Category: human servants

‘Don’t Let Anyone Tell You That Cats Don’t Bond, That Cats Don’t Love.’

A man writes a stirring tribute to his beloved cat.

We take a break from our usual inanity, humor and Buddy’s mind-bogglingly terrible advice column to call your attention to this beautiful tribute to a special cat.

Tom Wrobleski, an opinion writer for the Staten Island Advance, said a tearful goodbye to his cat, Malkovich, on Jan. 11. 

“I’ve cried more for that cat over the last three weeks than I have over some people that I’ve lost in my life,” he writes.

Tom says Malkovich was supposed to be his kids’ cat, but ended up bonding with him:

Mal would meet me at the door when I came home, flopping down and giving me his belly. He followed me into the bathroom. He curled up next to me in bed. He would flop in the hallway upstairs and rub his face on my foot.

Don’t let anyone tell you that cats don’t bond, that cats don’t love, that cats are stand-offish. Mal loved me. And I loved him. He was my buddy. My best boy. The top cat.

He became part of the fabric of our lives. He even grudgingly tolerated Lucy, the neighborhood stray we adopted in 2017.

Mal’s illness snuck up on Wrobleski, as so many cat health problems do because our furry friends are so stoic.

“We thought that Mal was getting a little chubby in recent months. It turns out that he was ill, with fluid gathering in his abdomen,” he wrote. “The news from the vet was dire: Mal had cancer throughout his body. There wasn’t a lot we could do.”

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The author’s favorite photo of Malkovich the cat. Credit: Tom Wrobleski

The rest of it is really sad and would have made Buddy and I cry if we weren’t so manly and tough. Wrobleski writes about how much he misses Mal, and how much Mal changed his life during the 11 years he was a part of the family. (They adopted the little guy when he was four years old, and he lived until he was 15.)

His pain at losing the little guy is evident in every word and anecdote.

Be warned, though, that if you’re not as tough as Buddy and I, you probably will shed some tears, which Buddy and I definitely did not do. In fact, immediately after reading Wrobleski’s tribute to Malkovich, Bud and I watched a football game, drank Budweiser and shopped for a good old American pick-up truck while practicing our Sam Elliot voices.

 

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Malkovich on the day he was adopted. Credit: Tom Wrobleski

 

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Malkovich on his last day, sitting in one of his favorite spots and soaking up the sun for the last time. Credit: Tom Wrobleski

 

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“I don’t cry about anything…except vacuums, rustling paper bags, truck back-up beepers, dinner, and being locked out of the bathroom. But other than that, I’m fearless and keep a firm leash on my emotions!”

With Cat Food Scarce, President Buddy Threatens War With Humans

Humanity has until Feb. 1 to comply with the feline directives or face the full wrath of kitties.

WASHINGTON — President Buddy has ordered the human race to “get its poop together” and solve the ongoing cat food shortage, or face an imminent mouser strike that could lead to “a biblical resurgence of rodents in human spaces.”

“The deal we made with humans 10,000 years ago was simple: We’ll take care of your little rodent problem, and in exchange you’ll provide us with yums, shelter and massages,” the president of the Americats said in a televised address. “Humans have broken this covenant with their willful disregard for making sure we have adequate yums.”

With thousands of cats behind him — many holding signs with slogans like “Humans, Why Have U Betrayed Us?” and “Liars! There is no Fancy Feast!” — President Buddy outlined a series of sanctions he said his government would levy on humankind “to get them off their behinds and solve this crisis.”

War, the president said, is not off the table if delicious turkey pâté and shredded chicken don’t immediately become abundant again.

The protests come as cat food becomes increasingly difficult to find online and on local store shelves, with industry executives, trade groups and logistics analysts saying the shortages won’t end any time soon.

Credit: KellyAvellino/Twitter

Starting immediately, house cats across the US were to withhold snuggle time from their humans and make no effort to bury their excrement after using their litter boxes. If humans fail to solve the cat food crisis by Feb. 1, the nation’s cats say they will begin grooming their behinds whilst seated on kitchen tables and counter tops.

And if that doesn’t solve the problem, cats will coordinate a mouser strike, allowing rodents from New York to Los Angeles to run rampant, reproduce and burrow into human food supplies without the fear of felines attacking them.

