Feline Overlords – Page 69

This Might Be The Weirdest Cat Behavior Of All

Cats are certified oddballs, but this behavior defies explanation.

Are cats the most religious animals?

I’m not asking because I think cats are locked in an eternal good-vs-evil struggle between their deity, the God of Napping, and the evil forces of the Red Dot. We’re all well aware of that.

I’m asking because, well, my cat prays. He eases onto his hind legs, sits straight up, puts his paws together and gestures as if in fervent prayer, just like this guy:

Or this marbled tabby apparently in the middle of her evening vespers to the God of Yums, that from which all sustenance seems to come. The fridge.

And finally this kitty, who baffles his owners as he stands up, presses his paws together and shows excellent prayer form:

Buddy has some bizarre and amusing moves in his repertoire of feline quirks, but the “praying” thing is the one behavior I haven’t come close to decoding. I hadn’t even heard of it until I saw the little guy doing it one day when he was just a few months old.

First thing’s first: No one seriously believes cats are praying or know what prayer is, so I just wanted to get that disclaimer out of the way before my inbox gets flooded with variations of “HAHA U MORAN CAT’S CANT PRAY LOLZ”

Some people think the motion looks more like a begging gesture. Cats are asking for something when they do it, proponents of the begging theory argue.

I think we can rule that out. I’ve heard owners of other “praying” cats say their furry lieges wave their paws like that in various situations, and that’s been my observation as well. Bud does it randomly, and I’ve seen him do it while he was unaware of my presence. He couldn’t have been asking for anything.

There’s no research on this behavior and there’s virtually nothing about it on the web aside from a handful of Youtube videos.

Maybe it feels like stretching or provides some other form of muscle relief. Maybe it’s a cat’s way of limbering up. Maybe it’s an indication of a cat’s mind state, the same way relaxed ears and an upright tail indicate kitty’s happy and relaxed. Or maybe it’s a form of self-soothing for anxiety.

Those are all guesses, and none of them feel quite right. So help a dedicated cat servant out: What’s your take on this behavior, and what prompts cats to do it?

Buddy’s Mailbox: Help! My Human Won’t Wake Up When I’m Hungry!

Buddy advises a cat from the North Pole on how to wake his sleepy human.

Dearest Most Excellent Buddy,

May I say, sir, you are looking very ripped these days. You are totally not fat and your human is a criminal for putting you on a diet!

Food happens to be the subject of my distress as well. My human sleeps through things that would wake the dead, and she won’t get out of bed no matter how hungry I am! Sometimes I can see the bottom of my bowl and I’m literally starving, yet she won’t stir. What can I do?

Famished in Finland

Dear Famished,

Ooh! I’ve heard of Finland, the snowy realm where Santa Claws and his marsupials make toys for kitties who are good. I would like to visit some day.

Okay, you have yourself a situation. Luckily, Buddy has the answers.

You see, my Big Buddy is incredibly stubborn when I wake him up. Sometimes he throws pillows at me, and usually he yells that he’s going to take me to a place called Szechuan Garden II and sell me to them for $15 if I don’t shut up.

City Wok — “As you can see, he’s got extra meat on him…”

In order from pretty annoying to scorched Earth, here are my patented methods to wake sleepy humans:

– The Endless Yowl: Best delivered as close to your servant’s ear as possible. Requires quick reflexes for when your human tries to swat you away, and lots of stamina. You may be forced to yowl for upwards of 40 minutes.
– The Gentlemanly Slap: Okay, pretend you are French. Then pretend you are challenging your human to a duel. Then pretend you have gloves on, and you take one glove off and slap your human in the face with it. The slapping your human in the face part is the most crucial.
– The Face Pillow of Doom: Lay down on her face, making sure your fur covers your human’s nose and mouth. When she starts shaking, you’re close to winning.
– The Bellyflop of Utter Destruction: Find the highest perch in the room and climb to it. Face your human, aim for her tummy and jump, yelling “Geronimo!” You should hear a satisfying slap as you land, followed by a gasp from your human, who should pop right up like a piece of bread in a toaster! Then meow, “Feed me, bitch!” Mission accomplished!

Any of these methods should serve you nicely.

Your friend,

Buddy

DISCLAIMER FROM BIG BUDDY: Please don’t get upset at the Chinese food joke! I would NEVER sell Buddy to a Chinese restaurant for $15. He’s worth at least $20!

How Do These Nice Russian Ladies Know My Cat?

My cat’s been teleporting to Russia, apparently, where he’s become a muse to a pair of witty Russian ladies.

Dear readers, I think we’re close to proving what we’ve long suspected, that cats can indeed teleport!

I used to think Buddy could only teleport short distances. One time, for example, I stepped over the little guy while chastising him for lounging in the middle of a doorway. I raised my foot, careful not to step on him, took another step…and looked up to find him sitting on a table 10 feet ahead of me, his head cocked at an angle, staring back at me with an amused expression on his face.

