More than 4.3 million felines signed an online petition demanding Buddy as 2022’s Sexiest Cat Alive.
A new year, a new milestone.
Acknowledging overwhelming demand — along with a letter-writing campaign and an online petition with 4.3 million signatures — CatPeople magazine named Buddy the Sexiest Cat Alive for 2022.
The cover of the new issue, which was already flying off stands in its first day on sale, features the “really, really ridiculously good looking” feline in close-up as he smolders in front of the camera. Fear not, ladies: The issue also includes a 12-page photo spread with plenty of photos of the furry beefcake showing off his considerable meowscles.
“I’ve reached a point in my life where I feel balance,” Buddy told the magazine. “My career as a model is going really well, I’ve become a bankable action star and I eat as much turkey as I want. Life is good.”
The one thing missing from Buddy’s life so far is love. But with millions of posters of the handsome feline adorning the walls of kitten and adult cat bedrooms alike all over the world, it only seems a matter of time before Buddy meets his match.
The silver tabby, who fields more than 600 letters and marriage proposals from female admirers each week, told CatPeople he’s still waiting for “that special lady” to come along — perhaps a Calico, a Tortoiseshell or a fellow tabby. He also counts tigresses and jaguaresses among his most vocal supporters and was recently seen holding paws with a glamorous and mysterious young Brazilian jaguarundi.
In the meantime audiences can’t get enough of Buddy, and he’ll return to cinemas later this month in The Turkening II: No Harm No Fowl opposite Penélope Mewz, while a long-awaited summer romcom will see him paired with Meowla Kunis.
Buddy is the face of 44 different snacks in Japan, earning him a cool 1.4 billion ¥ in 2021.
Admirers can also catch Bud in commercials for his new line of cat food, a fashion collaboration with rapper P-Awz, and a range of products in Japan, where Buddy is a popular pitchman for Japanese favorites like Kameda Seika’s turkey-flavored barbecue potato chips, Lotte’s milk-chocolate covered salmon, Meiji’s beef-flavored dipping sticks, and Uniqlo’s urban feline line of street wear.
What’s next for the multi-talented moggie?
Buddy says he plans to pen an autobiography in the near future, and he’s working on his debut album, Napping in the Moonlight, on Tails Up Records. But on a recent afternoon he was just enjoying a low key lunch with his agent in Hollywood when a group of young admirers spotted him and asked for pawtographs, for which he happily obliged.
One of those admirers, a Siamese named Cleo, nearly fainted when Buddy handed his pawtographed photo back to her.
“My friends aren’t gonna believe this!” she said. “This is going up right now on my Meower profile!”
Read more in this week’s issue of CatPeople, available now.
Buddy has devised a method to get me to scratch his head without even waking me.
I’m not exactly sure when I first consciously noticed it, but over the last six months I’ve woken up in odd circumstances in the middle of the night: My hand is raised and Buddy is there, nuzzling against it and purring.
It started with the Budster nudging my hand with his muzzle, then somehow he got me to raise my hand without waking me.
Not content to stop there, Bud has somehow engineered what I call “Sleep Scritches,” in which he triggers me to pet him while I’m unconscious.
It’s really weird to wake up on your back with your hand raised and your cat sounding like a motorboat as he guides his forehead beneath your fingertips. It’s also weird to wake up with said cat sitting on your chest and licking your nose or your beard.
“You shall pet me even whilst you are asleep, human servant!”
Let no one say Bud isn’t a clever cat when he wants to be, which is basically whenever there’s food, attention or affection involved.
He saw a problem, which is that it’s really difficult to wake me up once I’m properly asleep. And he solved that problem not by waking me up, but by getting what he wants without having to wake me. He does the same thing when dealing with my tendency to toss and turn in my sleep: He finds a nook wherever one is available and burrows in when it’s cold, or simply drapes himself on top of me when it’s warm.
Score another one for feline ingenuity.
At this point I wouldn’t be surprised to discover he’s got me sleepwalking to the treat cabinet every night.
