Cats don’t accept blame, George Carlin once observed. Even when you catch them red-handed.
A few nights ago I was watching the Yankees lose when Buddy jumped on the coffee table, settled into a loaf position and started doing what he does best — knocking things onto the floor.
Usually it’s remote controls, water bottles, my phone. Usually he has the good sense not to knock over glasses with liquid in them, or plates of food. But not always.
Bud turned, looked me in the eye, meowed and proceeded to swipe a tub of wasabi peas (just the like one pictured above) off the table. The package hit the ground and popped open, spilling the peas and their powdered wasabi coating all over the floor.
“They came down in a big spaceship, and they said ‘Buddy, we’re gonna spill your human’s snacks and then blame it on you!’ And I said ‘No, aliens! Not on my watch!’ But they distracted me with turkey…”
Bud looked at me, trilled, then took off, perhaps put off by the scent of the wasabi.
A few seconds later he returned as I was sweeping them up, trilled again, and looked at me like “What happened, dude? Someone knocked over your wasabi peas? That’s terrible!”
If he could speak — you know, besides his incessant trilling and meowing — the conversation would probably go something like this:
“It was you! You did it!”
“No I didn’t.”
“I watched you do it! You made eye contact with me as you casually slapped them off the coffee table!”
“You’re mistaken. Perhaps it was another cat who looks like me.”
“You’re the only cat who lives here!”
“Then it was a chalupacabra.”
“You mean a chupacabra? Those don’t actually exist, you know. Have you ever heard of Occam’s Razor?”
“Aliens, then. Yeah. Probably aliens. I keep trying to tell you, aliens are responsible for those hairballs. Remember the time you found puke in the bed? That was aliens too. I told them ‘Be gone, aliens! You’re not welcome here!’ but they just can’t help themselves….”
As George Carlin said, “Cats don’t accept blame.” Even when they do things right in front of you, apparently.
I was digging through some old files when I found these photos of a young Buddy the Cat:
What a dapper fellow!“Hey, where’s that steak you promised?”
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 apex predator of the household failed to wake up when a mouse invaded his territory, but totally would have taken care of it had he been awake, obviously.
NEW YORK — Buddy the Cat didn’t even lift a paw when a mouse invaded his domicile on Tuesday.
The gray tabby cat, who often brags of his “huge meowscles” and martial prowess, did not stir from his nap and remained asleep for the duration of the encounter, witnesses said.
“He was completely, utterly useless,” his human, Big Buddy, said. “Aren’t cats supposed to be the bane of rodents? Don’t they have super sensitive hearing that can home in on the high frequency squeaks of mice?”
Buddy, who only stirred after the mouse was removed from the premises, stood up and yawned, then asked what all the commotion was about.
“Oh,” he said. “Well that mouse was really lucky I was napping, otherwise I’d do something totally badass.”
As of press time, human concern was centered on acquiring mouse traps at the store, but Buddy insisted that wouldn’t be necessary.
“I will roar and the mouses won’t come near here again,” he said, bellowing in his Elmo-like voice. “There. Problem solved.”
Update: In honor of Buddy’s glorious and momentous victory, we’ve created the following artwork:
Most tomcats aren’t interested in their offspring, but some are excellent and devoted fathers. This little guy has apparently fallen in love with his kiddos.
A cat has been hailed as a better father than many humans after his people uploaded a video of the proud father holding paws with his “baby mama” while she nurses their kittens.
Momma cat went into labor and the chivalrous tomcat “was with her the whole way,” user Anaya wrote in the caption. The short video pans over the top of a cardboard box where the happy couple lounge protectively around their babies.
“That’s very sweet, assuming of course you’re the type of male cat who wants to settle down and raise a family,” he said. “But some of us are so popular with the ladies that it would be a crime to remove ourselves from the field, so to speak. Did you know my tour bus was once overturned by thousands of screaming school girls in Japan? Yeah. I mean, no big deal.”
It’s been confirmed Buddy does not know he’s neutered. When his human tried to carefully broach the subject, the silver tabby declared it “fake news” before checking his toy basket to confirm that he does indeed still possess all of his balls.
“You can’t fool me,” Buddy said afterward. “When it’s time to settle down and I find the right kitty, we’ll make lots of beautiful kittens and grant awesome names to my issue, at which time I’ll name a successor. You know I’m an earl in the UK, don’t you? Yeah. Queen Elizabeth herself created my peerage. No big deal.”
Above: Buddy says it would be unfair to female cats across the world if he were to settle down and take himself off the dating market.
Snowball is the first animal known to dance to the rhythm of music, while Ruby is, well, Ruby.
We take a break from our regularly-scheduled cats to check in on two remarkable birds: Snowball the incredible dancing cockatoo, and Ruby the infamously foul-mouthed African grey parrot.
Both animals have been the subject of viral videos, but haven’t become ubiquitous memes or the sort of superstar that transcends certain corners of the internet.
Snowball is clearly the more wholesome of the two, and it’s immediately apparent why: He dances.
Actually, that’s underselling it. Snowball doesn’t just dance, he feels the beat and moves with it, timing his dance moves — headbangs, foot-wiggles, side-steps and more — to the music, often the snare like people do. Snowball isn’t the first animal to move to music, but he’s the first animal to groove to music, which is an important distinction.
