Buddy the Cat – Page 96 – Pain In The Bud

Announcing the 2nd Annual Buddy Portrait Contest!

Calling all cat-loving artists!

Hey, palicos! We’re pleased to announce the second annual Buddy Portrait Contest, a prime opportunity for artists around the world to show off their talents with illustrations of Buddy.

Let’s look at last year’s winners for inspiration!

3rd place:

This one’s a bit too manga for our particular tastes, but the artist deserves credit for getting Buddy’s musculature right. This sketch takes a naturalistic approach, eschewing exaggeration in favor of stark realism.

2nd place:

The judges absolutely fell in love with this pencil illustration, which renders Buddy’s hulking frame in dramatic greyscale tones. Buddy’s visage is fierce and his shaggy tail suggests virility and power. The drawing is centered by his considerable biceps and his fourteen-pack. Bravo!

1st place:

This is the Buddy we all know and love: Regal, majestic and powerful. In this awe-inspiring piece, Buddy looks toward an unseen horizon, his whiskers and tail alert and broadcasting unshakable confidence. His symmetric handsomeness is reproduced faithfully by the clearly inspired artist, and his broad shoulders are framed by jagged stripes in homage to Buddy’s heritage as a terrifying tiger. Superlatives fail us. This is the very picture of feline grace and power.

Honorable mention:

We think this is an attempt to portray Buddy as a Pokémon, shrinking him and his muscles down to a kawaii style more popular with children.

How to enter this year’s contest:

Submit a high-resolution illustration or portrait of Buddy no later than Nov. 30, 2019, with “Buddy the Handsome Cat” in the subject line. Portraits that don’t adequately capture how ripped Buddy is will be disqualified.

What Kind Of Cat Doesn’t Love KFC?

Mikey the Cat wouldn’t come down from a tree, not even for delicious extra crispy.

A few days ago the unthinkable happened.

Mikey, a tabby from California, escaped from his human’s living room and got himself stuck in a 90-foot palm tree on Sept. 25. We don’t care what kind of plump, juicy bird he was chasing, 90 feet ain’t no joke.

His dutiful human servant, Christine Lopez, tried everything she could to get the little dude to come down. She cracked open cans of the kitty crack. She waved tuna. She spoke soft words to reassure him.

She even called the local fire department, which tried to help but didn’t have a ladder long enough to get to Mikey.

Running out of options, Christine called animal control, and they suggested the ultimate weapon: KFC.

Now I don’t know about you, but Buddy would find his way down from a skyscraper to get his paws on that crispy fried goodness. It is, after all, finger lickin’ good.

Here’s where the story gets weird: Mikey didn’t go for it. He wouldn’t come down, not even for KFC! What kind of cat turns down KFC?

By that point Mikey had been in the tree for a week, and he’d attracted an audience according to the Whittier Daily News:

The neighbors’ dogs would sit in the yard, looking concerned; the neighborhood cats would sit at the base of the tree, staring and caterwauling, with Mikey responding with meows, she said.

Yep. They were probably telling Mikey they were gonna eat his tuna and his KFC if he didn’t get his butt down from the tree.

By Monday morning Mikey was still up there. Drone footage confirmed the terrified tabby was still huddled amid the fronds. Almost two weeks had passed. Mikey was meowing for help and Christine was getting desperate.

She called PETA for assistance and the group found a heroic, cat-loving order of chivalric knights who call themselves The Crane Guys of La Mirada led by Sir Miles of Burkhart.

Sir Miles reached the top of the palm and began negotiations with the terrified Mikey.

Cat In A Palm Tree — Miles Burkhart tries to reach Mikey the cat in Pico Rivera, CA, on Monday, Oct. 7. Photo credit Tracey Roman, Whittier Daily News.

Just when it seemed this ghastly ordeal would be over, Mikey jumped, activating Kitty Flight Mode, and upon landing immediately dashed under a neighbor’s porch, probably because of all the human, canine and feline onlookers milling around. Poor Mikey was embarrassed.

Thankfully, the story has a happy ending: Christine was finally able to reach Mikey when he chose a new hiding spot underneath a car. A relieved and famished Mikey tucked into a can of the good stuff and lapped up a whole bowl of water.

The little criminal has now lost his freedom.

