dog – Pain In The Bud

Study: Dogs And Toddlers Help Caregivers Find Missing Items While Cats Don’t Lift A Paw

“Can’t find your keys, human? That’s terrible. I don’t know where they are, but perhaps I could recall that information if, say, there were treats involved. Take your time, I’m in no rush even if you are.”

A new study shows dogs and human toddlers are eager to help when their adult caregivers are looking for a missing item, but cats don’t seem to care.

The study, which involved running the same experiment for young children, dogs and cats in their own homes, made it clear cats were fully aware of what was happening and understood their humans were looking for the missing object.

They just didn’t care.

There was one notable exception, of course. If the missing items were important to the cat — a favorite toy, for instance, or a bag of treats — the felines were motivated to help search or direct their humans to the missing objects, the research team from Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary found.

But at all other times, feline observers were content to hang back and watch, even when they understood their humans were getting frustrated.

By contrast, young children and dogs actively tried to help and signaled to adults when they thought they’d found the object.

“Lookin’ for something? No, I’ll just watch, thank you. Warm, warmer…oh! Cold…colder…that direction doesn’t look promising, human.” Credit: Gord Maclean/Pexels

So does this mean cats are jerks? Probably. Are we surprised by the results? Not at all.

We still love our furry friends, who do have their own unique ways of demonstrating they care about their humans beyond seeing them as providers of food, shelter, and safety, as well as playmates, minions and servants.

Besides, testing whether dogs or cats were helpful or not wasn’t the point. As the authors note, “[t]hese three species provide an important comparison because they share a similar anthropogenic environment but differ in their ecological and evolutionary backgrounds.”

In other words, they’re interested in figuring out how evolution plays a part in how species behave in particular situations. Although it’s yet to be conclusively proven for this behavior, a likely reason is because domestic cats are the descendants of a mostly solitary wildcat species, whereas we humans and our canine friends have long evolutionary histories of living in social groups and cooperating with each other.

The study is included in the March 2026 issue of Animal Behavior.

Woman Abandons Dog At Airport To Avoid Inconvenience, Cop Takes The Pooch In

The woman left her dog tied to a post near the departure gate, telling police she didn’t want to miss her flight after the airline told her she didn’t have the right paperwork to bring her dog in the cabin as a service animal.

A dog who was abandoned by his owner at a Las Vegas airport has a happy ending to his ordeal after he was adopted by one of the police officers who responded to the initial abandonment call.

The sequence of events began on Feb. 2 at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas. A woman was trying to board with her goldendoodle — a medium-size breed that is a cross between a golden retriever and a poodle — when an airline employee told her she needed paperwork proving the pooch was a service animal. Emotional support animals don’t need paperwork and aren’t certified by any agency, public or private, but service dogs must be trained and certified.

Instead of trying to work the problem out, the woman abandoned her dog, leaving him tied to a post near the departure gate. The airline’s staff called police and when officers arrived, they found the woman waiting to board her flight.

The woman pictured with Jet Blue the dog before abandoning him at the airport. Still image from a video provided by Las Vegas PD.

She was insistent she’d done nothing wrong, according to Las Vegas police, and said she could find the dog again after returning home because he has a tracking device. That excuse didn’t fly, and neither did the woman– officers pulled her off the departure line and arrested her for abandoning an animal.

In a positive twist of fate, one of the officers who responded that day had been looking to adopt a dog of that same breed and had already applied and been cleared by a local shelter. He was just waiting for the right dog.

The officer, Skeeter Black, adopted the abandoned good boy and named him Jet Blue after the airline. Jet Blue joined his new family on Sunday after undergoing the usual veterinary checks, quarantine and a 10-day mandatory hold with animal control.

“We’re very excited to add him to our family,” Black said when animal control handed three-year-old Jet Blue off to him. “We’re gonna enjoy him. He’s gonna be very much loved.”

As for the Las Vegas Police Department, the brass issued an exasperated statement reminding people that animals are living beings with their own feelings.

“We can’t believe we have to say this,” police wrote in a post, “but please don’t abandon your dog at the airport — or anywhere else.”

Header image via Las Vegas Metro Police.

What’s Good About Having A Pet? Everything!

Animals are a real source of joy in this world, and few things are better than cozying up on a couch with a book and a purring cat in your lap.

Daily writing prompt

What is good about having a pet?

View all responses

For more than two weeks after adopting him, I still didn’t have a name for my cat.

I imagined something badass, something funny, something better than all those boring pet names. But the playful, energetic, bold little kitten in front of me was no Brasidas (my favorite Spartan), Mo (my favorite pitcher) or Timothy Cavendish. (My favorite character from David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas.)

So I kept calling him buddy while I waited for something to come to me, and then it became obvious: He is Buddy.

Original? Nah. But it describes him perfectly, and to me that’s the best part about adopting him, my first-ever pet.

We’re pals. Amigos. Chums. Accomplices. Buddies.

I don’t consider myself his “dad” even though I have parental, protective feelings for him. He’s my buddy who wants to be involved in everything I do, whether it’s helping me greet trick-or-treaters at the door like he did last night, batting a paw at my guitar strings to add his special touch to my recording takes, or just hanging out while I’m reading.