Of course I could set up a camera to record me while I sleep a la Paranormal Activity, but I’m afraid I might see him grooming his butt before licking my face while I remain unconscious. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss.
A couple who rented an Airbnb took a man’s cat, believing she was a neglected stray. The man says the cat is well-loved and desperately wants her back.
Troy Farrell’s cat, Nubbins, has been missing since October.
Neighbors told the Sonoma man that a couple who rented an Airbnb two houses down the street had been asking about the nearly tailless tabby and had seemed fond of her. That was Farrell’s only lead, but the owner of the Airbnb rental wouldn’t tell him who rented the place at the time Nubbins vanished.
When I read about Nubbins my first thought was that she was probably snatched up by people who thought they were doing the right thing by “rescuing” a neglected cat.
It turns out that’s exactly what happened.
First a veterinarian from Long Beach, more than 400 miles away, called Farrell and told him Nubbins had been brought into the vet’s practice for a health checkup. When they scanned the kitty’s microchip, Farrell’s contact information came up.
Farrell says he thought his ordeal was over, but the veterinarian — citing obligation to the client — wouldn’t tell him who brought the cat in. Instead, the vet said she’d pass along Farrell’s contact information and ask the couple to return the cat.
When they didn’t return Nubbins, Farrell filed a police report with the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office, hired a private investigator and implored the local district attorney to look into the case.
“Those are evil people,” Farrell told an interviewer in late January. “Those are people without a conscience, those are people without a heart.”
He said he’s been lost without Nubbins.
“I don’t have kids. She’s my kid and she’s seen me through so many things. And they took her, and I want her back,” Farrell said. “The second I’d open that door or drive up the driveway or go out back … There’s Nubbins just in my lap.”
Nubbins in Farrell’s home. Originally a stray who escaped California’s wild fires, Nubbins gave birth to a litter before Farrell had her spayed and chipped.
The ‘catnapper’ comes forward
Now there’s a new development in the case: A man has come forward and admitted he took Nubbins, describing her as a neglected street cat who had been left outside to fend for herself in the cold without access to food or water.
The man detailed the allegations in a letter to Sonoma County Sheriff Mark Essick, and he’s not hiding his identity or denying he took the cat without asking Farrell. He identified himself as James R. Wakefield, an attorney in private practice out of Irvine, California.
“[W]e were never going to let that cat get put back in the living condition she was in without a fight,” Wakefield wrote in the letter to the sheriff.
While vacationing at the Airbnb in California wine country, Wakefield encountered Nubbins, saying she was “obviously hungry” and “she scarfed down the food” the vacationing couple gave her. Wakefield said that when he asked the Airbnb’s owner about the cat, the man said she was a local stray who needed a home.
Describing him and his wife as “70-year-old catnappers,” Wakefield said they’d do “everything in our ability to protect” Nubbins.
Farrell disagrees. He said the stumped tail and damage to Nubbins’ lip were from her days as a stray, when she escaped California wildfires several years ago and wandered into Farrell’s neighborhood. He took her in, he said, and she’s been his cat since. Nubbins is allowed in and out of the home as she pleases, he said, and always returns after she’s had her day’s adventures.
Nubbins refuses to be an indoor cat, Farrell said, and is well known to neighbors on the block, who also feed her and look out for her. It’s not uncommon for outdoor cats to make small circuits around their neighborhoods, visiting friendly neighbors for snacks and scritches before heading home for the day.
“That cat lives so large it’s not even funny,” Farrell said. “That cat has so many houses, so many people, so many little girls to play with down the block.”
Nubbins lounging outside. Her human, Troy Farrell, says the former stray likes to visit his neighbors every day.
That appears to be true: Farrell’s neighbors have backed up his story to the press, there are videos of the beloved cat hanging out in yards on the street, and one concerned neighbor even wrote a letter to the local newspaper imploring the police to get the situation sorted and return Nubbins to Sonoma.
