Ask not what your Buddy can do for you, but what you can do for your Buddy.
Dear PITB readers,
Today, April 11, is National Pet Day! On behalf of all your kitties, I am here with a gentle reminder that providing more snacks and catnip than usual is the only appropriate way to celebrate this great holiday, and they should be administered along with massages and generous amounts of praise.
National Pet Day should not be confused with Global Cat Day (Oct. 16), National Cat Day (Oct. 29), Hug Your Cat Day (June 4), or International Buddy Day (April 21). Additional yums, catnip and silvervine should be served on each of those days as well.
In addition, on International Buddy Day, there is a feast held in my honor, and my admirers pay tribute with special gifts of turkey pate, turkey treats, turkey bacon or whole turkeys. Toys are also acceptable.
Penalties for failing to observe any of these holidays may include, but are not limited to, extensive yowling, getting the cold shoulder, withholding snuggles, and being deprived of the delightfulness of my company.
Thank you for your understanding and anticipated cooperation.
Your liege lord,
Buddy
First of His Name, Champion of Yums, Prime Connoisseur of Turkey, Feline of Extraordinary Handsomeness, Humble King
Last year’s spread was subpar and underwhelming, so you find yourself in receipt of this message in an effort to avoid repeating the Great Tragedy of 2020.
This year’s spread should include a selection of cheeses including cheddar, swiss, provolone and my personal favorite, gouda, in addition to a delicious array of meats including turkey, turkey and more turkey.
You can skip the veggies: No plants except catnip and silver vine!
In the spirit of today’s holiday you must play with me more than usual, give me more massages, tell me I’m a good boy at least 20 times, and above all, respect my authoritah!
It’s gonna be an epic partay!
Mmmmm, catnip!Oh yeah! That’s good!“I think…I’m pretty sure I’m feeling it. Oh yeah! Break out the laser pointer and the snacks!”Buddy the Cat, a true hero.
If a Toronto man gets his way, cats will soon get their catnip fix the same way their humans get their marijuana: In colorful, slickly-produced packaging featuring whimsically named strains purchased through a dispensary.
The aspiring catnip entrepreneur calls himself Mikey Fivebucks and has launched his business, Catnip Dispensary Inc., from his Toronto apartment.
Now he’s trying to take his business to the next level with a Kickstarter to help fund the equipment and growing space he’ll need to make a name for himself among the world’s stoner cats and the humans who enable them.
Mikey Fivebucks and his catnip.
Catnip, also known as nepeta cataria, is a mint plant that produces euphoria and acts as a sedative for most cats via a naturally occurring chemical compound called Nepetalactone, which is found in the plant.
About two thirds of cats are susceptible to catnip’s effects, while other cats may respond to silver vine. The compounds in both plants bind to feline olfactory receptors, prompting cats to roll on the ground, purr, drool and mellow out.
Most cats sniff, lick or chew catnip, while others (like our very own Buddy) eat the plant. (Response from Buddy: “It’s delicious!”)
Catnip isn’t just for domestic kitties: Wildcats like lynx and Servals are susceptible to it, as are big cats.
Fivebucks says his product is not the same as the dried, flaky catnip found in pet stores. The leaves are kept moist by controlling humidity during the drying and storing process.
“It keeps it flavourful and it keeps the natural oils,” Fivebucks told blogTO, a local Toronto news site. “It’s moist, a bit like weed.”
Cats On Catnip by Andrew Marttila
Cats On Catnip by Andrew Marttila
Fivebucks isn’t the only entrepreneur pushing high-grade ‘nip in packaging and under names reminiscent of marijuana dispensaries. Meowijuana, a Kansas-based company, has been selling catnip in “medicinal” bottles and naming their strains after feline puns for years.
The catnip company’s packaging and tongue-in-cheek advertising has been so successful that sometimes people show up expecting a marijuana dispensary, employees say. On another occasion, someone called the police. Although the officers said they were required to follow through on the complaint, they joked around with Meowijuana employees and even posed with a staffer wearing the company’s cat mascot costume.
Like its counterparts in the marijuana industry, Meowijuana has enjoyed record sales during the COVID-19 pandemic as people practice social distancing and hunker down with their pets.
“People get that this is a little bit tongue-in-cheek that we’re having a little fun, but there’s a good quality product for pets under it,” said Meowijuana’s Scott Ragan. “Part of having pets is sharing time with them — not just feeding them — but sharing time and engaging in that emotional bond, and I think everybody here appreciates that.”
Dubbed “Da Zooms,” the ultra-potent new nip is a hybrid of the popular Purrple Haze and Meowie Wowie variants sprinkled with catnip-flavored Temptations that have been crushed into powder.
LOS ANGELES — At least 14 feline overdoses have been linked to a powerful new strain of catnip sold by Los Gatos cartel, the Feline Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said Thursday.
