Dogs – Page 10 – Pain In The Bud

International Cat Day: Interview With Buddy

Buddy answers questions about his life as a cat.

Big Buddy (The Human): We’re here with Buddy the Cat to celebrate International Cat Day. Welcome, Buddy!

Little Buddy (The Cat): Thank you.

BB: I appreciate you joining us. I’m sure our readers do too.

Buddy: Yeah well, you told me no treats unless I do this interview, so let’s get it over with.

BB: I love the enthusiasm. Our first question is from Mrs. Caldwell’s third-grade class in Skokie, Illinois. Rebecca, age 8, asks: “Hi Buddy! What’s the best thing about being a cat?”

Buddy: Hi, Rebecca. Well, the schedule’s pretty good. Plenty of time for naps and siestas. The food’s usually pretty good too. But I’d say the best thing about being a cat is my status as an apex predator. No one messes with you because they know that you can decapitate them with a single paw swipe. Other animals don’t step to me because they don’t want to see their entrails spill out like a waterfall or their arterial blood sketching a map of Hawaii on the ground, you know what I mean? I’m a very ferocious creature.

BB: Ahem. Maybe we can take it down a notch on the questions from kids?

Buddy: My bad.

BB: Our next question is from Mr. Piper’s eighth-grade class in Rye, New York. Charles, age 13, asks: “Buddy, do you have any tips for getting puss…” Ah, Charles, this is a family blog! Sheesh. Your teacher approved this? Oh! Sorry. The whole question is: “Buddy, do you have any tips for getting pussy cats to come when called?”

Buddy: Sure, Charles. It’s really simple: Do you have any treats? If the answer is yes, then it’s worth our time to acknowledge you and approach. If not, well, we have napping to do.

BB: That’s great, thank you, Charles. This one’s from six-year-old Cindy in Mrs. Cooper’s class in Bakersfield, California. Cindy says: “I have a dog. Woof woof! Do you like dogs, Buddy?”

Buddy: Yes I do, Cindy! I like them far away from me, in someone else’s home, dragging their butts across someone else’s carpet, preferably very far away so I don’t have to smell them.

BB: I can just feel the love, can’t you? Okay, now let’s go to 10-year-old Ashton from Mrs. Draper’s second-grade class in Lincoln, Nebraska. Second grade, Ashton? Really? Okay. Ashton writes: “Hello Buddy! As president of the Americats, are you happy that baseball is back this season? And who do you think is gonna win the World Series?”

Buddy: It’s a terrific thing that baseball is back, a tremendous, tremendous thing, okay? The American people love baseball, believe me, and we’re gonna have the number one baseball season in history, okay? It really will be. I like the Yankees, Ashton. I know a number of them personally and they’re tremendous people, just terrific people. They’re going to win the World Series over the Dodgers, and the Red Sox aren’t even going to make the playoffs because they’re losers. They’re fired.

BB: Okay. Finally, here’s a question from Lisa in Mr. Park’s fourth-grade class in Peculiar, Missouri. Lisa asks: “I love my kitty cat, Mr. Wobbles, and he loves me. Do you love your human, Buddy? What’s your favorite thing about him?”

Buddy: Hi Lisa! Do I love my Big Buddy? I love it when he feeds me treats and catnip! I guess you could say I love him even though the service is slow and sub-par around here sometimes. I’m very forgiving. Still, he could improve. My favorite thing about him? Hmmm. He’s a pretty good mattress.

BB: Oh, that lukewarm endorsement has moved me to tears! That’s all for today. Thanks to Buddy for generously taking time out of his busy napping schedule, and for all the kids who submitted questions. Don’t forget to do something special for your own cats today!

Captain Buddy and the Voyages of the USS Yums

Captain Buddy and the USS Yums arrive at the Dog 359 system to assess the species Canidae’s candidacy for membership in the Furrderation.

Catptain’s Log, Stardate 20.20 dash 6.22 dot Yums:

We have arrived in orbit around Canis Prime in the Dog 359 system, home to a primitive pre-warp species known as Canis Familiaris.

Despite the presence of a team of interpreters, our diplomats have been unable to get the inhabitants of Canis Prime to calm down and stop trying to hump them.

After presenting the primitive canids with a ball, a recreational object meant as a gift of goodwill, the canids pointedly refuse to accept the gift, insisting that our diplomats throw it, only for the canids to bring it back to them covered in a revolting membrane of canid slobber and demand they throw it again.

Our Interstellar Dog Intelligence and Observation Team (IDIOT) clearly failed to prepare us for these strange creatures and their repulsive rituals.

“Captain, I beg you to beam us up,” my normally stoic first officer, Commander Stryker, implored. “Please. These beings are too primitive and stupid to join the Furrderation.”

dogslobber — A member of the primitive species Canis Familiaris with the desecrated goodwill ball. Credit: Flickr

Tensions reached a boiling point when the members of my away team dug a latrine a few klicks from the primary canid settlement, Good Boyistan, and returned later to find a crowd of canids fighting amongst themselves to consume the team’s eliminations.

Shortly afterward we received a hail from the Canid Welcoming Committee on the surface, formally requesting to tour the ship, with an uncomfortably specific number of questions about our ship’s litter system, as well as how and where our waste is disposed.

I’ve ordered my Chief of Security, Lieutenant Wharf, to post guards at all privy chambers on the vessel. I will not have my ship used as a dining facility by these strange creatures.

I regret having to conclude my report by advising against allowing the Canidae membership in the Furrderation. There’s just something fishy about them, aside from the whole eating our poop and slobbering things. They are too friendly, suspiciously friendly even, and their culture does not appear to have any concept of personal space. In addition, they are embarrassingly easy to manipulate with simple praise, which would create a security risk for our Furrderation member species.

