Looking to recuperate after a long morning of eating and lounging in the suddenly warm weather, the little guy settled down for some shut-eye.
What’s better than a Sunday afternoon nap?
It’s been a glorious day here in Buddyland! The forecast had us breaking the 50-degree mark for the first time in at least four months, so imagine our surprise when the temperature topped out in the low 60s!
Bud decided to celebrate the balmy weather by stretching out and drifting off for a nice nap, and I couldn’t resist taking a few photos of my pal looking relaxed after a hard day of eating and lounging.
To be fair, I was out earlier and when I came home, Bud was right by the door to greet me as always, so he probably had a very demanding nap in the proximity of the front door while I was gone, then opted for a more relaxed nap after expending all that energy on his earlier nap. I had also topped off his dry food before his lunch, in case he got hungry while he was eating.
The reaction says volumes about our society’s sense of proportionality, our collective understanding of animals, and our ability to politely disagree on topics we feel strongly about.
This hasn’t been a great week for feline PR.
Not only did two celebrities come out with bizarrely forceful anti-cat sentiments, but from their statements, they both “hate” cats because they’ve misinterpreted feline behavior.
The fallout hasn’t been good either, for the actress and rapper involved, or for the more extreme animal lovers who have responded with disproportionate rage.
The first comes from rapper Docheii, who insists cats “genuinely aren’t friendly animals.”
“yall be scratched and beat tf up by your own animals I can’t lmaoooo,” the towering intellect from Florida wrote on social media.
Cats, she asserted, “don’t wanna be domesticated.”
Presumably she got that information from the Pew Center for Feline Public Opinion, and the rest of us simply aren’t privy to the latest opinion polls among cats. And here I thought our furry friends were mostly ambivalent about anything that doesn’t involve napping, playing and eating. (I took an informal poll of Bud. He responded with a simple “Fetch me a snack, will you, human?”)
A promo shot of Doechii, real name Jaylah Ji’mya Hickmon
Regardless, even if there was some way to ascertain how cats feel about a process their ancestors initiated — one that takes thousands of years to result in speciation — it’s irrelevant. The decision was made 10,000 years ago when The First Kitteh was drawn to a human settlement by the promise of rodential prey in abundance.
Modern cats have no more say in the matter than we have in our ancestors slaughtering dodos. It happened. We can’t change the past.
The actress vs the ‘pedigree bitch’
The second bit of anti-feline sentiment comes from Jessie Buckley, an Irish actress who is weirdly proud of forcing her husband to ditch his two pet cats when they began dating. She talks as if she’s been waging a personal war against the species, and her reason for disliking felines also indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of their behavior.
Buckley’s comments were made on a podcast late in 2025, but resurfaced this week and went viral as her Oscar buzz reached its peak. On the podcast, Buckley said one of her husband’s cats was a “pedigree model bitch” who was orchestrating a “coup” against her.
She thinks the cat had it out for her: “I’d come home and there’d just be, like, poo on my pillow.”
This is actually sad, because people who really know cats, who understand why they behave certain ways, will immediately understand that they don’t have accidents out of spite. If the cat was eliminating outside her litter box, there was a legitimate underlying problem causing her a great deal of stress.
She could have been injured, she could have been sick, or she could have been plagued by the cumulative stress brought on by the presence of a hostile woman who ludicrously saw her as competition. Our furry friends are much more perceptive than generally realized, especially when it comes to our emotional states, and Buckley’s hostility would have been immediately apparent.
Buckley with co-star Paul Mezcal, who was equally enthusiastic in his intense dislike of felines, telling an interviewer: “Yeah, f— cats!”
Alas, Buckley didn’t reluctantly ask her then-boyfriend to give up his cats. She demanded it, then did a victory lap when he complied, which makes me suspect she was merely taking the whip out for a test drive before further commitment. If he’s willing to abandon two pets, he’s almost certainly going to be a pushover when she begins to prune his friends from his life, starts dressing him the way she likes, maybe even monitors his phone. *shudder*
“It’s me or the cats,” Buckley said she told her husband. “But I won!”