The police have told Wakefield to return the cat to Farrell, while a spokesman for the district attorney told the Sonoma Index-Tribune that the DA is still reviewing the case. Like many other states, California considers pets as “property,” and authorities would have to determine if Nubbins is “worth” at least $950 to file criminal charges.
If Farrell can’t get Nubbins back via law enforcement his remaining recourse would be a civil trial, the newspaper noted.
Is it ever okay to steal someone’s pet?
This case raises some thorny questions. Farrell seems lost without his cat and has been clearly emotional in interviews with reporters as the saga of Nubbins has stretched on over the months. Meanwhile, I don’t think there’s any doubt Wakefield and his wife thought they were doing the right thing.
At least part of this standoff can be chalked up to misinformation and a lack of information: Matthew Knudsen, the man who rented the vacation home to the Wakefields, told them Nubbins was a stray who didn’t belong to anyone, according to Wakefield’s letter to the sheriff. Farrell said Knudsen owns and rents the house two doors down but doesn’t actually live in the neighborhood and doesn’t know how well Nubbins is cared for.
So from the Wakefields’ point of view, they thought they were rescuing a neglected cat and doing a good thing. At the same time, any cat servant should be able to empathize with the anguish another cat lover feels if their beloved feline goes missing or is stolen.
It’s easy to read the details and think maybe Farrell wasn’t doing right by his cat, and as readers of this blog know, I’m a strong advocate of keeping cats indoors for a long list of reasons, including myriad dangers to outdoor cats and the damage cats can do to local wildlife like birds, small mammals and lizards.
But I also know how easily people tend to toss out accusations of animal abuse and/or neglect. One reader was very upset with me when I posted a photo of Buddy with his paws stuck in the screen door that opens from the living room to the balcony. She strongly felt I was abusing Bud by allowing him to hang there for a few extra seconds while I snapped a few photos.
Buddy has gotten his claws stuck on the screen more times than I can count.
“Lies! The door attaches itself to my claws, that’s why I get stuck!”
Context is important in that case too. Buddy loves to lounge on the balcony in the summer, and he’s gotten his claws stuck on that damn door more times than I can count. (The many claw marks on the screen attest to that.) When he gets stuck he cries pitifully until I drop whatever I’m doing, lift him gently off the ground so he can unhook his claws without hurting himself, and reassure him in a soothing voice that he’s okay. It’s the cat dad equivalent of putting a band aid on a scraped knee.
No matter how many times Buddy gets stuck, no matter how many times I tell him “No!” and try to discourage him from scratching the door, he won’t stop doing it. He’s even got a four-foot-tall, sturdy scratcher literally a foot away, just a step inside the door! Clearly he has alternatives.
Not only is Buddy incredibly stubborn, but the day I took the above photographs, he’d already gotten stuck twice — including 20 or 30 minutes prior.
So yeah, I took the photos. Does that make me an animal abuser or guilty of neglect?
That woman thought so. If she’d been in a position to take Buddy, maybe she would have.
At the very least, the saga of Nubbins provides another good reason to keep cats indoors, even if they’re former strays who like to go outside. (Easier said than done, I realize.) But I don’t think there are any bad guys here, just people who thought they were doing the right thing without complete information.
Willow is the first presidential cat since the Bush family’s black shorthair, India.
Willow’s in the White House!
First Lady Jill Biden promised a cat would reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue as a presidential pet during her husband’s administration, and a year after President Joe Biden was sworn in, Willow the cat has joined the First Family in Washington.
Willow is a gray tabby who got Jill Biden’s attention in a very cat-like way: She invited herself onstage while the First Lady was giving a campaign speech for her husband on a Pennsylvania farm in 2020.
A campaign official later called the farm’s owner, Rick Telesz, and asked if the Bidens could adopt the friendly moggie. Willow is two years old and is the first presidential cat since India, a black American Shorthair who belonged to former President George W. Bush’s daughters, Barbara and Jenna. India lived to the ripe old age of 18, outliving Bush’s two terms as president.
