leads His Fleet To Victory & Catnip

Meet the Feline Federation’s heroes, led by the dashing and brave Star Commander Bud!

In Catstronauts Vol. III, we meet Lieutenant Luna, a hotshot young pilot, Star Commander Leonidas, a stalwart explorer, the brothers Star Commander Zeus and Star Commander Taro, massive and fearless tiger warriors, Star Commander Hera, the most feared tigress in the galaxy, Lance Cpl. Oliver, a rising star in intelligence, Star Commander Alexandros, a decorated veteran of many galactic campaigns, Star Commander Xysto, the Felid Fleet’s most respected and capable captain, and Star Commander Buddy, whose bravery and prolific napping are the stuff of legend. (Click to view larger versions of each portrait.)

Star Commander Hera
Star Commander Buddy
Star Commander Alexandros
Lance Cpl. Oliver
Star Commander Leonidas
Lt. Luna
Star Commander Hesperus
Star Commander Zeus
Star Commander Taro
Star Commander Xysto
Star Marine Ajax
Star Admiral Heracles
Star Admiral Astraeus

The Battle of Dog 359, Stardate 2662

Star Commander Xysto and the fleet’s flagship, the USS Sparta, led a task force to the Wolf 359 system that included Zeus and Taro on their redoubtable USS Voidclaw, and Buddy with his dependable USS Fowl Play.

After the early evening Fleetwide Nap Time (FNT), the task force engaged the Gorn approximately 6.4 AU out from the system’s binary helix and earned a resounding victory. Cats occupying the bridges, engineering decks and gunneries of all three ships broke out catnip — the good stuff laced with silvervine, not that weak ‘nip made by domestic companies — and were toasting each other when their consoles meowed warning of approaching ships.

The celebration was short-lived as the flotilla was ambushed by a larger Gorn force that emerged from the shadow of an icy moon orbiting the system’s most impressive gas giant. The Felid Fleet was victorious once more in the ensuing combat, but at a cost: both the USS Sparta and the USS Voidclaw sustained heavy damage, while Star Commander Buddy was able to avoid enemy fire by hiding behind the other ships conducting a tactical retreat. Crew members from the other ships reported hearing Star Commander Buddy crying over the fleet-wide comms channel during the battle.

“I believe the commander was saying he was too young and handsome to die,” said Lt. Silverpaw, a science officer serving on USS Sparta. “We heard the commander’s own officers trying to calm him down, but the rumor — and again, I’m not saying this is definitely true — is that he soiled the captain’s chair before his XO was able to get him off the bridge and into his cabin.”

Star Commander Buddy, however, recounted the events differently.

“On Stardate 2262.45, the fleet under the command of Star Commander Xysto engaged with a Gorn expeditionary force that had been raiding colonies in the Outer Realm. While our forces engaged the first Gorn detachment, those sneaky lizards had a second group of ships flank us in an ambush pincer movement. Both the USS Sparta and USS Voidclaw were heavily damaged in the ambush, but my own USS Fowl Play evaded enemy fire due to my deft maneuvering and brilliant tactical handling. Taking command of the fleet, I was able to save the day. In fact, my leadership was so effective that before the battle was done, I declared I was going to have a nap and left the mop-up duties to my executive officer as I retired to my quarters.

“I recommend the admiralty give me medals and commendations and stuff, and ignore the obviously false and defamatory reports of my jealous rivals, who have concocted an absurd story about me ordering my ship to hide behind the others. I haven’t done that since I was a kitten!”

After action reports indicate Star Commander Buddy’s USS Fowl Play resumed its course in time for the regularly scheduled Fleetwide Nap Time (FNT) and returned to Starbase 12, home of the Feline Federation’s most widely celebrated restaurants, including Cluckin’ Clancy’s Turkey Extravaganza.

Catstronauts Vol. III

Family’s Cat Follows Kids To School, Gets His Class Picture Taken

Ziggy’s an “honorary student,” and faculty say he’s got an attendance record other students should aspire to.

Ziggy the cat must figure school is an interesting place if his two young human siblings walk there every day, so he’s taken it upon himself to go too.

The four-year-old cat is such a common sight at Drury Primary School in Wales, about 30 miles south of Liverpool, that faculty there consider him an “honorary student.” Ziggy makes himself comfortable for naps on the headmaster’s desk, attends school assemblies and likes to run around the playground.

Ziggy, who pops in and out of classrooms as he sees fit, walks 10 minutes to the school every day with his humans, Megan Roberts, 10, and Chloe Roberts, 7.

