Buddy – Page 31 – Pain In The Bud

Buddy The Cat: Adopting A Human Was The 579th Best Thing I Ever Did!

Training your new human will take time but it’s totally worth it, Buddy says.

Sure, humans can be frustrating. They’re loud, lumbering beasts and they look funny with their bizarre two-legged gait, always teetering around as if they could fall on their weird, furless faces any second.

They’re woefully incompetent when it comes to reading whisker and tail, their noses are dead and they stubbornly refuse to learn the simple language of territorial marking. Even kittens can do that!

Because they’re not very smart and their senses are laughably blunted, we felines have to do most of the hard work and communicate with humans the only way they know how: by making otherworldly warbling noises with their mouths and vocal cords.

It’s a ridiculous way to communicate and you’ll feel like a fool, but unfortunately it’s the only way to get them to respond to demands and directions. Just go with it.

Humans are convinced these arbitrary sounds have deep meaning, so it helps if you vary your tone and inflect some emotion into your warbling. You’ll know you’ve been successful when they stop to ponder your meaning, trying to work out in their slow, limited minds what you’re trying to communicate. It doesn’t even matter what you “say,” really. They’ll decide it means something.

Despite the limitations of these simple creatures, many of them can be gentle giants and they’re easily manipulated. Roll onto your back, pull your paws up beneath your chin, fix them with a wide-eyed stare and squeak out a little “mew, mew!” then watch their hearts melt. They’ll serve you food in no time!

There’s no doubt about it, adopting a human has been the 579th greatest decision I’ve made in my life!

When you adopt your human, don’t expect them to transform into your butler, maid and personal chef overnight. It takes time and lots of repetition to properly train them.

But once you do, there’s nothing like the life of a house cat! Your meals are served with the precision of Swiss trains, because your humans will know there’s hell to pay if they’re late. You’ll be nice and cozy in the winters and comfortably cool in the summers. Your territory will be well protected with strong, human-built barriers preventing strange felines and interlopers of various mammalian forms from intruding. You’ll have your pick of comfortable napping spots, and if you properly train your human, you’ll have a nice, soft, secure lap spot where body heat is abundant and service is never more than a meow away, because your human can’t go anywhere while you’re sleeping on them.

In fact they’ll postpone the call of nature, allow their limbs to go numb and endure uncomfortable positions just to avoid disturbing you! LOL! I like to sit on my human’s chest as close as possible to his face so his nose is buried in the fur on my flank, then see how long it takes for him to choose breathing over my comfort. LOL!

However I must warn you, my friends, about one disturbing human tendency that can pose a problem. As a species they are hopelessly addicted to glowing rectangles of varying sizes — some small enough to fit into the pads of their furless paws, and some big enough to dominate the family nap room. They just stare at the big ones, but with the small rectangles they can sit there for hours poking at them. They just poke, poke, poke with their paws, sometimes making weird expressions with their faces, sometimes giving off interesting pheromones.

If your human is susceptible to falling into the glowing rectangle trance, you’ll have to develop strategies to break them out of it. And don’t make the mistake of stealing the little glowing rectangles. I tried that once and my human stopped all other activity to look for it, becoming increasingly frantic. My dinner was late, my nap was interrupted as my human flipped over couch pillows and looked under furniture. It was a disaster.

In my next column, we’ll talk about caring for your human, the importance of regularly grooming them, and your responsibility to supervise their bowel movements. Humans are high-maintenance pets and they get clingy if you don’t give them enough attention.

But in the meantime, I hope I’ve convinced you that adopting a human is a major net positive!

Cats May Negatively Impact Your Sleep, But There’s Nothing You Can Do About It, Human!

Who are we to deny our feline masters their chosen sleeping spots?

Newsweek has a new interview with a veterinarian who warns that allowing your cats on your bed could be bad for sleep, but admits her own miniature pride rules the bed and often crowds her halfway off the mattress.

The main takeaway is that allowing your feline overlords on your bed can have positives and negatives, but good luck trying to do anything about it.

Of course no one quoted in the story says that outright, but the solutions they offer are limited to getting an air filter, washing your sheets more often, trying to train your cat to stay in one spot on the bed (lol), and keeping kittens off the bed from the very beginning, which is a diplomatic way of admitting if your cat is an adult, you’ve got no say in the matter.

I’ve often said that when I brought Buddy home I was prepared for a skittish cat who might dive under the bed and not emerge for days or weeks except to eat. That’s what many of the guides for first-time kitten adopters said, anyway.

But Bud defied expectations and came striding out of his carrier like a furry little Genghis Khan who just started conquering shit.

“Ooh, nice chair. Mine! I like this desk, this’ll make a nice napping spot. Mine! What’s this? You sleep here? Not anymore. Mine! Well, okay, you can sleep here too I guess…”

I realized immediately I was not going to be able to keep him off the bed, and I was already feeling awful that I’d just taken him from his mom and brought him to a strange new place, so there was no chance I was going to lock him out of my bedroom even if he did wage a nightly war on my feet and ricochet around the bedroom, gleefully cackling in the dark after successfully startling me out of sleep.

It’s fair to say I wondered what the hell I’d gotten myself into in those first few weeks, especially when he began coming up with more diabolic ways of torturing me. Those torture methods culminated with The High Jump, in which Bud climbed to the highest possible perch in my bedroom, then leaped in a kamikaze attack, landing square on my stomach so I was violently torn from my dreams and folded up like a suitcase all at once.

I remember my heart pounding as my little lunatic kitten vanished back into the shadows, trilling with delight and waiting for my breathing to slow again before launching another attack.