India was named after a Major League Baseball player, not the country. Credit: The White House
India, the Bush family’s cat, didn’t look too thrilled to be part of a Halloween event hosted by then-First Lady Laura Bush. Credit: The White House
The Bidens had another cat lined up, but delayed the cat’s arrival because their dog, Major, wasn’t adjusting well to the White House and was known for biting staff and Secret Service agents. Major’s been sent back to the family home in Delaware, but in the meantime the cat the Bidens were going to adopt got attached to its foster family and became a foster fail.
Willow seems to be doing just fine. Michael Larosa, the First Lady’s press secretary, told reporters Willow has been “settling into the White House with her favorite toys, treats, and plenty of room to smell and explore.”
She’ll be doing a lot of exploring — there are 132 rooms in the White House, and most former presidential cats were given the run of the executive residence as well as the West Wing. Socks, President Bill Clinton’s cat, had access to the Oval Office and was sometimes spotted in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, even choosing the famous podium for a lounging spot once.
Willow’s already found sunny lounging spots in her new home. Credit: The White House
Willow’s been making herself at home since she arrived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Credit: The White House
Cats have a long and distinguished history in the White House, from the incredible fame of Socks to Abraham Lincoln’s Dixie and Tabby. Lincoln once called the former “smarter than my whole Cabinet,” while he often embarrassed his wife by feeding the latter from the White House dinner table. Click here to read our post from last year detailing the lives and adventures of presidential cats.
Socks photographed in the president’s chair in the Oval Office. Credit: The White House
Unlike India, Socks wasn’t forced to wear a costume while helping out with holiday events. Credit: The White House
Feline leaders were outraged after the world tennis number one managed to insult cats, chair umpires and Australians on Friday.
NEW YORK — Buddy the Cat declared men’s tennis number one Daniil Medvedev “a lanky human” after the latter called a chair umpire “a small cat” during a match on Friday.
Medvedev, who is known for his outbursts on the court, suffered a meltdown during his semifinal victory at the Australian Open. The Russian yelled at the chair umpire for allegedly allowing his opponent, Stefanos Tsitsipas, to receive coaching from the stands, which is a no-no in professional tennis.
After the umpire hit Medvedev with a warning, the top-ranked men’s player launched a minute-long tirade.
“Bro, are you mad?” Medvedev yelled to the umpire. “For what? And his father can talk every point? Bro, are you stupid? His father can talk every point!”
When the umpire made it clear he wasn’t sympathetic to Medvedev’s complaints, the frustrated Russian dissed him.
“If you don’t give him a warning, you are — how can I say it? — a small cat!” he said, gesticulating wildly.
It was the second time in as many matches that Medvedev had resorted to insults. Asked why Australian fans booed him during his quarterfinal match against Nick Kyrgios, Medvedev told an interviewer it was because the fans “probably have a low IQ.”
Above: Medvedev’s meltdown and offensive anti-feline insults
Buddy the Cat assembled a hasty press conference within a few hours. Flanked by the Rev. Al Sharpclaw and other feline community leaders, Buddy accused Medvedev of “blatant antifelinism.”
“There is nothing wrong with being a small cat,” the silver tabby said, pounding his paw on a table for effect. “In fact, Medvedev unknowingly paid the umpire a compliment. But that doesn’t change the fact that he intended it as an insult.”
Buddy, Sharpclaw and other leaders demanded the WTA sanction Medvedev and mandate his participation in species tolerance classes.
In the meantime, the 25-year-old Medvedev has advanced to the Australian Open men’s final, where he’ll face 36-year-old Rafael Nadal on Sunday.
The Mallorcan not only has 20 major titles under his belt, he’s also held in high esteem by the world’s felines, who see a kindred spirit in Nadal’s obsessive-compulsive behavior and tendency to erupt into short bursts of energy expenditure. It’s also long been rumored that Nadal loves boxes.
Fellow tennis star Sebastian Korda named his cat after Nadal. No one has named a cat after Medvedev.
Pain In The Bud 