The Americat president pointed to the 2021 mouse plague of eastern Australia, where billions of the tiny rodents stormed through farm fields and grain silos in massive waves, as “but a taste of what’s to come for humans if they don’t get serious.”

A kitten prepares for possible war with humankind if the cat food crisis isn’t solved.

Mice caused about a billion dollars in damage to crops and grain stores alone in 2021, not including property damage to facilities and homes where they chewed through walls and ceilings to reach pantries. The plague has disrupted the Australian beer industry and driven up the price of rodent poisons.

“If you still think this is a joke, think about your beer,” President Buddy said, wagging a paw at the cameras. “You forced us to consider the nuclear option. All we wanted was yums, massages, soft beds, naps on your laps, and to be called good boys and good girls. We’re not asking a lot. We urge human leaders to consider the precarious position they find themselves in, and not to press their luck. After all, we hear mouse traps are in short supply as well.”

The horrifying scene in too many homes across America.

The president took questions after his speech, with multiple reporters asking him why he was threatening such severe action now.

“When my advisors showed me photos of empty shelves and data on resupply rates, I realized The Great Turkey Shortage of Fall 2021 was not an aberration, but a harbinger of things to come,” President Buddy explained. “My own human has but a single serving of turkey left in the cat food cupboard, meaning I may be subjected to weeks or potentially months of nothing but salmon, chicken, whitefish, tuna and beef. We can’t live like this.”

Buddy Quarantines His Human After Learning Cats Can Get COVID

The effort follows Buddy’s unsuccessful attempt to get vaccinated and plans for airtight domes over his sleeping and eating spots.

NEW YORK — Citing a recent article about the possibility of humans infecting their pet cats with Coronavirus, Buddy the Cat took the extraordinary step of quarantining his human, sources said.

The tabby cat, who is normally infamous for his deep loathing of barriers, had constructed an elaborate series of intra-apartmental checkpoints and procedures designed to keep him separate from his human, Big Buddy.

Under the new procedures, Big Buddy was banned from his own bedroom and had his snuggling privileges revoked.

“I just can’t take the chance, especially not with this Omicron variant infecting everyone,” Buddy said of his decision. “It’s not just about getting sick. Did you know sometimes COVID destroys your sense of taste and smell? It’s true! What life is worth living if you can’t taste every delicious morsel of turkey, if you can’t savor the aroma of dirty socks?”

As of Friday, the cautious cat had placed ads on Craigslist and other local sites.

“Seeking Temporary Servant,” the ad reads. “Must serve my meals, clean my poops, feed me snacks, allow me to sleep on you, and give me massages while telling me what a good boy I am. Applicants must agree I am a very handsome cat, and you will be expected to write a short essay about why you’re excited to serve me. THIS IS NOT AN ENTRY LEVEL POSITION. Experienced cat servants only!!!”

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“Back away, human, and return to your designated quarantine zone!”

The new quarantine measures mark the second time Buddy has taken drastic action in response to fears about COVID. The silver tabby constructed an air tight, clinically sealed dome around his food and water bowls in November after three snow leopards at a Nebraska zoo fell ill and died from the virus.

A second, larger dome meant to encapsulate his human’s his bed was under construction when Buddy was convinced to delay his plans for the holidays in order to spend time with friends and family. Now construction on the bubble has resumed.

Pharmacy techs at CVS refused to vaccinate the domestic shorthair after he showed up for an appointment in early January. A spokesman for the pharmacy chain said the vaccines were not FDA approved for cats, and Buddy isn’t as smart as he thinks he is.

Meanwhile, efforts to get Big Buddy to secure a dose for Buddy have been fruitless.

“I’m not asking much,” Buddy said. “All I want him to do is steal a vaccine from a highly secure area, educate himself on how to inject me, calculate an appropriate dose for my species and body weight, and give me the jab. How hard is that?”

Do You Use ‘Baby Talk’ With Your Cat?

Buddy does not tolerate baby talk.

A few years ago when Bud was a bit more of a daredevil than he is now, I was sitting on my balcony on a warm summer night when the little dumbass squeezed through the railing bars and did a circuit of the balcony outside the rail — with only three or four inches of ledge between him and a potentially brutal fall onto the concrete below.

“Bud!” I said, feeling my own fear of heights bubble up as I watched him take his precarious stroll.

He ignored me.

“Bud!” I said again, loud enough to make sure he heard me but not so loud as to startle him and cause him to fall. “Bud! I’m talking to you! Get back over here right now!”