It went like that for weeks, maybe more, and I lost a lot of sleep but eventually his schedule synced with mine, I learned to tire him out with late night play time, and our nights became peaceful. Buddy began draping himself over me or burrowing into my side, which he still does all these years later.

If the sole measurement is quality of sleep, who can say what the final balance is? How do you measure the penalty of perhaps waking up more frequently, but falling asleep faster? Can you quantify the benefit of falling asleep to the soothing buzz of a cat purring next to you?

YMMV, but for me Bud is a calming presence. Or has been, since he stopped finding it amusing to attack me all night. There’s also a final benefit that has nothing to do with sleep quality: Letting your feline friend snooze with you helps strengthen your bond, and solidifies their status as a true member of the family.

Now if you’ll excuse me, Bud wants to nap and needs his human mattress…

Buddy Commissions Absurd Portrait Of Himself With His Human

Little Buddy the Cat told the artist to take “a small amount of artistic license.”

NEW YORK — Big Buddy returned home on Tuesday to find the living room wall adorned with a huge framed portrait depicting a man resembling a viking alongside a massive tiger.

“Buuuuuud!” Big Buddy yelled. “What the hell is this?”

Little Buddy popped up from his spot on the couch, then stretched and yawned.

“Oh that? I had another portrait of us commissioned, you like?”

Big Buddy glowered.

“No, I do not like! You are not a tiger and I am not…a viking warlord or whatever the hell that’s supposed to be.”

Little Buddy casually scratched the couch and shrugged.

“I may have asked the artist to take a small amount of artistic license,” he said, “but I think it’s pretty accurate for the most part.”

Big Buddy sighed.

“Take it down,” he said. “It’s absurd.”

Little Buddy cackled.

“But you haven’t even seen the other one yet!”

“The Buddies II,” painted by feline artist Meowster Hans Holbein. In a very slight exaggeration, Little Buddy the Cat is portrayed as a tiger while Big Buddy the Human is a viking warlord

Update: This is now a conspiracy! Reader M’s cat, Ramses, has commissioned a similar portrait of human and feline:

Buddy Blasts Yankees, Blames Poor Season On Reduction In Snack Allotment

A shockingly poor season from the Yankees has led to a reduction in celebratory treat-sharing, leaving poor Buddy in danger of starving!

NEW YORK — Buddy the Cat took aim at the New York Yankees on Sunday, blaming the team’s players and front office for a noticeable drop-off in celebratory treat dispensing as the team has struggled.

“Reprehensible” is how the gray tabby described the 2023 campaign by baseball’s most storied franchise, baring his teeth in disgust at the bitterly disappointing performance of the club.

“Last season Aaron Judge hit 62 home runs, which was a record both for the American League and the Yankees and more importantly occasioned the dispensing of celebratory treats for me every time the ball landed beyond the outfield wall. But this year? Judge was injured for half the season, the rest of these guys couldn’t hit a ball off a tee and I am unacceptably bereft of frequent yums.”

Buddy told reporters his patience was exhausted before the All Star break as the team wallowed in mediocrity, but things really took a turn for the worse in recent weeks when the Yankees dropped nine consecutive series and often failed to muster a single run.

“These bums have had games where they go 2 for 31 with 17 strikeouts!” the exasperated feline meowed. “They’re facing back of the rotation guys and striking out like pick-up artists at a bar! How’s a cat supposed to snack in these conditions?!”

Yankees cat — Another poor feline deprived of yums due to the Yankees’ poor play.

As the season spiraled out of control the Yankees found themselves as many as six games below .500, endangering a streak of more than 30 consecutive winning seasons and, more importantly, starving poor Buddy.

The result of their futility, he explained, was a disgruntled human who had far fewer occasions to celebrate and share his excitement by fetching snacks from the treat cabinet.

The futility of the Yankees has been especially difficult for Buddy as he watches cats whose humans are fans of the Atlanta Braves “feast like vikings in Valhalla.”

“I got so desperate, I started to sound like [Yankees manager] Aaron Boone,” Buddy admitted. “[Yankees designated hitter Giancarlo] Stanton would whiff on a slider two feet off the plate and I’d say ‘Well that was a pretty solid at bat, pal, what do you say we break out the crunchies?’ But he just looked at me with disgust.”

The feline, known for his various schemes to obtain more food, said he’s been trying to get his human interested in other sports in a desperate bid to earn more snacks.

“There’s that guy down in Miami, Messy something, in that sport where they kick a ball around,” he said. “Why can’t Big Buddy get into that? Those guys win a lot.”

With the baseball season in its last weeks and a playoff berth looking extremely unlikely, Buddy said he’s got even more riding on the upcoming New York Knicks season.

“Jalen Brunson has been a wonder for exceeeding my snack quota,” he told reporters. “Every time he hits a clutch three, chewy and crunchy treats rain down from the sky. When the Knicks won their first round playoff series, snacks flowed like a river! I need that team to be even better this year, otherwise I’m going to be skin and bones.”

Cat On The Street: Should Humans Worship Felines As They Did In Ancient Egypt?

We asked six cats what they think about the possibility of humanity worshiping their species again.

It’s said that the people of ancient Egypt venerated cats as deities and treated them with the utmost respect in addition to pampering them, granting them access to pharaonic palaces and feeding them from the pharaoh’s own kitchens.

Cats have not forgotten their elevated status in ancient Egypt, even thousands of years later, and they yearn for a return to the days when they were served with veneration rather than simply being served.