The battle between the UK’s most prominent felines could upend the political order and engulf the realm in chaos!
LONDON — Larry the Cat patrolled his familiar route through Downing Street, nodding at the fully armored soldiers and security professionals who lined the narrow passage as if to say “Alright, then!”
The UK’s most beloved feline and de facto head of state felt it was important to personally inspect the defenses and raise the morale of his men as more reports arrived of intense fighting on the edges of the city, where Larry loyalists clashed with supporters of Palmerston, the former chief mouser at Whitehall and Larry’s longtime nemesis.
Palmerston, left, and Larry, right, during one of their epic battles while Palmerston was still top cat at Whitehall.
The British public were told Palmerston “retired” in 2020 to enjoy a more leisurely life at his countryside estate, putting an end to the intense skirmishes between himself and No. 10’s chief mouser.
But it appears Palmerston’s “retirement” was but a ruse, and the calculating tuxedo has spent the past four years laying the foundations for a coup aimed at deposing Larry.
“This has come as quite a shock to us all, obviously,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer told reporters. “Larry’s primacy was always viewed as ironclad. He’s outlasted five prime ministers and will remain here long after I’m booted out of the job. A challenge to his rule is unthinkable, and we will not allow this vile Palmerston-led rebellion to endanger our nation!”
A diplomatic party led by Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg was dispatched to the Palmerstonian camp to discuss a cessation of hostilities, but the former MP was sent back tied to a donkey and smelling powerfully of feline urine.
Palmerston during his Whitehall days. The tuxedo was the highest ranking feline in the UK’s foreign office.
Analysts called the rebellion the most serious threat to the UK’s political stability in centuries, warning of potential uprisings of Palmerston sympathiers in Wales and Scotland.
“As loved as Larry is, he’s come to be seen as an insider, comfortably ensconced in the halls of power,” said Nigel Bancroft, a political columnist with the Times. “Palmerston has reinvented himself as a populist fighting for the interests of the common man. That rebranding, so to speak, has allowed him to gain favor with working class citizens.”
“But make no mistake,” he added, “Palmerston is ruthless.”
The Palmerstonian loyalists delivered a letter with a list of demands to No. 10 Downing St., beginning with the voluntary resignation of Larry and his banishment to the Isle of Man.
They also warned Starmer to banish his two family cats from No. 10, clearing the way for Palmerston to assume power unchallenged.
Despite leading an uprising, Palmerston was making inroads with the public
“That Larry, he’s an okay bloke,” said Alastair Hughes of Gravesend. “But Palmerston is a cat of the people. He gets us. He’s the kind of lad you can have a pint with, know what I mean?”
The felines were found deceased near open tins of tuna, and laboratory tests confirmed they’d been poisoned.
In early October, a woman who helps manage a colony of stray cats in South Carolina’s Lowcountry stopped by to feed them and was distraught by what she saw.
Six cats lay dead not far from several open tins of tuna. After the woman called for help and a larger group searched the area, they found the bodies of seven more cats and three opossums, the Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office said.
The cats were spayed/neutered and managed by volunteers from Lowcountry Trap, Neuter and Release Network, meaning their population was controlled and they were routinely monitored and given veterinary care.
Tests showed the cats were poisoned, according to the Professional Veterinary Pathology Services in Columbia and the Michigan State University Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory.
While police were looking into the poisoning, they got a tip that a local man had been complaining about the cats and claiming they were a nuisance.
On Thursday, police charged 28-year-old Andrew Dock and 45-year-old Charles Waylon Ulmer with 13 counts of felony ill-treatment to animals with torture and one count of conspiracy. Dock’s wife, Sara Rose Dock, 23, and his mother, Laura Mary Dock, 61, were charged with conspiracy along with Michael Jeffrey Kemmerlin, 30. All five suspects live in or near Summerville, a town about 25 miles northwest of Charleston.
Each felony count is punishable by as many as five years in prison and a $5,000 fine, per South Carolina penal code.
Credit: Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office
Dock was the ringleader of the group, according to police, and enlisted the others to help him poison the cats.
“Anyone that is capable of putting out poison and creating that level of pain and suffering is a concern to me as a human in our community,” Carol Linville, founder of a local nonprofit called Pet Helpers, told Lowcountry news station WCSC. ”That is a dangerous person. If they can do it to a cat, they can do it to a dog or do anything else that they deem they don’t want around.”
