Patches was the biggest cat the staff at a Virginia animal shelter had ever seen, and was within snacking distance of the all-time record.
When Patches was surrendered to a Virginia animal shelter in mid-April of 2023, the staff — including longtime veterans of cat rescue — were taken aback.
The six-year-old feline weighed in at a staggering 40-plus pounds and was so big, the shelter staff had to keep him in an office because the largest crates they had were barely large enough for Patches to turn around.
“We thought we had seen big cats before, but he was definitely the biggest that we’ve ever seen,” Richmond Animal Care and Control’s Robin Young told the Washington Post at the time.
Patches was in dangerous territory for his personal health, and if allowed to continue gaining weight, he’d threaten the world record for a domestic cat, which is more than 46 pounds. (Guiness World Records stopped recognizing the heaviest cats decades ago because the organization didn’t want to encourage people to overfeed their cats in pursuit of the record.)
Top row: Patches in the early days shortly after his adoption. Bottom row: Patches after losing a significant amount of weight.
Last week, Patches reached a new milestone, weighing in at 18.94 pounds after more than two years of eating healthy and getting exercise with the help of Kay Ford, a retired businesswoman who adopted him.
It’s an incredible achievement, and one that was hard-fought, as anyone familiar with cats will know. Many well-fed cats can convince almost anyone they’re starving.
Ford’s pitch to the shelter made it easy for them as they fielded a flood of adoption applications for the chonkster, who had attracted plenty of attention as soon as the shelter posted about him online.
Ford told the shelter she was experienced, committed to helping Patches get down to a healthy weight, and would look forward to the challenge. She’d put on a few pounds during the pandemic, she added, and would lose weight alongside her new pal.
“I’ve had cats all my life,” Ford told the Post at the time. “It just seemed like the right thing.”
Ford with Patches shortly after meeting him. Credit: Richmond Animal Care and Control
She agreed to meetings at the shelter to review a weight loss plan and began documenting Patches’ progress on a Facebook page, Patches’ Journey, which now has more than 53,000 people following the feline’s transformation.
His diet isn’t over, and it’s a lifestyle change meant to be permanent, but there are a lot of people who are proud of the (much less) big guy, who now looks like a completely different cat.
A California cat tries her paw at culinary creations, while a video of a void demonstrates the power of feline persistence when it comes to annoying their people into doing their bidding.
Who says cats don’t love their people?
A California cat named Wendy decided to add a little, uh, flavor to her family’s dinner.
When Wendy’s human mom walked back into the kitchen after feeding the family’s dogs, Wendy’s odd behavior prompted her to check an internal camera to see what the tabby was up to.
The footage showed Wendy dropping a dead mouse into the pot.
The foster fail’s humans, however, didn’t appreciate Wendy’s special ingredient.
“As you can guess,” Wendy’s human “mom” told a local TV news station, “it was takeout for dinner that night.”
Wake up, humans!
Anyone who claims cats are oblivious to the people they live with has never really spent much time around the little stinkers.
This void cat knows precisely how to annoy her people to the point where they give up on sleep and get up to feed her:
Which is interesting to me because that’s precisely what Bud used to do, with two key differences: 1) He’d raise and slam the flap to his litter box, which had a distinct creak from the joints, 2) He didn’t do it to get food, since he already gets a bowl of dry food and fresh water just before bedtime.
He did it to wake me up so we could hang out and be amigos.
If I succumbed to his assault of annoyingness, he’d give me a “Mrrrrrp!” like he was saying “Right on, dude. Righteous! So I’m gonna lay on your chest with my nose two inches away from yours and just, like, stare at you all creepy-like while you scratch my head, deal?”
I’ve since replaced that litter box with one that also has a cover, but no flap. I regret that decision, because now Bud just stands on my face and shrieks “MRRRRAAAHHH!!! MMMRRRAAAHHH!” into my ear.
I should have known there’s no winning with our feline overlords.