“He’s doing life inside the house now,” Lopez told the paper. “After he decides to get paroled, he might walk on a leash.”

Brave Kitty Saves Her Human From Venomous Snake

Shelly the cat showed Mr. Snake the business end of her claws.

His Grace Buddy, King of All Cats, First of His Name, the Most Handsome and Totally Not Scared of Anything, is pleased to issue a Commendation of Bravery to Shelly, a rescue cat who saved her human from a venomous snake.

Shelly’s human, Jimmie Nelson, heard strange noises one night last week and chalked it up to Shelly burning off some energy with a late play session. Nelson went to sleep, oblivious to the danger he was in until the next day when he saw a dead copperhead under his kitchen table.

“On the side of the snake’s neck and head there were claw marks and one big slash, so we knew right then that the cat had definitely killed the snake and then brought it out a few days later to show it to her little dad,” Nelson’s daughter, Teresa Seals, told NBC affiliate WBIR in Tennessee.

D6F359FC-9ED3-46F6-9445-79747A4425B5 — Like all great cats, Shelly is a grey tabby.

Copperhead snakes are pit vipers, ambush predators that rely on hemotoxic venom to paralyze and injure their prey. They’re common in the southeastern U.S., though it’s unusual for the snakes to seek out humans or enter homes.

Copperheads don’t provide warnings before they bite and “strike almost immediately when they feel threatened,” according to LiveScience. Although their venom is not as potent as their deadlier cousins in the pit viper family, children and the elderly are particularly vulnerable. Copperhead bite victims are usually treated with antivenin and painkillers, and recovery can take months.

Nelson, who is 81 and a stroke victim, doesn’t like admitting his affection for his feline master, but Seals knows it’s just an act.

“He loves her, he doesn’t wanna act like he pays attention but I’ve caught him actually petting and loving on her,” she said.

She doesn’t think it’s an accident that Shelly ended up with her father.

“I think the Lord sent the cat to us to save my dad,” she told WBIR.

His Grace King Buddy said he’s honored to award Shelly with the King Buddy Commendation for Feline Bravery, an honor created in 2014 after His Grace defeated a vicious mosquito in single combat. The award itself is a bronze statue of Buddy striking a heroic pose at the moment of victory, paw raised after slaying the insect, muscles rippling from the effort of delivering the death blow.

Jimmie Nelson and Shelly the Cat — Shelly with her servant, Jimmie Nelson of Tennessee.

It’s Time For A Diet

Buddy’s in for a rude awakening. Do Temptations cause withdrawal?

The people who know us best instinctively know how to push our buttons. So naturally my brother knows one of the easiest ways to get me riled up is to tell me my cat is a porker.

“Buddy’s looking like he’s put on the pounds,” he’ll say casually. “How much are you feeding this cat?”

“Buddy is NOT fat!” I’ll reply indignantly. “It just looks that way because he’s meatloafing.”

“No, I’m pretty sure he’s just fat.”

Well now he may be right. Buddy isn’t exactly fat, but he’s on the wrong side of skinny and a few bags of Temptations away from being kinda chubby. Now is the time to nip this in the Bud and bring his weight back down before it, uh, balloons.

This is by far the fattest-looking photo of Buddy I could find. He’s in a super-meatloaf pose here, looking like a chonkmaster.

This photo was taken a few days later.

(Above: Buddy in super-chonk meatloaf pose, left, and Buddy in a photo taken a few days later. The way a cat sits or stands can dramatically change the way his or her body looks.)

The problem is, Buddy has mastered the art of the guilt trip.

When he’s legitimately hungry he isn’t shy about meowing for his meals, but what he does in between meals is much worse. When I head into the kitchen for a beverage or a snack, Buddy will pad right up to the doorway and stop, looking at me with his big, expectant eyes. His gaze will follow me as he sits there all hopeful.

And if I leave the kitchen without opening his treat cabinet, those big green eyes become accusatory, as if I’ve committed a profound betrayal of his trust by not giving him the ultra-processed kitty crack he loves.

It’s the complete silence that gets me. No meows, no complaints, just dead silence and those big eyes.