I knew it intuitively, but the best advice I ever got was to always remember your little friend, be it a cat or dog, has his or her own feelings.

There’s a lot of confusion around the word sentience and people often confuse it with the concept of sapience, but there is no doubt about it: mammals like cats and dogs, avian species like corvids (ravens, jays, crows and magpies), and even cephalopods like octopus are sentient.

They think. They feel. They experience emotions like joy, sadness, excitement, anxiety, love, loneliness and more, just as intensely as we do. They may not be able to articulate those feelings in words, but they’re real.

More than half a century’s worth of science has confirmed that fact at every step, and we continue to learn more about animal cognition with every advance in technology that allows us to peer deeper into their minds.

When you treat your pet with respect and keep their feelings in mind, you’ll have a friend for life.

A loyal friend whose love comes without condition.

A friend who won’t lie to you…except maybe when it comes to food. After all, Bud could win an Oscar for his role as a starving cat, even though a single glance at him confirms he’s never missed a meal.

If you’re where I was years ago and considering bringing a pet into your life, ask yourself if you’re ready for a commitment that could last two decades, if you’re ready and motivated to give an animal not just a forever home, but the best life the little one can live.

Remember that kittens and puppies grow up fast, and think about whether you’d rather have a whirlwind of energy who will wreck your sleeping habits for months, or an adult furball who is much more chill. Remember that you will have to do things you don’t like, whether it’s scooping a litter box or bagging poop on a walk. There will be expenses, scares, the occasional puked-on rug.

But the joy you’ll get, and the friendship you’ll have, will make it all worth it.

And if you’re sure, find yourself a buddy at your local shelter. Your life will be better for it.

P.S. If you’re a fool like me, you can also have fun imagining your cat or dog in absurd scenarios based on their personalities.

Meowscular Monday: A New Cat Mayor Wins Office In Somerville, Mass.!

Minerva, a long haired black feline, won on the mysteriously laconic slogan, “CRIME.”

Happy Meowscular Monday! As Little Buddy the Cat says, Monday’s a good day to get ripped with intense exercises like slapping treats out of puzzle feeders and moving from one nap spot to another.

In news from the feline world, a cat named Minerva has been elected mayor of a popular bike path in Somerville, Mass.

The election started as a joke but the idea caught on, the media noticed, and soon people around the world were reading about the race between about 50 pets.

Most candidates were cats, but a few neighbors entered dogs, a parrot and a guinea pig.

Minerva ran on one word: “CRIME”

Minerva’s minimalist campaign posters. Credit:Furrend/X

It’s not clear if the new feline mayor was promising to end it, address it or solicit more of it, but the slogan resonated with voters and Minerva surged ahead of the pack, defeating incumbent mayor Berry the cat and original challenger Orange Cat.

People who live in the area said the election helped make the neighborhood friendlier, fostering connections between humans and pets. We can’t wait to see what Minerva does with crime.

‘What Owning A Cat Does To Your Brain’

Positive contact with our furry friends releases happy chemicals for both human servant and feline master, improving their bond.

Happy Cater, uh, unday!

We’ve got no immature cat humor for you today, but I thought PITB readers might be interested in this essay from The Conversation, which despite its ominous title actually goes into some detail about research showing the positive effects of bonding with a cat.

Affection between you and your feline friend results in a burst of oxytocin — the happy brain chemical — for both of you.

But crucially (and here’s where I feel validated for constantly preaching this), your cat enjoys the benefit only if the little one is securely attached and is not forced into interaction.

I’ve said it so many times, I feel like a broken record, especially because the web is saturated with articles that ask “How Can I Make My Cat Like/Love Me?“

And the answer, of course, is that you can’t.

That’s part of what makes cats so awesome. We have to earn their trust and affection, and a major part of that process is respecting our cats’ feelings. That means we let them come to us, we stop petting them when they’ve had enough, and we don’t prevent them from leaving when they decide they want to lay on the couch or the floor instead of our laps.

Cats grant us benefits beyond oxytocin boosts, of course, and the linked article goes into that as well. It’s well worth a read, even if you’re an old pro at cat whispering.

President Buddy: Not Funny!

It’s obvious I model President Buddy’s behavior after a certain someone in addition to dialing his own traits up to 11, but in the wake of recent news, a story I’d written no longer feels funny.

Not because it was offensive, but because satirizing current events just feels inappropriate with all that’s been going on, from our extreme polarization and political violence, to the sad state of global affairs.

At the same time, I spent quite a bit of time making another denomination of Cat Dollars, and since there’s no longer any satirical story for it, I figured I’d share it here.

President Buddy sure does like seeing his portrait everywhere. This time I skipped the powdered wig and gave him a more modern appearance:

Meowster Money and Meowster Delicious are the treasurer and secretary of yums, respectively. A thousand cat bucks is a lot of cans! (Or snacks.)

In the meantime I’ve been working on some designs I hope to turn into t-shirts and possibly other things like prints. They range from a regal-looking lion to a jaguar roaring in the night with a retrofuturistic feel. Watch this space for more details in the near future!