Mark Bitcliffe, Drury’s head teacher, told local daily The Leader that it’s “impossible” to keep Ziggy out, so the school has accepted him as a “student.” The cat shows up so reliably that Bitcliffe said he’s “an example to other pupils.”

But Ziggy really “took the biscuit” during school picture day during the last week of September, mom Emma Roberts said. The orange and white feline waited until he felt it was his turn to pose for a school photo, then hopped up onto the chair in front of the photographer as if it was the most natural thing in the world. The school sent his photos home along with school portraits of Chloe and Megan.

“Chloe handed the letter to me [after school] and I expected it to be her photos. But then when I looked I was just in floods of laughter and so were the other mums standing by me,” Emma said. “I asked her what had gone on and she said he just jumped on the chair. He didn’t need any encouragement, he just got up there for a photo.”

A preview of Ziggy’s school photos, which was sent home to his humans like every other student’s portraits.
Ziggy’s an honorary student.
Ziggy walks to school with Chloe and Megan.

Bitcliffe, the faculty and the students at Drury love Ziggy’s antics, and they say he’s been educational too, as he’s given kids without pets the opportunity to learn how to interact with animals.

“It’s difficult to keep a cat off the school grounds, even if you wanted to, but thankfully he’s one of the nicest cats I’ve ever come across,” Bitcliffe said. “He thinks he’s a pupil so it’s fitting he’s had his own photo. I think it’ll be put up on the staff noticeboard. One time he was on the top ledge of the shelves in the secretary’s office and he’s been known to sneak into mine, sit on the chair and fall asleep. It’s his second home I think. His attendance is not an issue and he’s actually setting a good example to the other children.”

“We’ve not been looking to have a school cat or dog really, but he chose us.”

Report: Buddy The Cat Remains Extremely Handsome

An important new study provides insight into Buddy’s magnetism and good looks.

NEW YORK — Buddy the Cat remains extraordinarily good looking, according to a new report from The Buddy Institute for Buddinese Studies.

The paper, which was also published to the open-access journal PLOS One, looked at 32 factors of aesthetic consideration, including facial symmetry, coat silkiness, awesomeness of tabby markings and eye color.

The research also focused on non-physical traits that contribute to the silver tabby cat’s universal appeal.

“This study confirms what scientists have long suspected, that Buddy the Cat is not just devastatingly handsome, but also remarkably charming and clever,” said the paper’s lead author, Sigmund Furreud. “In addition, he has the physique of a Catdonis. He’s super ripped.”

Buddy Calvin Klein
Buddy is an in-demand model in the feline fashion world.

For the subjective portion of the study, researchers also distributed questionnaires to 500 cats and 500 humans. The feline responses were weighted twice as heavily compared to the human responses, since felines are smarter and their opinions more relevant, but the research team saw similar levels of Buddesian popularity among both groups.

“Feline respondents used words like ‘amazing,’ ‘paw-inspiring’ and ‘meowgnificent’ to describe Buddy, and more than half of the cats surveyed said they had posters of Buddy on their walls when they were kittens,” said Meowhammad Saeed al-Sahaf, information minister for The Buddy Institute for Buddesian Studies.

The human responses were equally glowing.

“What we’re hearing from humans, especially cat lovers, is that they would jump at the opportunity to be Buddy’s servant,” al-Sahaf said. “This suggests there is a deep pool of talented potential servants from which to choose in the event, say, that Buddy’s current human disappoints him with subpar treat selections, half-assed petting or late meals. If that makes Buddy’s human nervous, well, it should. He needs to step up the overall level of service.”

Mr. Fluffy Wuffy, one of the felines surveyed for the report, said PITB should take the results to heart and devote more stories to its titular cat.

“No one wants to read about boring stuff that doesn’t have anything to do with Buddy,” the kitten said. “We want all Buddy, all the time. Make it happen, humans!”

Buddy on the runway
Buddy the Cat walks the runway ahead of German model Leon Dame during 2019 Fashion Week in Paris.

Keep The Cat, Ditch The Boyfriend

A boyfriend or girlfriend who wants you to ditch your cat is asking you to do a lot more than that. It’s about control and manipulation.

If subreddits, advice columns and social media are any indication, a disturbing number of people ask or demand their would-be significant others to ditch their cats before their relationships can progress.

But even by the standards of the demanding, heartless boyfriends and girlfriends who insist the cat has to go in a relationship, this one’s a doozy. A woman writes to the Washington Post’s Carolyn Hax for advice on what to do with her boyfriend, who has some very strange ideas about cats:

Hi Carolyn: I’ve had my cat since college (almost 10 years). I’ve been dating my boyfriend for two years, I love him more than I’ve ever loved anyone, and we’d like to move in together.