Locals involved with colony management and animal rescue praised the Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office for seeing the investigation through and arresting the suspects.
“The fact that the law enforcement took this seriously and really wanted to see justice and really do their due diligence to make sure that justice is really coming for these cats. I am, I’m very grateful,” said Kayte Williams, one of the women who cared for the colony. “Hopefully nothing like this happens again because the public will know if this happens, you will be prosecuted, you will be charged and you are not going to get away with it.”
Andrew and Sara Rose Dock. Credit: Facebook
On his social media accounts, Dock describes himself as a former welding instructor at Horry-Georgetown Technical College originally from Newark, New Jersey.
All five suspects were released after posting bond, according to the Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office. It wasn’t immediately clear if they had retained lawyers, or if they were given return dates for preliminary hearings.
More Americans say they can’t afford to keep their cats because of inflation, leading to an increase in surrendered and dumped cats in some places.
More than 110 years ago, American geneticist Clarence Cook Little developed a theory explaining why some cats have orange coloring and some don’t.
Now Little has been proven correct thanks to the work of separate teams in Japan and the US, which discovered the mechanism that leads to orange coloring, including fully ginger felines as well as calicos and tortoiseshells.
The explanation may be a bit too heavy on genetics for some readers, but essentially the researchers found the specific gene that leads to the growth or orange fur. They’ve known about the gene for a long time, but didn’t realize the totality of its function. Its official name is ARHGAP36, but for the sake of simplicity, scientists are calling it “the orange gene.”
“The orange gene has a known role in hair follicle development, but scientists didn’t previously know it is also involved in pigment production,” a team of geneticists and biotechnologists wrote in The Conversation, a science publication. “This means that a new pathway for pigment production has been discovered, opening the way for exciting and important research into a basic biological process.”
In partially orange cats like calicos and tortoiseshells, the blotches of color are the result of imperfect gene copies and a secondary pigment-related gene switching “on and off.” Credit: Mehmet Guzel/Pexels
Ginger cats are usually male, but the pigmant can also appear in female cats due to an error in gene copying which deletes one segment of the orange pigment-producing genetic code.
That’s why calicos and tortoiseshells have orange blotches or mixed orange fur. “[T]he orange gene is persistently switched on in orange areas but is mostly switched off in non-orange areas of a cat’s coat,” the authors wrote.
Are there more strays in 2024?
Time magazine has a story examining the problem of stray cats in America’s urban and suburban population centers, why it’s happening, and what can be done about it.
First, might as well get this out of the way: We don’t know if there are “more” cats. The claim that there are more relies on anecdotes, and there’s no hard data to back that up. You have to be highly motivated to invest the time and money into a proper census like the D.C. Cat Count, and it’s an understatement to say most towns and cities are either not willing to do that, or don’t have the resources.
What we do know is there may be more cats in certain areas, with individual shelters in some places reporting record numbers of surrenders and cats scooped up by animal control.
Rescuers say people who can’t afford food, supplies and veterinary care are surrendering or dumping their cats in larger numbers than in years past. Credit: Dou011fu Tunce/Pexels
The story quotes rescuers who say they’ve seen more surrendered pets, as well as data from Shelter Animals Count, which tallies self-reported information from shelters and rescues. The latter says 32 percent of cats taken in were owner surrenders in 2024, compared to 30.5 percent in 2019.
“It’s a combination of people surrendering their pets and people not adopting because they’re not sure they can take on the financial commitment,” Animal Care Centers of NYC’s Katy Hansen told Time.
Rescuers say that’s reflected in their experiences trapping the felines, who are friendly and acclimated to humans.
The people surrendering their pets cite inflation, not only impacting the cost of essentials like food and litter, but also more expensive veterinary care.
The story additionally includes this eye-popping detail:
“At Veterinary Care Group, a private equity-owned practice in Brooklyn, the cost of spaying or neutering a cat has soared to $850 per animal. By contrast, at the nonprofit veterinary clinic Zweigart recently founded in Brooklyn, the cost of spaying or neutering a cat is $225 and a mid-sized dog is $300.”