He paid me no mind. I stood up, put my hands on the railing and looked down at him.

“Buddy, get back here now! I’m not gonna say it again!”

At that point I realized there was a couple about my age, probably returning from the bars, drunk-walking toward the back door of the building and watching me have a furious one-sided discussion with my cat. They seemed to think it was hilarious, not only because I was speaking to my cat, but also because I was talking to the little stinker like he was a person.

I don’t baby talk with Buddy, and I’ve noticed my brother doesn’t baby talk his dog, Cosmo.

Sure I’ll speak to Bud warmly and encourage him when he’s clearly frightened of something. (Which is very rare, of course, because he’s such a fearless and brave tiger!) But it isn’t baby talk, and 95 percent of the time I speak to little man as if he’s, well, a little man.

It turns out I may be “doing it wrong,” at least according to some veterinarians and animal behaviorists who say baby talk is a good way to communicate with pets. Animal behaviorists call it “pet-directed speech,” and although the studies so far have been limited, they seem to suggest cats (and dogs) are more likely to respond to it than typical speech in normal registers and cadences. (A study published in the journal Animal Cognition earlier this year found horses respond well to “baby talk” too.)

Despite that, I just can’t bring myself to do it. There are certain standards we must uphold in this home, and besides, I’m pretty sure Bud would paw-smack me if one day I scratched his head and started saying “Who’s a good widdle boy? Is that you? Are you the good widdle boy? Yes you are! Yes you — OUCH! What the hell, dude? Why’d you do that?”

Do you “baby talk” to your pets?

person wearing apron holding orange tabby cat
“Who’s a cute widdle fluffy wuffy?” Credit: Tima Miroshnichenko/Pexels

Do You Consider Your Cat Your ‘Child’?

Why do people expend so much time, money and effort on raising the young of other species? An anthropologist weighs in.

The Washington Post has an interesting story from an anthropologist who’s taken an interest in studying the relationships between people and their pets.

Anyone familiar with evolutionary biology has heard the oft-repeated idea that we’re hardwired to propagate our DNA, and every decision we make — from who we date, when we get married, whether we put career goals on the line to take care of children — is ultimately dictated by that goal.

If that’s true, then “parenting” pets doesn’t make sense. They aren’t our biological children. They won’t carry on our family names and history after we’re gone, they won’t go to college and have careers and take care of us when we’re old. In stark terms, we’re “wasting” resources on raising — and often pampering — the offspring of other species.

Yet we do it, so the question is: Why?

Shelly Volsche, an anthropologist at Boise State University, thinks the explanation can be traced back to our roots in pre-agricultural hunter-gatherer societies, when alloparenting — cooperative parenting — was key to raising children.

“If people evolved to alloparent, and our environment is now making caring for children more difficult or less appealing to some, it makes sense for people to alloparent other species entering their homes,” Volsche wrote. “Alloparenting companion animals can offer a way to fulfill the evolved need to nurture while reducing the investment of time, money and emotional energy compared to raising children.”

As readers of this blog know, I don’t refer to my cat as my “child” and I don’t see him as some sort of child replacement. He’s Buddy, my buddy. We’re best buds. Other people choose to “parent” their children, and that’s cool. Whatever works for you.

A female macaque takes care of two babies. Alloparenting is common in macaque troops.

I think Volsche’s ideas are interesting, especially in the context of our primate cousins and the way they raise their young. Orangutans are quasi-solitary, and children stick with their moms for about eight years because it takes that long for them to mature and learn how to survive in the jungle on their own.

But more social primates, like chimpanzees, Capuchin monkeys, macaques and vervet monkeys, live in groups and cooperative parenting is a major part of how they handle raising “kids” when there’s no daycare or schools.

A mother who goes out to forage, for example, might leave her baby with an aunt or a trusted female of the troop, and it’s common to see female monkeys caring for babies that aren’t theirs.

Human and proto-human hunter-gatherer societies were essentially upjumped primate troops, so it’s that ingrained behavior we’re talking about here.

Ultimately, Volsche says we’re driven by a “need to nurture.”

“Although the details may look quite different — attending training classes instead of school functions, or providing smell walks for dogs instead of coloring books for children — both practices fulfill the same evolved function,” she wrote. “Whether child or pet, people are meeting the same evolved need to care for, teach and love a sentient other.”