There are cat dads, and then there are catdads.
This former stray clearly has paternal instincts. He found an abandoned kitten and, remembering his own rough life on the street not so long ago, brought the little guy home to his human like “Can we keep him?!?”
The white cat’s human agreed to let him adopt the hungry baby, and now he’s a full time dad:
Plus: The Cat Fancier’s Association holds a cat-and-owner costume contest.
When volunteers in Elkhart, Indiana, went to trap a mom and her kittens near an industrial site, one of the babies panicked and ran straight into a hole, taking a tumble into a drainage pipe beneath.
The rescuers from a non-profit TNR group called Catsnip didn’t give up on the four-week-old baby even after finding her proved to be much more difficult than they imagined. They called off the search in Elkhart — about 160 miles north of Indianapolis — the first night when it was too dark to keep working. They dropped food for the scared fluffball, whom they could hear but still could not locate in the dark, tight subterranean space.
The next morning they were back at it, trying to literally flush the kitten out before a volunteer named Ashley descended via a manhole 75 feet from the spot where the kitten had fallen in.
The entire saga took about 48 hours and hinged on Ashley who, because of her small size, was able to squeeze into a pipe and crawl 30 feet to the terrified baby cat — then had to crawl out backwards the way she came while cradling the little one.
It was worth it for the volunteers, who named the kitten Piper in honor of her adventure, gave her fluids and formula from a dropper, then reunited her with her mom. Read about the whole encounter at The Dodo. (And serious props to Ashley! Just thinking about what she had to do makes me shudder. Cats may love tight spaces, but most humans do not.)
As gamers who generally prefer more depth, the Buddies never got on the Fortnite bandwagon, so we weren’t aware that Fortnite has a character named Meowscles until encountering this article from Cracked.
As you can see, Meowscles was clearly inspired by Bud, who is known for his incredibly ripped physique and totally isn’t a bit chubby. (“That’s all muscle, not fat!” Buddy insists.)
Fortnite is a battle royale-style game in which up to 100 players compete against each other in live matches. The game is free-to-play, with developer Epic Games making its money by selling cosmetic items as microtransactions. Meowscles is one of about 1,400 different “outfits” players can purchase to customize their characters.
The game has been a monumental success for Epic, earning billions and leading the company to launch the Epic Games Store, the first serious competitor to Steam, which has been the dominant platform for PC gamers for years. Epic has been so flush with cash that’s it’s been giving away free games every week to lure customers away from Steam, even upping the freebies to a new game every day during the holidays.
In Massachusetts, the Cat Fancier’s Association held its ninth annual cat and owner costume contest on Sunday. Unfortunately, the only story we can find about the event comes from the local public radio affiliate, so there’s not much in terms of photos.
If you were going to enter such a contest with your cat, what costumes would you and your fluffy overlord wear?
I’m thinking maybe I’d be a Targaryen with Bud as a baby dragon perched on my shoulder in honor of Game of Thrones/House of the Dragon. But that might offend little dude, who tends to think of himself as a hulking tiger. Perhaps the easier and more realistic “costume” would be Bud dressed as a king, snug in his own little carrier designed to look like a royal palanquin, with me carrying the palanquin as his dutiful servant. Thus, art imitates life.
Boka is one of about 10,000 cats who prowl New York’s delicatessens, keeping them free of rodents.
A beloved bodega cat is back where he belongs a week after a thief snatched him from the store.
The cat, Boka, is actually a kitten. Majeed Albahri, owner of Green Olives Deli in Brooklyn, adopted the little guy in January and in seven months the all-gray feline has become a familiar face in the neighborhood, where people are used to seeing him sitting on Albahri’s shoulder as he works the register, or napping on the nearest convenient pile of newspapers.
Boka “brings life to the store,” Albahri said, noting people stop by just to give Boka a head scratch.
But on July 29 a guy “skulking around” outside the store took a liking to the neighborhood mascot and swooped him up. Albahri didn’t know what happened until he checked the store’s surveillance feeds and saw the thief in action.
Boka’s abduction mobilized an entire neighborhood, generated headlines in the New York papers, segments on local TV news and posts on neighborhood blogs. The thief must have felt the heat, because he contacted the deli through an intermediary and returned Boka to Albahri safe and sound.
On Aug. 5, exactly a week since Park Slope’s favorite feline was filched, Albahri posted online to share the good news.
“Best news I’ve heard all week,” one neighbor wrote, while another one posted: “Yes Boka! We missed you!”
Others urged Albahri to invest in some AirTags, the Apple-made locators that were designed for keys, phones and other easy-to-lose items, but have been repurposed by some as pet trackers.