The lesson here: Steer well clear of veterinary clinics that aren’t vet-owned or are obtuse about their ownership. Private equity groups don’t buy clinics out of love for animals.
The cost of spay/neuter procedures ranges dramatically at different veterinary practices. Credit: Tima Miroshnichenko/Pexels
As for solutions to local spikes in stray populations, the story doesn’t offer any. It mentions TNR (trap, neuter, return) but only in the context of a lawsuit against the San Diego Humane Society for its neuter/vaccination program.
That said, there probably isn’t a one-size-fits-all technique. What works for a small town won’t necessarily work in a city, and there are dozens of factors that could influence the prevalence of stray cats and colonies. Still, city councils and town boards don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Chances are if they look, they’ll find a municipality similar to their own where locals have successfully stabilized feline populations.
As for the Buddies, I’d live in my car before giving Bud up. He wouldn’t be thrilled about that situation, and we’d have to head south because the winters here are brutal, but as long as Bud has his servant, he’s good.
A previous version of this post incorrectly described cat chromosomes. The story has been updated to remove the error.
Buddy’s personality is galactic in size, his emotions emblazoned in neon, his opinions shared through a bullhorn.
I used to hate cats.
When I’d hang out at my friend Dave’s house as a teenager, the little shits were everywhere, climbing all over everything with no boundaries and apparently no limit to their numbers.
Dave’s family had between 10 and 12 cats at any particular time, a small army, and as far as I could tell they were little more than inscrutable, uncommunicative tribbles, barely sentient animals who didn’t listen to anyone, could not be told “no,” and were going to stick their little faces in your food or drink no matter how many times you told them to get lost.
Worse, I’d have to dose up on Benadryl just to last a few hours and often left because my eyes were gumming up and my nose was clogged.
There were times when I sat in my car, idling for a half hour with the windows down and heat on blast on frigid nights, waiting for the worst allergic symptoms to subside. I was worried I’d be pulled over and a cop, seeing my half-shut, bloodshot eyes, would decide I was driving stoned or drunk.
Even when another friend adopted a friendly, cuddly tuxedo who became the first cat I truly interacted with, even when I realized I could safely play with one or two cats without getting sick, and even as I was actively looking for a feline of my own, I didn’t think they were intelligent or that it was really possible to meaningfully communicate with them.
At best I’d get a tribble of my own, something to feed and care for in my black depression to take me mentally out of myself.
My little pal, probably around 10 weeks old.
Then Buddy came striding out of his carrier like a furry little Genghis Khan and started conquering shit.
The furry little conqueror
I was prepared for a kitten who might dive under the bed and refuse to emerge except to sneak a bite or take a sip when the coast was clear. Lots of guides for first-time adopters warned the adjustment period for a new cat or kitten could be extensive.
What I got was a boisterous, bold, imperious little dude who was kind enough to allow me to continue sleeping on my bed, which was now his bed. I got a companion who demanded my attention, wanted to be involved in everything, and was going to let me know loudly and unambiguously what he liked and what he didn’t. He took up a regular position on my shoulder, like a parrot with a sea captain. We were — and still are — inseparable.
Buddy’s personality is galactic in size, his emotions emblazoned in neon, his opinions shared through a bullhorn. There’s a vibrant mind in his little head.
If they met Bud, even the most stubborn animal haters, the kind of people who refuse to acknowledge animal intelligence because they think it diminishes our own, would know they’re dealing with a person even if they may not admit it.
That is why this site exists. It’s why I write about cats, why I’m invested in their welfare and why it hurts my soul to hear about so many casual incidents of cruelty committed by humans toward felines.
When I hear about people gunning down cats or pouring lighter fluid on them, I think about what might have happened if Bud ended up with someone else, and I think about the cats who are just like Bud who are killed or seriously injured by cruel humans engaging in senseless violence.
There is no question that those cats suffer, that they feel pain, anxiety and terror as seriously disturbed people inflict pain on them for “lulz,” or because they think hurting cats might earn them Internet Points in the bowels of the web where diseased minds congregate to share shock videos.
“Dude, you can’t be serious.”
The fact that Buddy thinks he’s a hulking tiger is a running joke here, and it’s true. He thinks he’s the baddest boy on the block, and he doesn’t see any dissonance between cosplaying as the Buddinese Tiger one minute, and running behind my legs when he gets scared the next.
