catnip – Pain In The Bud

All About House Panthers: Black Cat Appreciation

House panthers are pretty cool!

Hi! Buddy here, filling in again for my lazy human.

If he weren’t such a lazy, useless human, he would have known Aug. 17 was Black Cat Appreciation Day. Another reason for me to do more cannonball dives onto his stomach while he sleeps LOL!

But don’t worry, Leah at Catwoods has a great post about Black Cat Appreciation Day, prominently featuring her house panthers, Boss and Cranky Frankie.

Black cats aren’t always easy to photograph, but the right light reveals the silky contours of their coats.

Now when is gray tabby appreciation day? For that matter, shouldn’t there be a Buddy Appreciation Day? It could be celebrated with turkey, beer, and, uh, turkey. And catnip. And turkey. Now I’m hungry.

“SERVANT, I AM HUNGRY! FETCH ME SOME SNACKS!”

The Buddies Have Uncomfortable Moment After Cat Documentary Asserts Felines Mirror Their Humans’ Personalities

Is the human a bad influence on the cat, is the cat a bad influence on the human, or are they both just crazy?

NEW YORK — Big Buddy and Little Buddy experienced an awkward moment while watching a cat documentary which claimed feline personalities eventually come to resemble the dispositions of their humans.

The human and tabby were sitting on their couch, eating popcorn and laughing at their own farts when Holly Sikes, a cat behaviorist interviewed in the documentary, broke down the way people and their furry pals mirror each other.

“So, for example, if the cat is a lazy, egotistical jerk who’s always coming up with hare-brained schemes, he obviously learned that from someone,” the behaviorist said. “And that someone is the primary caretaker, the one with whom the cat spends most of his or her time.”

The Buddies looked at each other, shrugging.

“I once had a client whose cat, Quintus Lentilus Batiatus, was an absolute lunatic,” Sikes continued in the documentary. “And it turned out the owner was a LARPer who belonged to a group of wannabe Roman legionaries, which explained why little Quintus had declared war on the German family next door, labeling them ‘barbarians and savages who must be civilized under the banner of the Sacred Eagle.’ I’ve heard of cats styling themselves as Mongol conquerors, Spartan warriors and even kings of Joseon.”

Little Buddy stopped chewing, and with a mouth full of popcorn, turned to his Big Buddy.

“I’m, uh, not feeling this documentary, dude,” he said. “Let’s find something else to watch.”

“Agreed,” Big Buddy said.

The behaviorist continued to elaborate as Big Buddy searched for the remote.

“…and delusions of grandeur, particularly when it comes to fantasies about conquering the world, being famous, or even establishing ties with big cats like jaguars and tigers…”

Little Buddy’s voice was urgent.

“Where’s the remote, dude? Come on! Find it!”

“I’m trying! Where the heck is it?”

“…and we find that in cases where human and feline are closely bonded, they serve as enablers, with each convincing the other that their schemes are brilliant even when they’re gobsmackingly inane…”

Big Buddy grunted triumphantly.

“Found it!” he said.

Human and cat breathed a sigh of relief as the stream stopped.

“So what do you wanna watch next, Bud?” Big Buddy asked.

Little Buddy sat up and stretched.

“Actually, I was thinking of taking another nap and then working on my brilliant plan to intercept catnip shipments bound for pet stores.”

Big Buddy whistled.

“That is a brilliant plan, little guy,” he said.

“It is, isn’t it?” Little Buddy said proudly.

“Good call on the nap too. I’ll set my alarm for 90 minutes. Gotta get that beauty sleep…”

As of press time, the Buddies had settled on a scheme to intercept catnip and turkey bound for pet stores, which they both agreed was brilliantly conceived and guaranteed to work.

Does The Budster Love Me?

“Love is a strong word, human. I prefer ‘tolerate.’ On days when you anticipate my snack cravings before I verbalize them, you could maybe say I’m fond of you.”

Newsweek has an interesting interview with a cat behaviorist on the subject of whether cats love their humans.

Chantal Howard, a certified cat trainer with Feline Focus Training in Ottawa, told the magazine there are nine primary behaviors that indicate — or confirm — a house tiger loves his or her person. Most of these won’t be new to PITB readers, who are of course among the most cat-savvy people out there and have magnificent taste in cat blogs, but it’s still a handy way to ascertain how your feline overlord feels about you.

So how does Buddy do according to this checklist? Let’s see:

