Buddy the Cat – Page 86 – Pain In The Bud

Dear Buddy: Should Cats Be Concerned About Coronavirus?

Buddy puts his considerable detective skills to good use, uncovering the link between Corona virus and Corona beer.

Dear Buddy,

My humans have been stressed out lately, rubbing every surface with weird-smelling wipes and going on incessantly about something called the Coronavirus. I’m starting to get a little worried now. What is the Coronavirus, and do we cats have to worry about a disease that infects lesser animals like humans?

– Unsure In Utah

Dear Unsure,

I’d never heard of that there Coronavirus, so I did a little research. It turns out that my Big Buddy has six (!) Coronas in the refrigerator and is either unaware they carry viruses or doesn’t care.

Actually there may be more than six. I got kinda distracted when I found the cheese and helped myself to some Gouda.

So I went on the Internet, because everyone knows only true things are allowed on the Internet, and I found this:

Makers of Corona report £132,000,000 loss as a result of coronavirus

Also, the search term “Corona beer virus” is trending, so there are people who are smart like me who have also made the connection:

6C554D3A-181A-468C-8810-827A5172E214 — Searches for “Corona beer virus” and “Coronavirus beer” have spiked sharply over the past month, Google Trends shows.

I also looked at the most trustworthy source, Wikipedia, and it says Corona is a beer made in Mexico.

I’m not exactly sure whether Mexico is a city or a province of China, but I heard some humans saying Corona Virus originated in China, so I can tell you for sure that Corona Virus started with Mexican Chinese people drinking Corona.

So it is my informed and professional opinion that we felines are safe from Coronavirus as long as we do not drink Corona, and as long as our humans don’t put Corona beer in our water bowls.

Your friend,

Doctor Buddy, MD

Open The Door Right Meow And Let Me In!

OPEN THE DOOR AND LET ME INSIDE, GOOD SIR. NOW I WANT TO GO BACK OUT.

Hey! Hey, I’m talking to you, human!

Yes, you!

Open the door right meow!

Didn’t we have this discussion like 26,413 times? We don’t close doors in this house!

Ah! Thank you! Now that’s better, isn’t it? The door is open and everything is just fine!

Hold on, hold on. Let’s not be too hasty. I’m not sure I want to actually go in there. Well, give me a minute! I’m deciding. Lots to think about here.

Okay, I’ve thought about it and I don’t want to go in.

No! Don’t close the door! What are you doing?! Open it! Open the door!

OPEN IT OPEN IT OPEN IT! *scratch scratch scratch scratch*

MEEEEEOOOOWWW! Open the door! You see my little paws reaching desperately under the door?

Open the — yes, thank you! Yes, I’m sure. I’m coming in this time. What do you mean, indecisive?

Okay. So I’m in here now. Watcha doing? Is that the new issue of GQ? Not really much going on in here, is there?

I mean, you’re there, just sitting there, and I’m just supposed to sit here? Yes, I realize this is technically your litter box.

I want to go out. Open the door. No, I’m serious. Let me out. I’m not waiting 10 minutes for you to finish that article, wash your hands, maybe brush your teeth. Nope.

Thanks, amigo. Ah, it’s nice to be back out again.

Actually, not really much going on out here, is there? I mean, you’re in there. I’m out here.

Okay, I wanna come back in. Can you open the door again?

Buddy Unscathed After Tour Bus Overturned By Screaming Japanese Fans

The international feline superstar escaped unharmed, authorities confirmed.

TOKYO — Buddy was uninjured after his tour bus was besieged and overturned by a massive crowd of screaming Japanese school girls, the famous cat’s representatives said Sunday.

Buddy, who touched down Friday in Tokyo for his “Got 2 Have Turkeys” tour, was en route to a performance and album signing in Shibuya Tower Records on Saturday afternoon when his tour bus was blocked by a phalanx of paparazzi. A large crowd that had assembled outside the store gravitated toward the street, surrounding the bus and making it impossible for the vehicle to escape in reverse.

“At first it was just normal stuff: The crowd chanting for Buddy, girls throwing their bras at the windows, boys calling out for autographs,” said MC Kibble, who has been touring with Buddy as the opening act and hype cat. “But when I felt the bus lurch, I knew we were in deep litter. The shit hit the sand, so to speak, and we got jolted around pretty good when they shoved the bus onto its side.”

a1931f8ffbf241a4a7be1cea19ec6ad2 — Ai Imajo, left, Asako Imamura and Yuki Mori react after spotting Buddy surrounded by guards and handlers at Haneda International Airport in Tokyo on Friday night.

The crowd was dispersed by Tokyo Metropolitan Police as paramedics arrived and cleared the bus. One roadie suffered a fractured rib, authorities said, but most of the occupants made it out with only a few scrapes and bruises.

An ambulance took Buddy to an undisclosed hospital, where he was discharged after only an hour.

“It was just a precautionary measure,” said the celebrity cat’s human servant, Big Buddy. “We had to make sure His Grace was in top shape before he continues his tour.”

Buddy is scheduled to perform for sold-out crowds at Saitama Super Arena on Monday and Sapporo Concert Hall in Hokkaido on Tuesday before heading to Hong Kong for the next leg of the “Got 2 Have Turkeys” tour.

Best Buddies: Cat Holds Bowl So His Recovering Friend Can Eat

A recently-neutered cat gets an assist from his kitty friend.

Moofie the cat, who was just neutered, couldn’t get to his food bowl because of the Elizabethan collar which was placed around his neck to stop him from aggravating the incision.

Cat parent Brianna K. Leroux placed Moofie’s bowl on top of his cat carrier, but that caused another problem: The bowl would fall off the carrier as Moofie ate.

Moofie’s best feline buddy, Simba, came to the rescue. In the video below, you can see Simba holding Moofie’s bowl so the on-the-mend little guy can eat in peace:

This Music Calms Cats, But It Scares The Hell Out of Buddy

Our usually-brave (lol) hero didn’t take well to feline-centric tunes.

In case you didn’t know, music written specifically for cats is a thing.

I’d heard about it a while back, and the project seemed impressive: “Music for Cats” composer David Teie is a soloist with the National Symphony Orchestra, and he worked with animal behaviorists and veterinarians to come up with kitty-soothing sound textures and test the music’s efficacy on cats visiting the veterinarian.

A 2019 study in the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery concluded “Music for Cats” could help our furry friends relax and ease their stress. Keeping in mind an earlier study that suggested cats prefer “feline-centric sounds,” Teie incorporated audio of events cats associate with happy times, like kittens suckling milk from their mothers.

Using Buddy as my test subject, I went to Youtube, selected the track Cozmo’s Air from “Music for Cats” and sat back, expecting Bud to start nodding his furry head at any moment.

Instead his ears pricked up, did their radar-dish swivel toward the speakers, and his eyes went wide. As the song gained volume and intensity, Bud’s ears and whiskers snapped back and he let out a clearly anxious “yerrrrrrrrrrppp!” I tried to calm him down, to no avail, and a second track didn’t improve things.

He wasn’t having it.

scaredcat2 — This pretty much sums up Buddy’s reaction to cat music. Credit: Creative Commons

Teie’s cat music is back in the news with the release of the Kickstarter-backed Music for Cats 2, and there are quite a few imitators on Youtube hawking their own supposedly cat-soothing musical efforts. (Though your cat might think she’s in Guantanamo Bay if you subject her to six-hour videos of “cat lullabies.”)

Should I test some of the new music on Buddy to see if he responds more favorably? And for our fellow readers and cat servants, have you played any of this stuff for your cats? If you have, how’d it work out?