Congratulations, I guess?
The rage of cat lovers
As ludicrous as it seems, the backlash may cost Buckley an Oscar. Personally I don’t keep up with the approximately 200 awards ceremonies actors hold to fete themselves annually, but apparently Buckley turned in a solid performance in a movie called Hamnet.
She was considered the front-runner for an Academy Award. Now critics are openly wondering about her chances.
As always, these sorts of statements reveal a lot more about the people involved than they do about cats. I just wish people understood the species a little better, so maybe attitudes won’t default to anger or hostility if, say, a scared cat scratches a person who corners her, or a kitty with a stomach bug pukes on the carpet.
When a toddler gets sick, we don’t respond by yelling at the kid, blaming him and chasing him off. We make sure he’s okay, give him some medicine or take him to the doctor, and clean up the mess. Cats are essentially furry little toddlers, with the same innocence as children. When we adopt them, we agree to care for them.
Both Buckley and Docheii have been hammered on social media since their comments went viral, and it’s important to address that too. They expressed opinions. That doesn’t make them “pieces of s—,” “worthless human beings,” “scum” or any of the other nasty things some people have been saying.
We can disagree with them without overreacting, even in the age of dehumanizing online conversation.
Maintain yourselves!
And honestly, it makes all of us look bad. The day Walter Palmer returned to work is forever seared into my mind. Palmer was the American dentist who infamously and illegally lured Cecil the lion out of a protected area and killed him to take his head as a trophy in 2015.
Worse, Palmer — who had a history of getting in trouble for breaking the law while hunting — killed Cecil with a bow and arrow in order to claim some meaningless hunting record for himself and bungled the point-blank kill shot his guides had lined up for him. Cecil, who was an iconic lion with a distinct mane, suffered for hours before he died.
People were understandably angry, and protesters showed up outside Palmer’s office the day he returned to work. Most of them behaved themselves. But as Palmer made his way toward the front door of his dental practice, one of the protesters let loose a blood-curdling scream and shouted “WAAAAALTER PAAAAALMER!“, vowing vengeance for Cecil.
Palmer returning to work while media and protesters crowd him.
That moment of unhinged, unregulated rage overshadowed the good intentions of every person who registered their displeasure calmly and politely — and provided ample ammunition to those who enjoy painting all animal lovers as lunatics.
Buckley and Doechii expressed opinions we don’t like, and that’s their right. The best thing we can do is explain why they’ve misinterpreted feline behavior, and show them that cats really are loving, friendly animals — it just takes a little patience and trust. I say that as the faithful servant of a cat who can be particularly prickly and a complete lovebug, depending on the circumstance.
In the meantime, celebrities who hate cats should probably take a pass on broadcasting their intense dislike and save themselves the resulting headache. Sadly, we no longer have any sense of proportionality when it comes to disagreements, and no one gets a fair shake when things are litigated via social media.
Last night I was in the kitchen looking for something, anything, to satisfy a sudden craving for sugar when Bud padded up and gave me one of the standard greetings in his Buddinese repertoire.
It’s just a “Hmmmmph!” in his high, Elmo-like voice, an acknowledgement that he sees me and he’s watching with interest, but without any of the typical demands or strong opinions attached.
“Hmmmmmph!” I replied.
“Hmmmmmph!” he said again, and we went back and forth until he stopped, tilted his head curiously, and gave me a look that said “Are you making fun of me again?”
I couldn’t help myself and busted out laughing, bending down to mess up the fur on top of his head as he rubbed up against my leg.
Of course I can’t actually prove that he understands our little exchange, but I know in my heart that he does. Sometimes he gets indignant when I laugh at him. Sometimes I get indignant when he gleefully smacks me or tries to chew on my glasses.