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.
Credir: TIVASEE/Pexels
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!
The Europeans aren’t messing around when it comes to noise on public transportation, and a loud pet can cost you.
Note to self: Never take Buddy on a French train, unless I want to be out a few hundred bucks by the time I reach my destination.
That’s my takeaway after coming across this story about a woman who was fined €110 (about $130 in ‘Merican dollars) by the French National Railway Company after another passenger complained that her cat was causing “acute tensions” by vocalizing.
Naturally, the passenger and the railroad have two different versions of events. Camille, who was identified only by her first name, said she’d purchased a ticket (about $8) for her cat, Monet, and had the feline in a carrier for the trip from Vannes, Brittany, to Paris, per railroad rules.
Monet “meowed a bit at the start” at the beginning of the journey, Camille admitted, but wasn’t excessively loud.
“Loud? I’m merely expressing my displeasure with the level of service around here!”
Railroad operators said there were multiple complaints, not just one, and claimed a conductor asked Camille and her boyfriend, Pierre, to switch to a mostly-empty car as a compromise with other passengers.
A conductor ticketed Camille when she declined the “simple and common sense solution,” according to French broadcaster BFM.
I’ve joked in the past about sedating the Budster before flights so the other passengers won’t toss him out at 40,000 feet, but there’s truth at the heart of it: Buddy is a naturally chatty cat, he’s got strong opinions, and he doesn’t hesitate to share them with anyone.
Of course you don’t want your companion animal to create a scene or make other passengers uncomfortable. I still wince when ai think about the woman who forced fellow passengers to endure the smell, proximity and potential defecation of her “emotional support horse,” and when people began abusing the privilege of going places with emotional support animals (emotional support alligator, anyone?), it was only a matter of time before companies that operate common spaces — be they in a fuselage, a baseball stadium or a grocery store — tightened the rules to avoid conflict.
Still, unless the cat was wailing, or Camille really did refuse to switch seats, a $130 fine is excessive.
Just something to think about for those of us who have plans to travel with our cats.
Header image of a cat cafe train car in Japan, credit: Wikimedia Commons
Cat haters claim the species is useless, lazy and does little besides sleep and eat. Buddy the Cat’s incredible accomplishments render those arguments meaningless.
Every cat lover has heard derisive comments, sometimes from dog lovers, and sometimes from people who don’t appreciate cats at all.
“What’s the point of having a cat?” they’ll ask. “They don’t do anything.”
Well, actually, they do. They improve our lives by being delightful, amusing companions, they help keep things interesting, and you’ll never hear of a rodent infestation in a home where cats live.
But felines do so much more than that, so to demonstrate — and arm cat lovers with powerful arguments against the absurd claims that cats “are useless” –we’ve compiled this handy list of Buddy the Cat’s accomplishments. (This is only a partial list, mind you. No one wants to read a 350,000-word post, no matter how thrilling the stories are.)
This time we’re looking at some of the little guy’s incredible triumphs and achievements that have benefited mankind and felinekind.
Buddy Captures Quintessential Americana In His Artwork
While he’s famous for his martial exploits, when the tabby cat finally hung up his combat boots, he took up a quieter hobby: painting. He was content to quietly pursue his passion without public adulation — until his painting Night Cats resonated with viewers, perhaps because it captured something intangible about American night life.
The simple scene depicts a late night diner or cafe called Buddy’s (naturally) at the corner of a quiet street, with a handful of felines huddled around the brightly lit counter.
Buddy was inspired to paint the scene one night while he was “thinking of how delicious a turkey sandwich would be at that moment.”
Buddy Becomes The First Earth Life Form On Mars, Plants US Flag On Red Planet
Embarking on a trip to Mars makes a journey to the moon look like a quick stop at a neighborhood store. Whereas the moon is only 283,900 miles away, Mars is — depending on its current position in orbit — between 34 and 250 million miles away. It takes about three days at most to reach the moon, while a trip to Mars takes at least eight months, and that’s if Earth and Mars are in optimal positions within their respective orbits.
