The cat has a rare genetic condition that makes him look like a weight lifter.
An incredibly muscular cat has taken the internet by storm — and shockingly, it’s not Buddy!
A Reddit user posted a photo of a Sphinx cat who looks like he eats UFC fighters for breakfast and bullies lions in his spare time. But it turns out there’s a medical reason for his bulging physique, and it’s not just the result of tens of thousands of kitty push-ups.
The hairless feline has “Myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy, a rare condition that causes muscles to grow excessively large,” the poster explained.
“Yes, you’re totally right, that IS your spot. Forget I even asked.”
Humans and animals can be impacted by the condition. Myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy also results in reduced body fat and doesn’t just potentially double muscle size — it results in increased strength as well, per the National Institutes of Health.
“Affected individuals have up to twice the usual amount of muscle mass in their bodies. They also tend to have increased muscle strength,” according to the NIH. “This condition is not known to cause any medical problems, and affected individuals are intellectually normal.”
When one user asked if the cat will be alright, another answered in the affirmative, but with a caveat: “Anyone who pisses him off won’t be.”
The cat’s already racked up nicknames like Kitbull, Katzenegger and The Purrminator.
Asked for comment on the photo, Buddy the Cat insisted the super-muscular cat poses no threat to him.
“My meowscles are even yuger, it’s just that you can’t see them because of my fur,” Buddy explained. “If I were a hairless breed like a Sphinx you would see my bulging meowscles, but I’m a Buddinese tiger, and my coat is luxuriously silky smooth.”
Buddy the Cat, pictured, says he’s “totally ripped” under his fur.
There have been more than 5,000 confrontations involving unruly passengers on airlines in 2021, on pace for more than all other years combined.
When we first heard about an airline passenger grossing out her fellow travelers by breastfeeding her cat, we figured at least kitty was happy with the situation — but apparently not, according to a flight attendant who was involved in the incident.
Instead of purring and kneading in a milk coma, the cat — likely a Sphinx — wanted nothing to do with feeding from the woman’s breast on the flight in late November, flight attendant Ainsley Elizabeth said.
“This woman had one of those, like, hairless cats swaddled up in a blanket so it looked like a baby,” Elizabeth said in a video about the incident. “Her shirt was up and she was trying to get the cat to latch and she wouldn’t put the cat back in the carrier. And the cat was screaming for its life.”
“What does she do at home if she’s doing that in public?” Elizabeth asked. “And then security met the flight just to tell her that she couldn’t do that again, cause it was weird and gross.”
Elizabeth has since deleted the social media account she used to upload the video.
As we noted in our earlier post, the woman was uncooperative when flight attendants asked her to stop, prompting the pilot to send a message ahead to the destination airport via ACARS, short for Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System.
An ACARS message sent from Delta Air flight DL1360 to ATL, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
The bizarre incident happened aboard a Delta Airlines flight from Syracuse, NY, to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Georgia.
Meanwhile, Delta airlines has begun an investigation into the Great Breastfeeding At 40,000 Feet saga, after the incident went viral last week and garnered headlines around the world — including newspapers in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and dozens of non English-speaking nations.
Initially the passenger was reprimanded, but an investigation could result in more serious consequences, like a ban on using the airline.
In-air confrontations have skyrocketed in 2021, mostly due to disagreements over COVID-19 safety rules such as wearing masks. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
The story comes amid a general surge in violent attacks and tense confrontations aboard passenger jets — and now the FBI is getting involved.
That puts 2021 on track for more cases than all other years combined, according to the Association of Professional Flight Attendants. The majority of those incidents — as many as three out of every four — are related to confrontations over mask policies due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
Teddy Andrews, a long time flight attendant with American Airlines, testified before a congressional committee in September, recalling an incident in which a passenger called him the n-word when Andrews asked the man to wear his mask.
“These days I come to work anticipating disruptive behavior,” Andrews told USA Today. “Our colleagues are anxious, fearful. What is going to happen on the next flight? How will this passenger react if I remind them to wear their mask? Will complying with airline policies set them off? Can I avoid engaging, or would that be an evasion of my duties?”
A California woman’s cat is a burglar, a bully and an aggressive napper!
Most of the time when we talk about reasons to keep your cat(s) inside, it’s because the great outdoors pose innumerable risks to the lives of cats.
People make a big deal of cats retaining many of their wild instincts, but the truth is they’ve been domestic animals for 10,000 years, and the only “natural habitat” for them is under the care of kind people in a safe home or a managed colony where they’re protected, fed and given veterinary care.
But cats are predators, technically an invasive species in most places, and they have a jerk streak, so there are plenty of valid reasons to protect others from them.
A cat in Pleasant Hill, California — about 20 miles east of Oakland — illustrates that last point perfectly. Apparently he’s been inviting himself into the neighbor’s house via the cat flap, where he bullies the neighbor’s cat, helps himself to its food and adds a final insouciant insult to injury by taking a nap in the neighbor’s house. Then he strolls back into his own home in the morning, enjoys breakfast and has another nap.
Lisa, the offending cat’s human, said she found out about her cat’s jerktastic behavior via social media, and wrote to The San Jose Mercury News’ pet advice columnist for counsel on how to handle the situation. The neighbors have begun hiding their cat’s food in a closet, but understandably they want Lisa’s aggressively napping cat burglar to stay away.