For those unfamiliar with city life, particularly in New York, bodegas (Spanish for wine cellar or warehouse) are corner stores that stock grocery staples, snacks, and usually some sort of combination deli/salad bar. They also sell everything you’d find in a convenience store, from newspapers, magazines and gum to cigarettes and cigars.
Because there are very few grocery stores in New York, and because suburban-style grocery shopping isn’t an option for millions of people who don’t own cars, bodegas are essential in neighborhoods that would otherwise be “food deserts.” (Some sociologists consider such neighborhoods food deserts anyway, especially if the local stores don’t offer fresh produce, dairy and meat. Most bodegas do.)
Bodega cats occupy a legally precarious but widely loved position in the fabric of New York. They’re pets, but they also have primal jobs that call back to the original reason humans and felines began their partnership thousands of years ago: rodent control.
Technically they’re illegal according to the city’s Department of Health, but the New York Times estimates there are more than 10,000 bodega cats across all five boroughs. In a city that produces viral videos of rats dragging full slices of pizza down subway stairs, and rodents run rampant at night, bodega owners are faced with two choices: Accept the rodents and pay a fine, or get a cat and pay a fine, but have their stores free of rodents.
With the fines for rodent infestations and cats both around $300, bodega proprietors say the choice is easy, and cats have become ubiquitous. New Yorkers have created petitions to get the Department of Health to relax the rules on bodega cats, with no luck so far.
This kitten looks very familiar…
I was digging through some old files when I found these photos of a young Buddy the Cat:
These were taken in my brother’s apartment on the Upper East Side. It was early summer, so Buddy was probably about four months old, give or take.
He spent almost the entire day in the yard where he made friends with Cosmo the Dog and had lots of fun chasing insects, running around and rolling in the grass. He made friends with every human there, of course. Then when he was tired out from all that playing, he had a super special treat: Steak from the BBQ.
I’d love to bring the little guy to more social events and barbecues, but alas, almost all of them involve dogs who are not Cosmo, and I’m not sure how Bud would do with three or four dogs running around, let alone 20+ people. Smaller gatherings sans pups are a better bet.
The sanctuary’s expansion will allow staff to care for FeLV-infected cats who are highly contagious and cannot be housed with the other kitties.
In 2015, a Good Samaritan found a tiny kitten abandoned in the snow and brought her to Tabby’s Place.
Staff at the Ringoes, New Jersey-based sanctuary nursed her back to health, but tests confirmed the little one had Feline leukemia virus (FeLV). While they set up a makeshift isolation ward (FeLV is highly contagious), a woman came by and told the staff she wanted to adopt a cat no one else wanted.
She chose the FeLV+ kitten, who was dubbed Quinn, even though she knew they might only have a few months or perhaps a year or two together.
Seven years later and despite the odds, Quinn is still with her human mom. The latter decided she wanted to thank Tabby’s Place with a $3.5 million donation to help FeLV+ cats like Quinn. With the hefty donation and the support of many other donors, the sanctuary is closing in on the $5.5 million to cover the construction of Quinn’s Corner, a first-of-its-kind center for treating cats infected with FeLV.
“These little ones are really the ‘final frontier’ in terms of cats who have nowhere to turn,” Tabby’s Place Development Director Angela Hartley told PITB, “and we’re thrilled to finally be in a position to welcome them at Tabby’s Place.”
Staff at Tabby’s Place see Quinn’s Corner as a major step forward in caring for kitties who normally don’t have a chance. Because they don’t have the facilities, know-how or resources to treat FeLV+ cats, many shelters simply euthanize them.
In the initial announcement, the sanctuary described Quinn’s Corner as a place where “cats who wandered the world looking for love will find cage-free bliss, matchless medical care, and the dignity and tenderness that every Tabby’s Place cat enjoys.”
The construction crew broke ground about a year ago and, if factors like supply chain issues for construction materials and the weather cooperate, the staff at Tabby’s Place hope to celebrate with a grand opening in autumn.
Because of how contagious and deadly FeLV is — it can pass by grooming, sharing food and water bowls, and close contact — infected cats must be kept apart from the other feline residents. Quinn’s Corner will have its own entrance and lobby, individual suites and a large communal room for FeLV cats, and “solaria,” which are like fancy catios for the ailing furballs to get fresh air and enjoy chirping at birds.
Separately, the project will add a nursery and adoption suite for kittens and an “operations center” where staff can attend to all the behind-the-scenes work of caring for felines, including laundry and food prep.
Tabby’s Place will match donations until they reach the $2 million goal to supplement the initial donation of $3.5 million, but cat lovers can continue to donate at any time, Hartley said.
All construction photos and renderings provided by Tabby’s Place. Top photo credit Asish Aji/Pexels.
Pain In The Bud 