Buddy the Cat, publisher and editor-in-chief of the all-new Modern Box Magazine, seeks cats of considerable taste for the ultimate feline lifestyle magazine.
Buddy the Cat, publisher and editor-in-chief of the all-new Modern Box Magazine, seeks cats of considerable taste for the ultimate feline lifestyle publication. The editorial department seeks cats for the following positions: Investigative Eater, Box Reviewer, Keyboard Warmer, Leisure Editor. Must have at least three years’ experience sleeping, eating and lounging in a human home.
Cats are swift and sneaky.
I was working on a writing project late one night when I got up from my desk, intending to head to the kitchen for a beverage when I almost stumbled over Buddy, who was lounging care free and belly-up in my bedroom doorway.
“Not a good place to lounge, Bud,” I said, stepping over him as he stretched and yawned.
I took another step, looked up…and saw Bud sitting on the dinner table about 12 feet ahead of me, fixing me with his quizzical Buddy Stare. WTF? I thought.
I did a double-take, looking down at the doorway where the little dude had been laying just a second ago, then turned back toward the table. Buddy regarded me, head cocked slightly to one side as his tail gently thumped the table.
For a long second I entertained the possibility that there were two cats, that somehow a gray tabby who looked a lot like Bud had gotten inside, and for some unfathomable reason Buddy was perfectly nonchalant about it.
“No teleporting in the house!” I told him. “It’s rude!”
“Mrrreppp,” Bud replied, hopping down from the table and stepping toward the kitchen.
The story comes to mind because we had another teleporting incident last night, with little man lounging on my bed, then appearing on my desk chair half a second later.
It’s easy to forget how quick and silent cats can be when it suits them, especially since the majority of their time is spent sleeping, eating and lounging. Their little legs can accelerate them to 30 miles per hour, which leaves average humans in the dust and even surpasses the fastest human runners.
Not bad for a species known for its unmatched laziness.
Please share feline teleportation stories if you’ve got ’em. We must further investigate this additional facet of feline weirdness!
Cats weren’t enthusiastic about hockey until they learned of the existence of the penalty box.
NEW YORK — History’s first all-feline hockey team got off to an ignominious start Tuesday when it was forced to forfeit its first game due to the entire team ending up in the penalty box.
The unfortunate sequence of events began in the first period when Duster Hoggins, captain of the Ice Cats, earned a whistle from the referees for trying to bite one of the opposing team’s forwards.
The members of the Ice Cats’ bench — who had been napping or quietly looking on with detached disinterest — suddenly perked up as the referees announced the penalty.
“Did he say penalty box?” rookie backup defenseman Mittens asked his teammates.
After the referees escorted Duster to the penalty box, mayhem broke loose: The formerly calm felines began a relentless assault on the opposing team by scratching, biting and even throwing themselves at the other team’s players.
A great cheer erupted from the Ice Cats’ bench when Little Panther, their center, was whistled for ignoring the puck and making a beeline for the opposing goaltender, whom he repeatedly struck with his stick.
“Penalty box! Penalty box!” the cats chanted, banging their sticks on the ground as they encouraged their teammates.
A broadly grinning Little Panther high-foured Duster and the two other cats who were already inside when he was escorted to the penalty box.
“Stop it, you idiots!” Ice Cats Coach John Tortorella screamed.
The feline teammates briefly paused, looking at each other for a moment before resuming their cheer: “Penalty box! Penalty box!”
The game was called just 4:52 into the first quarter after the penalty box was crowded with players and the Ice Cats could no longer field a team.
“This is a great sport!” Duster told reporters after the game. “If we’d known the goal was to reach the penalty box, we would have taken to hockey with much more zeal.”
“The goal isn’t to reach the penalty box, you morons!” a visibly angry Tortorella said, cutting into the interview. “We lost today because of your stupidity.”
The Ice Cats are scheduled to take on the New York Islanders on Thursday at the Barclays Center, where Duster vowed his squad would “dominate the penalty box like no other team in history.”
The haunted room, called an “elevator” by humans, eats its occupants.
NEW YORK — Cursing “those infernal humans and their sorcery,” Buddy the Cat tried to fall asleep on Monday night while forgetting the horrors he saw earlier that day.
The normally happy, outgoing cat slipped out of his own apartmental realm as his human was entering it and resumed exploring and charting the strange land outside, known only as The Hallway.
Buddy rounded a corner, exploring further than he’d ever been when he discovered a large room at the intersection of three corridors. The smells were alien to him. Set into the wall was a shiny metal door, wider than the others. A tone chimed and it opened briefly to a small empty room before closing again.
Buddy could hear a deep rumble and feel a trembling beneath his paw pads.
“That’s when the doors opened again, and a tall woman in a blue dress walked out,” Buddy recalled. “The room was conjuring people!”
But the foul sorcery that can create a human can also undo one, the cat confirmed gravely.
“The room is hungry and devours as much as it creates,” he said. “I saw humans enter and the next time it opened, they were gone!”
As of press time, the gray tabby cat was brainstorming ideas for luring dogs into the deadly chamber.
Unlike other animals, cats aren’t big on food puzzles. They just want the food.
My cat has a morning ritual: He’ll meow in front of the treat cabinet, which now contains healthy snacks, then gobble down his first yums of the day before padding over to the carpet or the couch to lay down.
Ya know, because he worked so hard. After a long and tiring night of sleep and the grueling physical exertion of working his jaw muscles to eat, he needs a respite. A cat nap, if you will.
He’s not unique in this respect, and his morning siesta is just the first of many. Cats need their beauty rest after an exhausting day of lounging, sleeping and having their food literally placed before them.
A new study confirms what we already know — that cats are lazy little bastards — and even hints at new levels of laziness unbeknownst to us thus far.
“Get a puzzle feeder,” they say. “Make ’em work a little for their food,” they say. “It’ll stimulate their instincts.”
Animal behaviorists have recommended toys like puzzle feeders and treat balls for years, prompted by research that shows animals enjoy “contrafreeloading,” a fancy way of saying when given a choice between free food and food in a puzzle feeder, animals will opt for the latter.
The behavior is consistent across many species of domestic and wild animals, from dogs and rats to chimpanzees and birds. Maybe it stimulates their urge to forage. Maybe it gives them something fun to do. Or maybe food just tastes better to animals when they’ve earned it.
Cats, however, aren’t contrafreeloaders. They want the easy yums.
That’s according to a new study by a University of California at Davis research team. Cats didn’t ignore the food puzzles entirely, but they showed a clear preference for the low-hanging fruit, so to speak.
“It wasn’t that the cats never used the food puzzle, they just used it less, ate less food from it, and typically would eat from the freely available food first,” said UC Davis’ Mikel Delgado, a co-author of the study.
As for why cats aren’t taken with puzzle feeders — besides their inherent laziness, of course — that question will take more studies to answer.
“There are different theories about why animals might contrafreeload, including boredom in captive environments, stimulating natural foraging behaviors, and creating a sense of control over the environment and outcomes,” Delgado said.
When it comes to cats, Delgado’s best guess is that puzzle feeders might just be the wrong game since it doesn’t stimulate their hunting instincts. Maybe the next study should involve small pieces of chicken and turkey tied to the ends of wand toys, so our mighty little hunters can catch their “prey” and dine like proper tigers.
Pain In The Bud 