My style cannot be defeated! You will rue the day you failed to clean my litter box. Hah!
Welcome, young grasshopper.
For the next 10 years, these temple walls will be your home. Before you return to the realm of man and cat wearing the orange robes of a true sifu, you will learn the many styles of cat fu!
Dissatisfied With Wet Food Technique:
“You dare feed me tuna? Prepare to die!” Primarily deployed against humans, this style is effective in registering displeasure at meal time. It should be accompanied by a shrill, as-annoying-as-possible meow.
Invisible Skateboard Style:
“Tony Hawk is an amateur who cannot defeat my style!”
Stance of the Five Bladed Bitch-Slap:
“Step away from my treats!” A powerful stance to strike fear into the hearts of cats and humans alike. The extended claws signal you mean business.
Toxoplasma Gondii Technique
A true cat fu Master need not use his fists, for he is able to control and manipulate the minds of simple creatures like humans.
Whirling Tuxedo Style:
“You steal my Temptations? Prepare to die!”
Can Opener Fist of Doom:
If this technique were not so difficult to master, humans would be rendered obsolete.
Flying Strike of Wake Me Up and Feed Me Breakfast:
“You dishonor your family by sleeping until 5:59 a.m. Get out of bed and feed me breakfast, or feel the full extent of my wrath!”
Soiling Tiger Style:
“You shall rue the day you chose not to clean the litter box.”
Stop Petting Me Before I Bite You Technique:
“I enjoyed the petting and now demand that you stop, human.”
Stance of the Broken Wand Toy:
“Better get to the pet store and buy me a new one, or else…”
Inebriated Catnip Boxing Style:
“Oh man, this is good stuff. Who’s got the munchies?”
Crouching Tabby, Hidden Buddy Style:
“This is stealth, not cowardice. My enemies cannot see me because I am inside a bag!”
Lazy Claw Technique:
“We shall have our duel after I finish my nap!”
Photographs of kung fu cats taken by Hisakata Hiroyuki. Photos of lazy Buddy by me.
What do you think of them? I can’t believe it. I think they’re awful and I’m scared. I have a good home, but what if my mama died or something and no other people came to help me and I was left outside? Would this happen to me?
Headbump,
Stasi from ‘Stralia.
Dear Stasi,
This is from the third link you sent me:
“…good news, folks! You can legit be a bounty hunter in Australia. Sort of. Now before you get excited over traveling around Australia, hunting down outlaws, and slamming down bounty posters onto a sheriff’s desk in demand of payment, people are off-limits if you decide to be a bounty hunter in Australia.
No, what you’ll be hunting are – wait for it – cats. Feral cats to be specific.
The Banana Shire Council up in Queensland is offering bounties on the presentation of feral cat scalps and are willing to pay you $10 per scalp.”
Oh, what brave hunters, stalking the outback with bolt-action rifles to combat the plague of 10-pound kitties! Well, I’ll bet they’re as heroic as this guy:
It’s not hunting when there’s zero chance of failure and the animal is so accustomed to humans, it doesn’t even realize you’re trying to kill it.
So brave!
Don’t worry, Stasi. Buddy will give these Australians a piece of his mind. And if those savages don’t stop, you can come live with Buddy in New York.
His Grace, Buddy the King Dated August the 14th, 5 A.B. (Anno Buddy)
To the Foul, Ignoble Degenerates of Australia,
After enquiring about your country, having never heard of it before receiving this most unfortunate news, we have been reliably informed that “Australia” is a former penal colony for English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh riff-raff who were banished from their home countries.
Some 160,000 criminals were forcibly transported to your abominable hovel of a “country,” where the assorted scoundrels, reprobates and rapscallions engineered a vulgar approximation of civilization. Fueled by alcohol, you copulated and produced more pissants. Generations of them, which brings us to you.
We understand there are two primary reasons for this: Our collective impact on local species, and Greg, best known to humans as the Bane of Birds, the vicious white cat who snacked on an entire bird sanctuary.
Look, Greg is a dick. We freely admit that.
We told him those birds were in a sanctuary. We told him not to eat the birds. We told him to stop messing with humans. We even told him to stop hogging the Temptations.
Greg didn’t listen, and now Greg’s dead. At your hands.
We offer the opportunity for a cease fire. You got Greg. There’s no reason for you to continue hunting us with rifles and arrows like the wimps you are, terrified of getting scratched by creatures that weigh 1/20 your weight even if we are 10 times your superior.
We control rodent populations. We are furry and we like to cuddle. We are like warm, purring pillows of love and cuteness. What more could you want?
And so we extend this olive branch in the sincere hope that you take it. Recall your “hunters” or face our wrath!
Signed, His Grace, Buddy the King First of His Name, Sole Sovereign of the Fields of Turkey, Ruler of New York, Protector of the Apartmental Realm, the Most Handsome, Totally Not Scared of Anything
Run in terror at the sight of my claws, Australians!