But mostly we laugh together, and he understands that human laughter is a happy sound, even when he’s deeply confused about what exactly I find so funny.
Will I ever have this kind of bond with another cat? I don’t know. It’s taken more than a decade to get here, a decade of being inseparable and understanding each other on a fundamental level.
But I’m not going to spoil it by spending too much time thinking about it. That would ruin the joke.
Buddy the Cat’s female admirers, both feline and human, say he is a sexy beast.
NEW YORK — For the third night in a row, Buddy the Cat rolled onto his back, belched thunderously, and settled down for a restful nap surrounded by the devoured remnants of treats and snacks gifted to him for Valentine’s Day.
“It’s wonderful to be so loved that hundreds of Valentines Day packages are deliv…ooh, bacon-flavored crunchies!” Buddy said, breaking his train of thought after discovering six or seven of the little treats under a pile of opened and discarded packages.
“Where was I?” the bloated feline asked, blinking. “Oh yeah. It’s such a great feeling to have so many admirers that … mmmm, sandwich … every day brings new …* burp *! … gifts of food to sample and … oh, I love turkey gravy!”
The chubby tabby has been the recipient of countless Valentine’s Day gifts this year, reflecting his considerable popularity among females, both feline and human. He’s been eating his way through them with enthusiasm since the packages began arriving.
Witnesses report the well-fed feline was unable to complete a sentence without getting distracted and stopping to shovel food into his mouth mid-sentence.
“He only stops eating when he falls asleep,” one witness told PITB. “At this rate, his human will have to roll him around like a boulder because, frankly, I’m not sure anyone makes a cat carrier with material strong enough to lift him without ripping apart.”
As of press time, Buddy had fallen asleep with a sloppy hand-written note taped to his forehead, asking visitors to leave Valentine’s Day gifts in one of the 27 provided baskets.
“Activate your chakras and, like, serve me turkey and stuff.”
Buddy the Cat sits in a lotus position, whiskers relaxed, with a serene expression on his face.
“As we enter the quantum realm of the mind and traverse the sacred lacuna leading to the mysteries of the cosmos, let us allow ourselves to drift, to feel the subtle tug of gravity asserting itself upon our quantum existences, so that we may reach simultaneous quantum enlightenment within the subatomic and macro universes,” Buddy says softly as a room full of his disciples imitate his posture.
Suddenly the chubby cat opens his eyes, scanning the room.
“And now the time has come,” he says, “for a quantum nap. Who would please the spirit of the cosmos by providing a suitably soft napping substrate?:
Buddy regains his kitten form after communing with the quantum alchemists of Epsilon Eridani, who grant him special powers after circumambulating a triple star system within a quantum starship and stuff.
Every hand shoots up, with disciples — or “quantum mignons,” in Buddesian parlance — begging to be chosen.
The guru pads along the rows of disciples, wrinkling his nose to “discern the most comfortable chakras,” before settling in the lap of Maelle, a 20-year-old exchange student from France.
“I feel so blessed to be chosen,” she confesses as Guru Buddy climbs into her lap.
“I shall meditate,” Buddy tells her with a yawn, “upon your anima as the soothing stillness of sleep embraces me, fortifying your spirit with an increase in your alpha quotient.”
“And remember,” Buddy says, “should you feel the call of nature or the need to adjust your position, meditate upon your quantum quantumness to fortify your, uh, quantums so you don’t disturb me.”
The tabby cat settles down, then opens one eye.
“I almost forgot,” he says, raising his meows so all can hear him. “Please prepare my post-nap feast, for the quantum processes of my restorative beauty sleep make me famished. Serving me delicious food is most pleasing to the cosmic pantheon. I shall now spirit-walk the galactic plane and commune with the ancient alchemists of Epsilon Eridani to probe the mysteries of dark matter and KFC Extra Crispy. Can someone bring me a quantum pillow?”
Pain In The Bud 