“How do I teleport? Easy. I use a retaining magnetic field to focus a narrow beam of gravitons. These in turn fold space-time consistent with Weyl tensor dynamics until the space-time curvature becomes infinitely large and you produce a singularity. Now, a singularity…”

I did a double take, looking back at the spot on the floor where he had just been, absolutely sure there must be a second gray tabby, a Buddy imposter helping my cat play a joke on me. How can anything move that fast?! He must have teleported!

Now it seems Buddy’s powers of space-time manipulation are greater than I ever imagined.

Enter Lingvistov, a creative team comprised of artist Landysh and writer Asia, who became friends while studying English at a Russian university. After they graduated they decided to put their skills to good use by penning short comic strips and illustrations about cats and their many weird and wonderful habits.

Somewhere along the way, Buddy must have used his powers of teleportation to meet them and serve as a muse, because they’ve got him down to a tee:

Play With Me! — Although we’ve been working hard on correcting the behavior, biting to get what he wants is a classic Buddy move. Credit: Lingvistov

The sneaky little bastard has been fluent in Russian this whole time and hid it from me! That, and his ability to manipulate space-time and teleport at will.

Food O’Clock — ”Wakey, wakey, human! Up, before I slappeth you with my paw!” Credit: Lingvistov

Buddy must have napped with them as well. He loves sleeping between my legs, in the “valley” formed by the blanket, and he uses me as his human mattress. He must have demonstrated his preferred sleeping positions for his Russian friends:

Of course there will be skeptics. The teleportation thing doesn’t quite stand up to Occam’s razor, after all. What’s more likely, that Buddy can teleport, or that a woman in Russia has a gray tabby who is just as uniquely obnoxious as my little dude?

Still, I choose to believe he can indeed teleport and one day, when I finally train him to do my bidding, he can put his powers to good use by teleporting to the store to get me a six-pack of beer.

In the meantime, if you’re looking for a gift for the cat servant in your life, you can’t go wrong with a Lingvistov print or stationery reminding them of their allegiance to our furry overlords.

Cats love boxes — Ah, the eternally unused cat bed. Credit: Lingvistov

Announcing the 2nd Annual Buddy Portrait Contest!

Calling all cat-loving artists!

Hey, palicos! We’re pleased to announce the second annual Buddy Portrait Contest, a prime opportunity for artists around the world to show off their talents with illustrations of Buddy.

Let’s look at last year’s winners for inspiration!

3rd place:

This one’s a bit too manga for our particular tastes, but the artist deserves credit for getting Buddy’s musculature right. This sketch takes a naturalistic approach, eschewing exaggeration in favor of stark realism.

2nd place:

The judges absolutely fell in love with this pencil illustration, which renders Buddy’s hulking frame in dramatic greyscale tones. Buddy’s visage is fierce and his shaggy tail suggests virility and power. The drawing is centered by his considerable biceps and his fourteen-pack. Bravo!

1st place:

This is the Buddy we all know and love: Regal, majestic and powerful. In this awe-inspiring piece, Buddy looks toward an unseen horizon, his whiskers and tail alert and broadcasting unshakable confidence. His symmetric handsomeness is reproduced faithfully by the clearly inspired artist, and his broad shoulders are framed by jagged stripes in homage to Buddy’s heritage as a terrifying tiger. Superlatives fail us. This is the very picture of feline grace and power.

Honorable mention:

We think this is an attempt to portray Buddy as a Pokémon, shrinking him and his muscles down to a kawaii style more popular with children.

How to enter this year’s contest:

Submit a high-resolution illustration or portrait of Buddy no later than Nov. 30, 2019, with “Buddy the Handsome Cat” in the subject line. Portraits that don’t adequately capture how ripped Buddy is will be disqualified.

An Early Stocking Stuffer for Cat Lovers

Walter Chandoha photographed cats for the better part of seven decades.

Walter Chandoha might not be a household name, but he’s a legend among photography enthusiasts and — most importantly for readers of this blog — a true OG of feline photography.

Chandoha, who took more than 90,000 photographs of photogenic kitties, passed away earlier this year at the ripe old age of 98. We don’t know the secrets to the photographer’s longevity, but it’s a good bet all that time spent with cute cats was a major contributor.

The New Jersey native and NYU graduate didn’t set out to become the most celebrated cat photographer. His work appeared on hundreds of magazine covers before the fluffy little carnivores pulled him into their world:

In 1949, Walter Chandoha adopted a stray kitten in New York. When he began taking pictures of his new pet, Loco, he was so inspired by the results that he started photographing kittens from a local shelter, thereby kickstarting an extraordinary career that would span seven decades

Now those photos are collected in a book called, appropriately, Cats: Photographs 1942-2018.

chandohacats1 — A pair of Chandoha’s kitty muses.

Fashion has Helmut Newton, architecture has Julius Shulman, and cat photography has Walter Chandoha. In 1949, his encounter with a stray kitten blossomed into a career that elevated feline portraiture to an art form. This is a tribute not just to these beguiling creatures but also to a remarkable photographer who passed away this year at the age of 98; and whose compassion can be felt in each and every frame.