Gather round, kids, and listen to another tale of how cats always win.
My cousin has been married to her husband, Rob, for more than 25 years, and on one of their early dates he took her to the Bronx Zoo.
These were the days before the famously large tiger enclosure was remodeled into Tiger Mountain. Nowadays a series of huge fiberglass panels separates the tigers from the visitors, meaning there’s no open air between them.
You can probably thank Rob for that.
Back then only a reinforced fence separated the Earth’s biggest cats from people who’d come to gawk at them, and Rob decided he’d get my cousin to laugh by goofing off in front of a tiger.
He started off making a few faces, and the other visitors — kids, their parents, other couples looking at the tiger — found it funny. (At least according to Rob they did.)
Encouraged, Rob stepped up his act, dancing and waving until one tiger in particular took interest.
“What are you going to do, tiger?” he taunted. “That’s right! Nothing! You can’t do anything!”
The tiger roared, and Rob roared back. The huge cat was clearly not amused by a human dancing like a clown, making stupid faces and taunting it with an insulting approximation of a roar.
So the tiger turned around.
“That’s right!” Rob said, declaring premature victory. “Walk away! You can’t do nothin’!”
Oh, but the tiger could.
The annoyed cat raised its tail, backed up a stride and let loose a projectile — “a wad” is how Rob described it — of thick, gooey urine, hitting Rob square in the face.
The tiger had impeccable aim.
“It was enough to fill that,” Rob said, pointing to a large soda bottle. “It was all over me. It was in my mouth!”
Rob staggered back and lost his footing, taking one of the young bystanders with him as he fell. The angry mother stared daggers at him as she yanked her kid away, realizing with horror that he’d suffered collateral damage from the gooey salvo.
As for the tiger, it chuffed and, having proved its point, sauntered away.
Miraculously, my cousin agreed to continue dating Rob. Not that she found the episode flattering.
“That should have been the big warning sign,” she joked.
Today they have two adult daughters. As for Rob, he’s an executive at one of the country’s largest telecommunications companies, but says he has no illusions about his level of maturity.
“The way I was back then is the way I am now,” he told me. “I’m still an idiot.”
He may be an idiot, but he’s not going to mess with any more tigers.
In honor of International Cat Day Buddy shares some of his modeling snaps and shows off his four primary looks: Ferrari, Blue Steel, Le Tigre and the famed Magnum!
On behalf of Little Buddy and myself, Big Buddy, we wish a happy and cat-tastic International Cat Day to our human and feline friends alike.
To celebrate this wonderful holiday, we’re sharing the newest images of Buddy as the face of Friskies Haute Couture.
“The look I’m best known for is Blue Steel. Le Tigre’s a lot softer, it’s a little more of a catalog look, I use it for footwear sometimes.”“What kind of Cat Day would it be without extra yums? Feed me, human!”
As any cat owner servant knows, traveling is tough.
Not only do you have to make accommodations for your feline overlord(s) — including finding a reliable cat-sitter and writing a 32-page guide to properly caring for your kitties — there’s the issue of separation anxiety on both sides.
How can I sleep without Buddy using me as a mattress and walking on my face when he wants me to get up? Quite well, actually, but that’s beside the point.
A new site, Hotels With Cats, profiles resorts, hotels, AirBnBs and other accommodations throughout the world that feature cats on-premises. It’s basically a directory of cat-lovers who run hotels, for cat-lovers who love to travel.
Ashleigh Mills, the site’s founder, says she came up with the idea on a 2017 trip to Bali. While she was spending six glorious weeks in one of the Earth’s most beautiful places, she also missed her two cats terribly.
That’s when Tiger stepped in. The friendly tabby cat belongs to the people who run Geria Giri Shanti bungalows, and he served as Ashleigh’s feline companion for the duration of her stay.
“His presence soothed me when I missed my own cats,” Ashleigh wrote. As a bonus, “I knew I was giving my business to fellow animal lovers which was a good feeling as well.”
Tiger: A cat on a permanent vacation with a rotating cast of humans to cater to his needs. Credit: Hotels With Cats
Thus far Hotels With Cats has profiled kitty-occupied hotels, lodges and seaside bungalows in Greece, France, Italy, Spain, Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia and the US of A.
“You’re telling me you’re going to relax in the sun on some pristine beach while I sit here at home waiting for the cat-sitter to come by and shovel slop into my bowl? No way, dude. I’m coming with you.”
Your own cats might not be too keen on the deal. After all, they’re left at home without their favorite humans. But sometimes it’s okay to lie to your cats, and in this case a little fib — “Oh, there were no cats where we stayed!” — could prevent furry little egos from getting bruised.
Pain In The Bud 