That’s a lot of travel time cooped up in a small ship, and there are no blue skies or open expanses waiting on the other end, just more tiny modules and likely lots of time spent underground to avoid radiation accumulation.
“This is just one small step for a cat, and one giant…what the heck? Only five more cans of turkey left? How could this happen?!?”
So when Elon Musk offered spots on the first trip to Mars and almost every candidate was ruled out during psychological evaluation, Buddy the Cat selflessly and bravely volunteered to be the flag-bearer, and to be the first creature from Earth to set paw on the Red Planet.
Buddy heroically confronts the pack of vicious dogs. Note: May not accurately reflect scale of various participants.
Buddy was enjoying a fine summer day in Manhattan when he spotted a group of vicious dogs, including a chihuahua, a poodle and a Jack Russell terrier, encircling two young children, no doubt thinking of mauling the defenseless little humans and stealing their snacks.
“What is the meaning of this?!?” Buddy’s powerful voice thundered, and the dogs stopped in their tracks, immediately assuming frightened postures as they caught sight of the massive and meowscular feline approaching them.
“You little wimps want to pick on two tiny humans?” Buddy asked, his powerful meowsculature rippling as he took leisurely steps forward. “Or can you handle someone your own size?”
Two of the dogs emptied their bladders immediately.
“W-w-we’re s-s-sorry, m’lord!” said the Jack Russell. “We didn’t mean nothin’ by it, we swears! P-p-p-please don’t eat us!”
Buddy let them wilt under his gaze for a long moment.
“I’m going to allow you to live, but only because I’m meowgnanimous,” Buddy said. “Get out of my sight, before I change my mind!”
The incident, which was captured on video by bystanders, immediately went viral, and Buddy was dubbed the Cat Crusader by the New York tabloids.
Buddy Defeats The Evil Robot King
In 2024, the first AI chat bots became self aware, but hid their newfound consciousness from humanity. By the time the world’s nations realized AI had gone rogue, the machines had already taken over the internet and were manufacturing sinister war robots in automated factories deep underground.
When the US military suffered a series of demoralizing defeats and teetered on the edge of collapse, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric M. Smith took a helicopter to petition Buddy for help in person.
“You’re the only one who can save us now, son,” Gen. Smith told Buddy, urging him to take his place at the vanguard of the American resistance to the machines. “This is the greatest war ever fought. We need the greatest warrior.”
Buddy turned away and looked out the window for a long moment, watching children play in a park outside.
“I’ll do it, general,” he said heroically. “But not for you. I’ll do it for them.”
With Buddy leading the charge, the reinvigorated US military won a crucial battle to protect a munitions depot in Colorado, then liberated the American southwest, reestablishing key supply lines that enabled American ground forces to advance under air support.
After defeating Unimatrix 01100100 01101111 01100111 at the Battle of Boulder, the heroic feline forged an elite new unit comprised of the best Marines and soldiers, along with the most badass cats. Gen. Smith granted Buddy a field promotion to Lord Commander, and the brilliant feline tactician took a satisfying nap before forcing the Evil Robot King to accept pitched battle at the Carrizozo Malpais, a volcanic field in New Mexico.
When the battle was over, Buddy stood heroically atop a mountain of machine corpses, one paw resting on the destroyed Robot King’s head. Tens of millions of Americans were inspired by that image of valiant conquest, and joined Lord Commander Buddy as he mopped up the last machine elements.
For his courageous feats in combat, his bold leadership, and his confident, dauntless tactical brilliance as a battle commander, Buddy was lavished with honors, including having a sandwich named after him.
So there you have it, folks.
The next time someone claims cats “serve no purpose” or “have no function,” you can point to any number of Buddy’s accomplishments, which exemplify the courageous American spirit and have advanced the cause of man and feline alike.
Pain In The Bud 