“Not sure how to curtail his activities. Neighbor is not happy with our cat’s behavior,” Lisa wrote. “Locking our cat inside at night is not a good option; he is very vocal when locked up.”
Columnist Joan Morris offered blunt but perfect advice: Stop letting your cat out.
“I think both of you should keep your cats indoors, and the neighbors should lock the cat door, but as it’s your cat burglar that’s causing the issue, it’s up to you to curtail him,” Morris wrote. “Keeping your cat indoors at night is the simplest solution. The adjustment might be difficult — probably more for you than for him — but in time he’ll get used to it.”
I understand it can be very difficult to curtain feline behavior. If there were an Olympics for being annoying, Buddy would take gold many times over for his relentless meowing when he wants something and isn’t getting it. But the one thing you can never do is give in, or the little stinkers will learn that they get what they want when they yowl incessantly.
Do you agree with Morris, or should the bullying moggie get his way?
“I’m up in your house, eatin’ ur foodz, bro.” Credit: Wikimedia Commons
A new list features gray cats for those who want their own Buddy. Meanwhile, a four-eared kitten in Turkey is capturing hearts around the world.
This cat is, uh, catatonic after his loving human wrapped him up snug in a towel and put a hot compress on his little head to help him feel better after he caught a cold. Look at his tongue! He loves it! (Click the image if the video doesn’t auto play.)
A fellow Redditor was so taken with the video that she sketched a get-well card for the sick-but-happy furball:
The Midas Touch
Little Midas was born in a backyard in Ankara, Turkey, and her unusual appearance could have led to a hard life, but she was adopted by a loving family. The gray kitten, who is now four months old, has a genetic mutation that resulted in her developing four ear flaps. She’s also got a deformed jaw, likely due to the same mutation, but that hasn’t stopped her from living like a typical energetic and curious baby cat.
Her family named her after Midas, the Greek king who was cursed with donkey ears by an angry Apollo.
Get off my lawn, coyote!
Coyotes are infamous predators of felines and small dogs, but cats can and do fight back, like this fearless kitty who didn’t appreciate the interloper straying into her territory. The coyote wanted no part of her.
We can’t embed the video, unfortunately, but you can click here to watch the 16-second clip in real time and slow motion.
“Get off my damn lawn!”
Gray is the warmest color
We all know gray is an awesome coat color for cats, as demonstrated by the Budster. If you’ve got your heart set on a slate Chartreux, a golden-eyed Korat or a silver tabby a la Bud, this list covers 15 breeds “worth purring over.” Note that it doesn’t include the Buddinese Tiger, probably because it’s illegal to own such a muscular and handsome cat in most jurisdictions.
She’s now called Sadie the Wonder Cat after enduring 46 days trapped without food or water.
An Illinois family has been reunited with their cat after the resilient feline survived six weeks trapped in a box spring that was wrapped in heavy-duty plastic for shipping.
The Gaines family was moving from Fresno, Calif. to Charleston, Ill. and was packing up, with movers picking up their furniture and belongings on Sept. 22. The family’s cat, Sadie, went missing and the family thought the worst.
“She’s outside a lot during the day. She always comes in the house at night, but she didn’t show up, and it’s common for the coyotes to get the pets,” Mike Gaines told WCIA, a local CBS affiliate. “So, we figured she got taken by a coyote because she always comes home.”
Instead, Sadie was likely spooked by the commotion, the strange people in her home and the stress of seeing her familiar life upended, and found a way to burrow inside the box spring to hide.
In normal times Sadie’s ordeal would have lasted a few days, maybe a week tops, but because transportation companies are hurting for truck drivers, the Gaines’ furniture was put in a storage unit in Sacramento until it could be moved cross country.
“So, it sat there from September 22nd to November 3rd. So, several weeks with Sadie, the wonder cat locked in the box springs,” Mike Gaines said. “No food, no water, no sunlight, no nothing.”
On Nov. 7 the Gaines’ furniture arrived, and after more than 46 days Sadie was freed when Gaines’ daughter found her.
“She hollered dad, there’s something dead in the box springs it stinks,” Gaines said. “So, I came down here, and on my way down the stairs she said there’s a rat in there. She just saw her little ears and thought it was rat, but it wasn’t. I came down and looked in there and it was Sadie. She was sitting there looking up at me.”
The little survivor lost a whopping seven pounds, which is a huge deal for a cat. Most domestic house cats weigh about 10 pounds. Gaines said she went limp in his hands when he lifted her out of the box spring, and endured a vet visit. The veterinarian said the silver tabby was lucky to be alive, and didn’t suffer any injuries or ailments aside from obvious malnutrition and dehydration. It’s not clear if there were any perforations in the plastic around the box spring. Perhaps little Sadie caught herself a mouse or two to tide her over.
I think I’ll show this to Bud the next time he puts on a Shakespearean performance while trying to convince me he’s starving after two hours without a meal, although with the way he shrieks for food and yaps constantly, it’s difficult to imagine he’d get trapped in a piece of furniture without the entire block knowing about it.
Pain In The Bud 