“His owner had realized that he couldn’t care for the sulfur-crested cockatoo any longer. So in August 2007, he dropped Snowball off at the Bird Lovers Only rescue center in Dyer, Indiana—along with a Backstreet Boys CD, and a tip that the bird loved to dance. Sure enough, when the center’s director, Irena Schulz, played “Everybody,” Snowball “immediately broke out into his headbanging, bad-boy dance,” she recalls. She took a grainy video, uploaded it to YouTube, and sent a link to some bird-enthusiast friends. Within a month, Snowball became a celebrity. When a Tonight Show producer called to arrange an interview, Schulz thought it was a prank.”
Other animals are prompted to motion by music, but they don’t time their motions to the beat. Snowball’s talents have attracted curious neuroscientists, who believe Snowball is able to coordinate his body movements with the rhythm because, like humans, he can process language.
It might seem a little odd that such an ability seems to hinge on language until you realize that language itself is rhythmic, ordered sound, and that human communication often pairs speech with coordinated movements. (Think of people who “talk” with their hands, TV presenters who move their heads for emphasis or the simple act of nodding, shaking your head or shrugging to punctuate a point.)
Scientists study Snowball because he’s inherently fascinating, but also because he can help us understand how birds and humans communicate, and how homo sapiens and certain avian species, out of all the animals on Earth, developed this skill.
Ruby the Foul-Mouthed African Grey Parrot
Ruby is a different case entirely. She’s interesting to internet audiences because she’s hilarious, and if she holds academic appeal, it’s because of the way she’s been socialized and the things she’s learned.
Ruby, one of Youtube’s earliest viral stars, lives with her human, Nick Chapman, in Brighton, UK.
First thing’s first: If you’re put off by obscenities or you’re easily offended, you should take a pass on these videos.
For everyone else, well, it’s not just that Ruby swears. That sort of novelty would wear off quick. What makes Ruby unique — and consistently hilarious — is that she’s inventively obscene, working insults into unique combinations. And, as you’ll see, she swears in French as well as heavily-accented UK English. It’s the latter that often makes for her most amusing outbursts.
“I love you,” Ruby tells Chapman in one video.
“Well that’s a nice change, sweetheart!” Chapman says.
“Bollocks.” Ruby takes a half step to her right on the small platform in front of her cage, turning her head toward Chapman. “You fat bastard!”
Chapman laughs. “I knew that wouldn’t last.”
Ruby’s foul language is unmistakably British and as casually vicious as it gets. She hurls invective at the seagulls who are a constant presence in seaside Brighton and expresses her love for Chapman by insulting him.
“Fuck off, you tw-t!” the bird says, prompting laughter from Chapman.
“Oh dear,” Chapman says. “That’s not nice!”
“Eh,” Ruby says. “Tw-t! You’re not funny.”
“I know I’m not funny. I’m immature, I’m irresponsible. But so what?”
In another video, Chapman tries to engage Ruby by telling her he loves her in French.
Ruby sits motionless for a few long seconds, then utters a single syllable with expert comedic timing: “Tw-t!”
Chapman does a deep belly laugh.
“Shut up, c–t!’ Ruby says. “You f—er!’
“Oh dear,” Chapman says between laughs. “You’re shocking, you know that?”
One thing becomes abundantly clear over the course of just a few videos: Chapman loves Ruby and, despite the constant verbal abuse she directs toward him, she loves Chapman too.
For a man who owns a bird who loves foul language, you’d think Chapman would have a dirty mouth, but for the most part he doesn’t. It’s often impossible to predict what a parrot will pick up on.
Ruby is quick to pick up on new words, and Chapman thinks she likes the harsh sounds of some of the language’s most offensive insults. (Perhaps it’s no mistake that many of the most vulgar words in English have a guttural quality, reflecting their meaning.)
Long before Ruby became a Youtube star, Chapman said he realized the potential for awkwardness. One day he was strolling along the waterfront in Brighton when an older woman stopped to chat and asked about Ruby.
“She’s beautiful,” the woman said, admiring the African grey.
“Shut your c–t!” Ruby snapped back.
The shocked woman looked at Chapman, who pretended he hadn’t heard what his bird said.
The issue of whether parrots understand what they’re saying still hasn’t been settled. Like some other animals — cats and dogs among them — they can understand words in their contextual meanings, though it’s very unlikely a swearing parrot knows precisely what it’s doing.
Then again, to insist parrots are just repeating sounds would be to discount examples like the late Alex, an African grey who could count, distinguish between different items by color and shape, and allegedly innovate to some extent.
Then there’s this video of a parrot telling a cat to “shut the f— up” as the cat meows. It makes me wonder, if I had a parrot, what the bird would pick up from my conversations with Buddy. There’d be a lot of “Hi, Bud!” and “What a good boy!”, and the vast majority of it would be kind, patient and loving, but I won’t pretend there aren’t times when I’ve told him I can’t take any more of his hours-long discourses on teleportation, turkey or unifying classical and quantum physics.
That said, I wouldn’t change a thing about Buddy. He’s my Buddy.
Pain In The Bud 