The new strain is a hybrid of the popular Purrple Haze and Meowie Wowie variants sprinkled with catnip-flavored Temptations that have been crushed into powder, the agency said.
Dubbed “Da Zooms,” the ultra-potent new nip is often cut with oregano to reduce its effects, but inexperienced cats may not realize what they’re dealing with. Overdoses render felines catatonic for several hours, during which they roll around with a blank stare before sliding into a deep sleep from which they cannot be roused until the effects wear off.
“This is powerful stuff,” said Squiggy the Siamese, president of Cats Against Narcotic Additives Baked Into Snacks, or CANABIS, a powerful anti-Temptations lobbying group. “If it can knock a 20-pound Maine Coon unconscious, imagine what it can do to an innocent three-pound kitten.”
The potent new blend of catnip is proving irresistable to cats.
Cat parents and caretakers are advised to look for the following signs that could indicate their furry loved ones are addicted to Da Zooms:
Suddenly getting the zooms and bolting around the house at 30 mph
Loss of interest in favorite foods and snacks that aren’t Temptations
Refusing regular catnip, or complaining that it’s “weak stuff”
Raiding pantries for cans of wet food, which are used as currency to buy highly potent illegal nip
Frequent trips to “The Corner”
Shaking paws and night sweats after being cut off from the product
In the meantime, the National Ad Council has unveiled a new PSA meant to inform cats of the dangers they face by consuming illegal catnip.
“This is your brain,” the ad’s narrator intones as the camera settles on a brand new, unblemished couch. “This is your brain on ‘nip,” the narrator continues with the camera scrolling over to an old, beat-up couch with claw marks all over it. “Any questions?”
Diego Gatinez, a spokesman for Los Gatos, called the new ads “racist” and blamed “uninformed gringos” for alleging that his organization is a cartel.
“We are a charitable 501(c)(3) organization, and we don’t appreciate the insinuation that we’re involved in illegal or violent activities,” Gatinez said. “Anyone who continues to intimate that we are a violent criminal organization should sleep with one eye open, because Los Gatos could appear right when you least expect us.”
Top image and the two following images by Andrew Marttila from his book, aptly titled “Cats On Catnip.”
The nip trade is threatened by a new product, Blue Sky Temptations.
MIAMI — Forming a tenuous alliance to combat an existential threat to their hold on the feline illegal narcotics market, the western hemisphere’s most prolific niplords gathered for a summit at Meow-a-Largo on Friday.
The fact that Los Gatos, the Cattazio crime family and the Buddy Organization gathered under one roof without the threat of spray salvos, hissing or violent clawing served to underscore how seriously the niplords are taking the emergence of a new narcotic on the street, and the shadowy players pushing it on young kittens and adult cats alike.
The new product, Blue Sky Temptations, has taken the country by storm, laying waste to entire communities of cats with its unprecedented purity and addictive potential.
“Rumor has it a fella named Heisenpurrg is behind the Blue Sky,” said Anthony “Fat Tony” Purrtelini, the recently jail-broken capo of the Cattazio family. “We got our guys shakin’ down the neighborhoods for more information on this Heisenpurrg.”
Blue Sky Temptations are laced with a mysterious chemical cats can’t resist.
Pawblo Escobar, the mercurial leader of the Gatos’ Medellín Hierba Gatera, shook his head.
“Is just a name, this Heisenpurrg,” he said quietly. “We don’t know the first thing about this pendejo, yeah?”
“Das right, patrón,” said Escobar’s most trusted lieutenant, Furrnando Prado. “He’s a ghost.”
Purrposition Joe, the Baltimore-based nip OG who brokered the tenuous peace between the attending parties, raised both paws, signaling the others to let him meow. Springer Bell and Brother Pawzone, two other cats from the Baltimore contingent, slapped their paws on the table to get everycat’s attention.
Heisenpurrg’s minions, Purrposition Joe reminded the other niplords, were all over the streets pushing “free samples” of the Blue Sky to get cats addicted. Tracking down Heisenpurrg, he said, should be as easy as interrogating cats up the ladder until they lead to the big bosses.
“The question isn’t ‘Are we going to find this guy?'” Purrposition Joe said, pausing to flick kibble crumbs off his belly. “The question, gentlemen, is what are we going to do about him when we do find him?”
All eyes turned toward the back of the room where a lone cat sat in darkness, a silent silhouette for the duration of the meeting.
“That’s a question for the most brutal of us, hermano,” Escobar said, looking at the shadowy figure at the end of the table.
The mysterious cat leaned forward, his face moving into the light, revealing long whiskers, grey-white fur and subtle grey tabby stripes.
“Leave that to me, gentlemen,” the grey tabby said quietly. “When I’m done with him, Heisenpurrg will be nothing more than yesterday’s kibble upchucked on the carpet. Muahahaha!”
Pain In The Bud 