Buddy the Handsome Cat — “That’s a tasty looking snack you’ve got there. Where’s Buddy’s treats? You thought of Buddy, right? You would never forget about me…”

Worse yet, he’ll park himself right next to me and watch me eat a bowl of cereal or a cookie, continuing the silent act. What kind of horrible Big Buddy gets a snack for himself but not his Little Buddy?

So yeah. It’s diet time.

Buddy doesn’t know the dreaded D-word. He’s about to learn. But his diet may be harder on me than it is on him.

That Cat Allergy Vaccine Isn’t Such A Good Idea After All

The vaccine could have adverse impacts on cats and their immune systems.

Last month when news headlines trumpeted the successful testing of a cat allergy vaccine, we spun it as a victory for all cats: Finally, allergies would no longer be an excuse for humans to avoid cats, and kitties could conquer the remaining holdouts, those homes that still aren’t occupied by America’s favorite pet.

Cats will be everywhere! Huzzah!

We were wrong.

Reader Kamala Tirumalai is not only an animal lover, caretaker of a feisty guinea pig and all-around awesome person, she’s also an immunologist with a PhD in microbiology. In other words, this is her area of expertise.

So we asked Dr. Kamala about the vaccine — which would be administered to cats, not people — and she was kind enough to give it some thought and explain why she doesn’t think it’s a good idea.

How HypoCat works

First, a refresher: HypoCat, a European company, created what it calls a “virus-like particle vaccine” “to induce neutralizing antibodies against Fel d 1, the major feline allergen in human subjects.” The vaccine was intended to “bind and neutralize the Fel d 1 allergen.”

In layman’s terms, the vaccine is designed to shut off the protein that triggers allergic reactions and symptoms like itchy skin, watery eyes and sneezing in humans. Contrary to what many people believe, the offending protein doesn’t come from cat hair, it’s produced in cat saliva and dander. But because cats are fastidious groomers, the allergen is passed from saliva to fur.

Vaccine administered to cats, not humans

HypoCat stops the protein, but there’s a catch: The vaccine is administered to cats, not humans, which means instead of inoculating people from the protein’s effects, it’s changing the way Fel d 1 operates in a cat’s system.

The problem, as Kamala points out, is that “Fel d 1’s function is still unknown.”

“Yet the fact that so many cat glands secrete it all the time implies it must have some function in and for cats,” she explained. “What if that’s a function important for their health? What’ll happen then to cats vaccinated against Fel d 1? That’s currently an unknown.”

By “neutralizing” Fel d 1 — in other words, making it non-functional — HypoCat could trigger an autoimmune response in cats not unlike human autoimmune diseases in which the body’s defensive systems turn on itself.

Tinkering with an unknown

In a paper published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, the Swiss-based company’s researchers acknowledge the unknowns surrounding Fel d 1’s function, noting while “some function in pheromone binding and pelt conditioning has been suggested, the biological function of Fel d 1 remains uncertain.”

More than 50 cats from labs in New York and Ireland were used in the study. The study’s authors say they split the subjects into different groups to analyze immunogenicity (whether the vaccine produced an immune response) and tolerability, but there is no long-term data on how HypoCat might affect house cats.

Then there’s the moral and ethical aspect. HypoCat makes a potentially dangerous alteration to cats for the convenience of humans.

“A vaccine given to cats to reduce their allergenicity for humans burdens them unnecessarily when human allergy to cats is primarily a human problem and should have a human solution in the form of reducing people’s cat allergies,” Kamala wrote. “Cats are perfect as they are. Why should they be the ones forced to change in order to be accommodated by a human whose immune system happens to have a problem with one of their proteins? This solution just doesn’t pass the moral smell test.”

Researching long-term impact on cats

In addition to moral qualms, there is very little data on how the vaccine will impact cats in the long term.

“Normal vaccines target pathogens to help our bodies make immune responses that stop them in their tracks,” Kamala wrote. “Obviously this one doesn’t do that. Instead it seeks to stimulate a cat’s immune system to target one of the cat’s own proteins. The worst unintended consequence could be flagrant autoimmunity in a cat vaccinated against Fed d 1.”

HypoCat could trigger a response not unlike human autoimmune diseases, in which the body’s natural defenses are turned on itself.

The only way to know for certain is to conscript additional cats for studies.

“This solution,” Kamala wrote, “passes neither the scientific nor the moral smell test.”