Captain Buddy out.

Lieutenant, have the transporter room recall the away team immediately and set a course for the Fowl 62c system, warp five. It’s time we get the hell away from these filthy, disgusting, smelly…is this thing still recording?

Dear Buddy: Everyone’s Acting Like Cats Have Cooties!

Cats have become pariahs since the world learned they can be infected by Coronavirus.

Dear Buddy,

Why is everyone so racialist towards cats all of a sudden?

I’ve been doing my regular laps around the block even though all the humans are huddled in their houses, and everyone’s acting like I have the cooties!

Pete the Pomeranian, who is usually one of the friendliest of my neighborhood amigos, ran away from me this morning, while my neighbor’s snooty purebred poodles were more snooty than ever.

There’s a parrot who lives two doors down, and I heard her saying “Get away! Get away, you dirty cat! I don’t want your filthy feline viruses!”

Buddy, what the hell is going on? Why does everyone hate us?

– Freaked Out In Fayetteville

Dear Freaked Out,

You don’t read the newspapers, do you? Ever since a cat in Hong Kong and a tiger here in New York tested positive for the COVID, everyone is acting like us cats are zombies from The Walking Dead!

These days you can’t even claw or pee on a tree to mark your territory without all sorts of dogs, birds and squirrels coming out of the woodwork to yell at you about spreading “the cat AIDS,” as if we’re all infected and trying to spread it to everyone else.

There’s talk of rounding us all up and quarantinizing us in local cat cafes for at least a year. This is America, not Chairman Meow’s communist China!

We’re the lucky ones, my friend. Some cats have been tossed out of their own homes by the same humans who are supposed to serve them. It’s an outrage! The purrsecution and meowlevolent spreading of rumors has gotten out of claw!

For now, the best solution is to disguise yourself as another species entirely. Get some floppy ears and buck teeth and pretend to be a rabbit. And if that parrot keeps talking trash, tell her you haven’t eaten since yesterday and you’re wondering if all birds taste like turkey and chicken, then smile real evil-like. That oughta shut her up. 🙂

Chin up!

– Buddy

PS: Feel free to steal your human’s face masks. As you can see, they’re quite fashionable.

Meet My Cousin. He’s A Dog.

Yes, he’s a dog. Every family has its black sheep…or brown chihuahuas.

This is my cousin, Cosmo.

As you can see, he’s a dog. Specifically some sort of chihuahua-terrier bastard mix. I try not to hold it against him, but he’s not so smart.

Tug of war: A simple game for a simple animal.

Here’s an interesting fact: Did you know dogs think they’re territorial like us cats? In their very small brains they think “I’ve got my own territory to defend! I know! I’ll be very loud and tell any potential intruders I’m standing right here just waiting for an ass kicking! Bark bark!”

Ridiculous!

Intruders in kitty territory don’t even know they’re being watched. They think the coast is clear and they drop their guard, oblivious to the ninja cat already sailing through the air, razor claws extended, ready to dispense a little feline-style justice!

Cosmo is visiting New York with his dad, Brother of Big Buddy. BoBB is a pretty cool guy. He understands who runs things around here and he pays tribute to me by rubbing my head.

Cosmo himself is easy to bully. All I have to do is flash my terrifying fangs and show off my huge muscles, and he whimpers and runs away. Then I eat all the snacks.

Still, Cosmo’s not bad. For a dog.

Buddy the Cat! — As you can see, my fur is much more luxurious than a dog’s bristly coat.

Shibuya: Where Dogs Rule

Tokyo may belong to its cats, but in Shibuya a dog holds a special place in everyone’s hearts.

Every day on his way home from work, Hidesaburō Ueno would step off the train at Shibuya Station and find his Akita dog, Hachiko, waiting for him.

Hachiko adored Ueno, an agriculture engineering professor at Tokyo Imperial University, now called the University of Tokyo.

Then one day Ueno was in mid-lecture in front of a class of students when he suffered a brain hemorrhage and died on the spot.

For the first time, Hachiko went to Shibuya Station and didn’t see his beloved human step off the train to greet him.

The little dog went back the next day. And the next. And the day after that.

Hachiko went to the Shibuya Station every day for the next 10 years, until he died of old age.

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Today the world’s most loyal dog is remembered with a statue at Shibuya Crossing, the world’s busiest intersection.

It’s a place marked by impermanence — three thousand pedestrians traverse Shibuya’s scramble crossing during every traffic light cycle, and thousands of faces come and go on the array of massive video screens overlooking the intersection.

The one thing that never changes is Hachiko, standing in the same spot he returned to every day, eternally keeping watch for his buddy.

———————

In 2015, the University of Tokyo unveiled a new statue on its campus, reuniting Hachiko with Ueno in the afterlife:

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Photo credit: Joyce Lam/TimeOut Tokyo

Finally, who’s that dapper fellow pouring sake? That’s my man Satoshi, bartender at what he translated as a “little drink box” —- one of Shibuya’s tiny bars, dozens of which are packed into alleys between the main streets.

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Satoshi’s bar seats five people, so we drank with two Tokyo natives who kindly humored me and my questions while my brother did his best at translating. He’s pretty good! I’m proud of him for learning the language so well, even though he insists he’s not very good.

Today I return to Shibuya to help my sister-in-law find a birthday present for my brother, and my next stop is Odaiba to meet a life-size Gundam RX-0 Unicorn.

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Photo credit: Tom Roseveare

Note: All photos by Big Buddy unless noted. The photos of Shibuya Crossing were taken from an observation platform on the rooftop of a nearby building.