Mighty and brave!
It’s been 10 years now, and I’ve pretty much accepted the fact that he can’t be stopped from pawing at the big screen door leading from the living room to the balcony.
But every time he gets his claws caught and he’s left hanging, he starts crying for me. He sounds like a baby, and all he wants in that moment is his Big Buddy to come and pick him up, gently slide his claws out, and rub his head while telling him what a brave and tough little guy he is.
He responds by puffing his chest out and purring. He’s probably thinking “Yes, I am brave, aren’t I? I endured that ghastly ordeal and only cried a little bit!”
Buddy with a very Buddy look on his face.
It’s not all wonder and awesomeness, of course. I never would have guessed an animal could be so resourceful and clever when it comes to being annoying. Bud graduated from cackling gleefully in the dark as he terrorized my feet at night, to repeatedly punching the flap on his litter box because he knows the squeak drives me crazy. He’s also fond of standing on my head and shrieking at full volume into my ear. Not “fill my bowl” or “I need water,” because those needs are taken care of immediately before bed.
The reason he wakes me up, why I’m ripped out of restful slumber by his high-pitched kitten voice, is because he wants me to wake up and be Buddies with him. He wants to hang out.
So as annoying as he can be, and as much as I really, really hate losing sleep, I can’t be mad at him. If only humans were so pure in their intentions and non-judgmental.
Cats are social animals
A lot of people say their cats ignore them or at best acknowledge them with a twitch of their radar ears. When I call Bud, he responds by happily padding up to me, tail raised straight up or curled like a question mark.
That’s because he knows I’ll never hurt him. He knows I’ll never force him to do anything he doesn’t want to do, nor will I grab him, subject him to unwanted petting and refuse to let him go. Trust goes a long way in human-feline relationships. In some ways, it’s everything.
Schemeowtics for Buddy the Cat. Note the huge meowscles.
Part of earning that trust means understanding my little pal, learning from him and learning about him. I’ve read more about felis catus than I ever imagined I would, and Bud’s smarts sparked a years-long deep dive into animal cognition that still has its hooks in me.
The belle epoque of feline research
For decades, dogs were the only domestic pet scientists bothered with. Cats were legendarily uncooperative, and the general consensus was that trying to wrangle them wasn’t worth it. If a research team managed to get 150 people to bring their cats into the lab, they were fortunate if a third or a fourth of them worked out.
Over the past 10 years or so, that’s changed as a new generation of scientists began to think in feline terms. Now the research teams come to the cats instead of the opposite, in recognition of how important territory and surroundings are to the species. They’ve also taken study formats originally built for children and dogs, and modified them for moggies.
Thanks to their efforts, we’ve learned a great deal.
Studies have found that, contrary to popular belief, cats really are social animals. If they’re bonded to a person, they value affection more than food or toys! They pay close attention to our whereabouts at all times, even though they’re masters at appearing ambivalent.
They know their names, they know the names of other cats they live with, and studies suggest they may be an even quicker study than toddlers when it comes to basic word association with items and concepts.
The meow isn’t a part of their regular communicative repertoire when they’re strays or ferals, and vocal communication doesn’t come naturally to them, but meows are embedded with meanings we’re only just beginning to understand.
Most amusingly, they’re capable of being dishonest with us and modifying their meows to manipulate us. But don’t let that fool you into thinking cats are real liars: it seems the one and only thing they’re dishonest about is food, probably because they realize we’re suckers.
During our time as inseparable pals, Bud and I have developed our own human-feline patois, a way of communicating that involves verbal and non-verbal cues. I pride myself on knowing what he wants the vast majority of the time, but I also realize the majority of the credit goes to little man for meeting me more than half way.
Sometimes Bud is so insistent, his meows apparently so urgent, that I don’t know what he wants. I can rule out food, water, a foul litter box or demands for pets. If he wants to snuggle or lay in my lap, he doesn’t need to ask. If he wants to play, he lets me know.
So what’s he saying? What could possibly be so important? Is he trying to tell me he’s reconciled quantum mechanics with general relativity? Has he gotten word of an anti-Buddesian plot by the devious neighbor cat, Smudge?