My boyfriend hates cats. Hates them. He isn’t allergic (though he used to say he was, until I insisted on a test). He does have a strong aversion to them, probably from his family, who have some kind of belief that they’re evil or unclean. I’ve sought to understand it but could never get a coherent explanation out of any of them.

He jumps when the cat is in the room. And my cat is extremely affectionate, so doesn’t understand why he can’t come sit with us and be friends.

My boyfriend is offended I won’t give up the cat so he can move in. I’ve suggested compromises such as keeping the cat to just one part of the apartment, but he insists he needs the cat out.

I feel the cat was here first so this is an unreasonable ask. My boyfriend feels if I really love him then nothing should take precedence over his moving in, and he now says my hesitance is causing him to question the foundation of the entire relationship.

I cannot imagine rehoming my cat. I also can’t imagine ending my relationship. Am I being unreasonable or is he?

Hax goes beyond the usual “demanding significant others are major red flags” advice and points out that the boyfriend isn’t just placing his own emotional wellbeing above the letter-writer’s, he’s also trying to prune her life of things he doesn’t like or want as a precondition for moving forward in a relationship.

The cat, she points out, “is a hairy decoy, distracting you from the serious mistake you’re poised to make: thinking about your relationship in terms of what you owe the other person. All you owe anyone is to be yourself. … It’s on him to ask his own questions about living with that real you. It’s on him to assume the work of living with his own answers.”

That’s good advice for anyone who finds themselves in that sort of situation, but I do think the red flag aspect reinforces Hax’s good counsel. If the guy lied about being allergic to get his girlfriend to ditch her cat, he’s more manipulative than she may be willing to admit and he’s calculating about it, trying to disguise something he wants as a medical necessity.

But he goes even further than that with the “if you really love me, you’ll do this” emotional ploy, and by claiming his girlfriend’s loyalty to her cat is causing him to “question the foundation of the entire relationship.”

The foundation’s rotten, pal. You’re the reason.

Of course, all the human drama obscures the third individual involved in this mess: the cat. The letter writer has had the little guy for 10 years, which means they’ve long since bonded, he loves her, and he literally can’t imagine living in another place with another person.

Surrendering him to a shelter would be incredibly cruel. It would be a life-shattering betrayal of trust and cause incredible anguish to the poor cat in addition to putting him in real danger of being euthanized. And all for a jerk who fakes an allergy to get his girlfriend to dump the kitty she’s loved for a decade? Hell no.

I hope she finds a guy who loves cats. He’ll most definitely make a better boyfriend than this weirdo.

Frankie Sad Eyes Has Been Adopted!

The little guy lost it all when he was surrendered at 11 years old, but now he’s got a new home and a new human to dote on him.

Every once in a while a cat’s story will tug at the heartstrings, and while Bud and I are mostly impervious to that sort of thing (being so manly that we dominate our emotions, obviously), we couldn’t help but become invested in the story of Frankie Sad Eyes.

The handsome 11-year-old was surrendered by his human at an age when he should have been kicking back and telling kittens what it was like Back In His Day, and his hooded blue peepers seemed to reflect his sadness at losing everything he’d known.

In my head, I imagined Frankie and Buddy teaming up, kind of a bad cop/bad cop duo who would keep the neighborhood cats on their toes and extort treats from them.

“We don’t like it when cats don’t pay their protection yums, do we, Buddy?”

“No we don’t, Frankie.”

“It would be a shame if anything were to happen to this spiffy cat condo, wouldn’t it, Buddy?”

“That’s right, Frankie. A real shame indeed.”

Alas, Frankie doesn’t get along with other cats and Bud is a bit of a jerk when he wants to be, so it could never happen. There can be only one king here.

Instead we were content to follow Frankie’s progress from afar, with the staff at Tabby’s Place in Ringoes, NJ, providing regular updates on his health and his interactions with other cats. The latter usually involved Frankie having to “educate” his peers with a stiff paw, but also some positive exchanges as well.

Still, it was clear that Frankie needed to be the only cat in his own kingdom, and staff at Tabby’s Place were able to match the mercurial moggie with a human who will dutifully attend to his needs, make sure his new realm isn’t sullied by the presence of other cats, and provide a chill environment suited to a senior cat. At heart there’s no doubt Frankie’s a good boy. He just needs his space.

Tabby’s Place said farewell to Frankie with this video of his pre-departure “victory lap,” and it was clear from the send-off he received that he’d touched a lot of hearts during his stay, even if he did smack a lot of cats too.

Good luck, dear Frankie, and take it easy on your new human, will ya? We have no doubt she’ll dote on you like the king you are.