Headbutting: ✅ His Lordship is quite fond of headbutting me and favors me with dozens of headbutts throughout the day, ensuring his pheromones remain on me. You know, in case some other cat somehow comes wandering in and there’s a dispute about which furball owns me.
Kneading: ✅ Considering the fact that I’ve had to toss quite a few t-shirts because of claw rips, I’d say that’s a yes. At least he doesn’t knead my face anymore, as he liked to do when he was a kitten and would take his perch on my shoulder, nuzzle up to my neck and make biscuits against my beard.
Purring: ✅ Nine times out of 10, Buddy’s purr is inaudible, but it’s there. It’s a bit odd that such a talkative, loud cat barely makes a buzz. He likes to lay on my chest and purr up a storm while I rub his head and tell him he’s got admirers all over the world.
Chirping: ✅ Yes! In fact, chirps and trills make up a significant part of the Buddinese language. While meows can be positive, negative or demanding (“I can see the bottom of my bowl! This is an outrage, human!”), trills and chirps are always happy sounds.
Nipping: ✅ Unfortunately, yes.
Licking: ✅ He grooms my hair and my beard, and when I shave he licks my face, which is pretty gross.
Bringing Gifts: ❌ Negative. Then again, what kind of gifts can he bring me when he’s an indoor cat and doesn’t fully understand the concept of hunting?
Exposing Belly: ❌ Does he expose his belly? Yes. Does he feel comfortable enough to snooze in my lap with his belly exposed? Of course. Does he want me to give him belly rubs? No, he emphatically does not. The primordial pouch is not to be touched!
Tail Position: ✅ One of the most awesome things is the fact that Bud’s tail goes immediately into happy mode when I say “Hi, Bud!”, when I hold my hand out for a headbutt, and when I talk to him in general. His tail quivers with excitement when we play with the laser pointer or his favorite toy, and when he catches the first whiff of catnip.

So that’s 7 of 9, or 7 of 8 if we count gifts as N/A due to Bud’s hilarious ineptitude when it comes to even grasping the concept of hunting.

Bud has been known to throw up from excitement when I return from vacation, he often naps by the door when I go out, he talks to me constantly, and he’s rarely more than three or four feet away from me at any given time. All those things, plus our strong bond, have proven to me that he does love me, but it’s also nice to confirm it with a behaviorist’s criteria.

How does your cat perform on the checklist? Don’t forget to share your results in the comments.

‘The Sexiest Beast Of Them All’: Buddy The Cat Joins OnlyFans!

Health authorities said thousands of female cats around the world fainted when they heard the news that Buddy the Cat is launching his very own OnlyFans.

After resisting calls from his admirers for years, Buddy the Cat has finally joined OnlyFans.

“It’s a dream come true,” said Nala, 5, a Burmese who describes herself as “Buddy’s biggest fan.”

Other felines posted celebratory messages online after the news broke, with most expressing an intent to subscribe to Buddy’s OnlyFans “no matter how much he charges.”

“A dollar a month, ten bucks a month, a hundred bucks a month, it doesn’t matter. It’s worth it,” said Penny, a puma who said she has posters of Buddy in her enclosure at a wildlife sanctuary. “Buddy is the sexiest beast of them all.”

Buddy the Cat, a gray tabby cat, being handsome. — A sizzling snap of Buddy being sizzling for his new OnlyFans site.

Buddy’s new OnlyFans site promises “sizzling snaps of Buddy napping,” “hot photos of him yawning and stretching,” and regular videos of the mercurial tabby being handsome.

“Finally, my fans can get more Buddy without having to read that stupid blog my human writes,” Buddy wrote in his announcement. “It’s full of ridiculous slander, vile lies and claims that I’m wimpy when everyone knows I’m, like, brave and stuff.”

As of Friday, the new site featured a handful of clearly photoshopped images of the gray tabby with bulging muscles as he lifted weights, and a poorly produced video depicting the diminutive feline “ambushing” a stuffed alligator, with the sounds of a jaguar dubbed into the footage.

“Just catching me some lunch!” Buddy captioned the clip. “Us apex predators don’t eat from a can, we hunt our own meals.”

A gray tabby cat sits in a cardboard box. — Buddy the Cat poses in a box, striking a handsome pose as he gazes yonder.

There was no sign that questions about the veracity of the images bothered the egotistical feline’s admirers.

“OMG ADORBZ!” commenter princess2017 wrote.

“My handsome little prince!” wrote another poster, LioNeSS, who also added several heart and turkey emojis.

Soon after Buddy’s OnlyFans launch, it was announced that Smudge, his arch-nemesis, signed a deal to create a show about his life for Netflix. Titled “Smudge: New York’s Most Heroic Cat,” the series will “follow Smudge as he fights for truth and justice against the evil Dubby the Cat, a chubby gray tabby with an inflated ego.”

How Do You Keep Your Cat Interested In Play Time?

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.

Brave Buddy — “Now’s an excellent time for a nap.”

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:

Training him to do new tricks. He already knows come, stop, sit and high-five, so we’re gonna have to try something new, like teaching him to roll and maybe teaching him to jump on my shoulder and “ride” around with me. Training is mentally stimulating, it should be fun for him, and it lays the groundwork for more challenging tricks.
A cat obstacle course! I can rig something up with his tunnel, some boxes and some “hazards” that he must traverse in order to get his paws on some catnip.
Snacks dispensed via puzzle feeder only. None of that free-feeding when he gavones the stuff down like he’s starving.
Rotating toys. Admittedly I haven’t been very good about doing that. Almost every guide mentions rotating cat toys so your little buddies don’t get tired of them.
A mirror so he can see how ~~ripped~~ chubby he’s gotten. He really needs to see himself loafing. It’s not pretty.

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.

Meatloafing Buddy — This is by far the fattest-looking photo of Buddy I could find. He’s in a super-meatloaf pose here, looking like a chonkmaster.

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.