I don’t know. But one thing I do know, that I’m absolutely confident about, is that there are real thoughts scrolling through that little head, and a rich, authentic inner existence.
I’m lucky I’ve gotten to be his buddy, and to learn from him that animals are so much more than vacant-brained automatons I used to think they were.
Political careers, human and animal, have been ended by failure to show proper deference to Larry the Cat.
There’s a current crisis in the UK, one of national importance which must be addressed by all relevant authorities before things get out of hand.
Larry the Cat, Mouser in Chief at No. 10 Downing St. (also known as Larry’s House), is not getting the respect he deserves.
First, incoming Prime Minister Keir Starmer moved into No. 10 this summer. Larry has generously allowed five previous prime ministers to live there, so that wasn’t the problem. The issue, which should have been obvious to anyone with a brain, is that Starmer brought his family cat, Jojo, and allowed his children to adopt a new kitten.
After Larry’s dust-ups with Palmerston, the former chief mouser at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), it was established that the lord paramount of No. 10 would tolerate no feline presence other than his ladyfriend, Maisie, yet Starmer went ahead and insulted his gracious host anyway. Wisely, he has restricted his cats to his private apartments while Larry has the run of the compound.
Palmerston was retired to the countryside after crossing Larry. Credit: US Embassy London
Poll after poll has shown Larry’s popularity easily exceeds that of every prime minister to serve under him, so rest assured there will be a new prime minister as soon as election law allows. One does not simply thumb his nose at Larry the Cat and get away with one’s reputation and career unscathed.
Now another politician has run afoul of Larry and his legions of admirers, committing career suicide by calling Larry “a little shit” and piling on the disparaging comments.
Quickest way to invoke the wrath of the entire country. His days are numbered.
Ian Murray, the secretary of state of a country called Scotland, apparently a minor territory in Larry’s realm, said he and the other Scottish ministers “were like kids in a sweet shop” when they attended a meeting at No. 10, not because of government business, but because they would have the honor of an audience with Larry.
But as Robert Heinlein once observed: “Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat.”
Press reports suspiciously omit the breaches of protocol committed by Murray and Peter Kyle, the Scottish science secretary, but photographs show Larry snubbing Murray’s attempts to pet him while Kyle watched and laughed.
Or perhaps there was no protocol breach, and the Scottish delegation simply fell beneath the notice of Larry. Surely a cat with so many responsibilities can’t be expected to micromanage the affairs of insignificant vassal states and commonwealth territories. After all, does anyone honestly believe Larry has the time to fret about Monserrat or the Cayman Islands?
Murray, left, seen bending down to pet Larry immediately before being snubbed in front of his colleagues and the UK press. After this incident, Murray’s time in politics will surely come to an end.
Regardless, Murray was not pleased. The man is now on borrowed time, and he knows it.
“And without putting too fine a point on it, Larry the cat is a little shit. So none of us got a picture with Larry the cat,” Murray said after the public diss. “Larry the cat is the most miserable animal you’ll ever meet in your life. I’m not surprised given who he’s had to live with for the last ten years.”
Murray and Starmer would do well to consider the fate of Boris Johnson, whose prime ministry was over the moment he called Larry a “thug.”
Johnson knew full well his dog, Dilyn, had tried to steal Larry’s food and received an appropriate thumping for it, yet still placed the blame on the country’s most revered figure. (With apologies to His Majesty King Charles and the late Queen Elizabeth, who both enjoy popularity nearly on par with Larry.)
Likewise, former MP Liz Truss became the shortest-serving prime minister in the country’s history, lasting only 50 days in office after failing to establish a rapport with the chief mouser, who was photographed on several occasions ducking her attempts at affection.
Larry the Cat shows Boris Johnson the finer points of national management during the former’s turn as prime minister from 2019 until 2022, when Johnson lost Larry’s confidence and was replaced. Credit: UK Foreign Office
Politics in any country are chaotic and unpredictable, but if there is one rule in the UK political system, it’s this: those who get on the wrong side of Larry don’t last long.
Just ask Palmerston, who was banished to a country estate after a dust-up with Larry and still carries a token of the Chief Mouser’s esteem on his left ear, which was cleaved with the might of Larry’s claws.
You don’t mess with with the Mouser in Chief.
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Pain In The Bud 