While ferocity comes naturally to cats, hunting skill must be honed. Only those who are the most dedicated to their craft can claim the title of Apex Predator!
Watch an apex predator hone his supreme hunting skills and show his toys who’s boss!
Buddy lets his meowscles do the talking.
The challenges of getting a lazy cat interested in play time and toys again.
Buddy is friendly, outgoing and incredibly vocal, but he’s always been a bit lazy.
His preferred method of getting down from the couch isn’t jumping — although he does jump sometimes — it’s slowly oozing off the cushion like he’s liquid, taking the path of least resistance and letting gravity do all the work until he drops down and lands with a “Mmmrrrrrppp!”
When we wake up, the first thing he does is demand a snack, then he lays down for First Nap, apparently because the act of chewing and swallowing is so demanding.
While he used to chase the laser with a fury and jump several times his own height to paw at it — even after figuring out it’s light fired out of a pen held by me — nowadays he can’t be bothered. At best he halfheartedly chases it for a bit and then loses interest even though I make an effort to move the laser like prey, as I do with his wand toys.
Worst of all, catnip makes him even lazier because he doesn’t just sniff the damn stuff, he eats it. I try to get him interested in his favorite wand toy when he’s buzzing on a heady combination of ‘nip and silver vine, but he won’t chase it. He just rolls onto his back and paws at it lazily, maybe getting in a few “rabbit kicks” if he’s feeling feisty.
All of this would be funny if he wasn’t about to turn 10 years old and if he didn’t tip the scale at about a pound and a half to two pounds above his normal body weight when the vet weighed him a few months ago.
“Hey fat boy!” I tell him, getting the familiar “Brrrrrr!” in response. (He’s a big time triller. Feline linguists estimate at least 60 percent of the Buddinese dialect consists of trills of various pitch, length and intensity.)
Fat Boy lost most of the excess weight during a particularly brutal stretch when he screeched at me for snacks constantly and I had to deny him most of the time. At least with kids you can explain things to ’em. I’ve got no way of communicating to the Budster that he’s a Chubster.
Since then he’s put some of the weight back on, so I’ve gotta do something.
Here’s my plan:
Okay that last one is a joke, mostly because I’m pretty sure he’ll just admire his “meowscles” in the mirror. Cats are masters of self deception. Bud is scared of rustling paper bags and absolutely terrified of vacuums, yet he still thinks he’s a hulking tiger. That’s impressive cognitive dissonance.
So we shall embark on this grand endeavor, and I’ll report back here to catalog successes and failures. Hopefully more of the former.
Buddy will always be like a baby to me, and I can’t quite wrap my head around the fact that he’s now a “senior” cat, but he is and it’s on me to make sure he remains active so he hopefully lives at least another 10 years in good health. There are many adventures yet to be had, many more schemes for world domination to hatch, and more turkey to eat.
For the first time, PITB is participating in Wordpress’s daily writing prompt!
If I could make my cat understand one thing, it’s that he is a chubby 11-lb house cat, NOT a hulking 600-lb tiger with “huge meowscles” who strikes fear into the hearts of every creature to walk the Earth.
Just kidding. I’m perfectly happy going along with his delusions.
The one thing I really would communicate is that we are buddies for life and I’ll never abandon him.
Buddy’s an awesome cat. He’s super friendly, curious, lively, intelligent and vocal. His antics are hilarious. He’s a good boy.
He also knows I love him. That much is abundantly clear.
Unfortunately he suffers from separation anxiety, which has manifested in unfortunate ways, including a track record of attacking every person who has ever been kind enough to cat sit for him.
Aside from the fact that it’s getting more difficult to arrange care for him (his usual cat sitter now sneaks in, feeds him and gets out as fast as possible since he’s attacked her twice), it sucks to know that he suffers anxiety and sadness when I’m gone.
I see his accusatory stare when I start to pack a suitcase and set food aside for the sitter to give him. And I see his little act when I come home, the way he sniffs and feigns nonchalance. The act lasts a few minutes tops before he forgets he’s supposed to be mad at me. Then he glues himself to me for the next few days, never letting me out of sight for fear of losing me.
The truth is that I feel separation anxiety from my little pal when I’m away too, but I know precisely when I’m coming home. He doesn’t have that luxury.
So Buddy, if you ever learn to read, know that you aren’t going anywhere and neither am I. The only way we’ll be separated is if someone pries you from my cold, dead fingers.
And don’t let anyone tell you you’re not a fierce tiger!
Cosmo, the goodest goodboy, showed me how much love animals have to give. Without Cosmo, there would be no Buddy.
Growing up, my experience with dogs was mostly limited to Sparky, my friend’s demonic Chow who had sunk his teeth into every member of his human family and most of my friends.
Four of us formed a punk/rock band as teenagers and when we’d practice at my friend Rob’s house, he had to put Sparky into the fenced-in yard for our benefit. As we jammed and I fell into the revelry of trading off guitar solos, I’d look over and see that hellspawn of a canine, face pressed against the glass, slobber oozing from his mouth as he radiated hate. I’d taunted Sparky once, stupidly and ignorantly, and he never forgot it. That glass was the only thing between me and a mauling of biblical proportions.
I was not fond of dogs, so in 2010 it was with reservation that I agreed to dog sit Cosmo, the Chihuahua-terrier mix adopted about two years earlier by my brother and his wife.
Cosmo was a lost puppy wandering the streets of Oceanside, California, when he was picked up by animal control, transferred to a shelter and put up for adoption. We don’t know exactly when he was born, how he got separated from his mom or how long he wandered the busy streets of that city.
What I do know is that it was impossible to stay ambivalent about him for long. Not with his zest for life, his puppy-like energy or his sweet nature. “Sweet” is an over-used word when it comes to animals. I wouldn’t use it to describe Bud despite the fact that he’s my cat and I love him, but it describes Cosmo perfectly. He doesn’t have an angry bone in his tiny body. He’s trusting, he has a huge heart and if you’re one of his favorite people, he’ll never let you forget it.
My brother and his wife saw their opening when I let the little guy jump into my lap, something I’d never allowed any animal to do. At the time it was so out of character for me, my brother took a photo to prove it happened.
So when they moved from Oceanside to Manhattan and planned a long weekend away, they asked me to dog sit and I agreed. At the time I was working evening shifts as a journalist for Newsday, the New York tabloid. I went from my office on 35th St. near Madison Square Garden to my brother’s apartment on 65th, gave Cosmo his dinner and took him for his walk. It was eventful: He barked and charged at a dog three times his size as if challenging the big mutt to a battle of nerves, and must have sensed me looking at a cute girl walking her dog because he made a beeline for her and refused to relax until we spoke to each other. Cosmo was an excellent wingman.
I put Cosmo in his crate that first night. It’ll be fine, Mike and Jen said. He’s cool with his crate, they said. He won’t keep you up all night, they said.
None of that was true. Cosmo barked and barked until I let him out of his crate, then barked some more until I let him into the bedroom and on the bed.
And that’s how I went from someone who could barely deal with animals to a fool letting a Chihuahua-terrier mix cuddle with me so I could finally get to sleep. Better to let the little stinker on the bed than be a zombie at work, I thought.
We fell into a rhythm that week. I’d come home, walk him around the quiet upper west side at night, and we’d watch a movie together on the couch before crashing.
While Bud is typical of his species and has the inexplicable ability to claim 80 percent of the bed despite his small size, Cosmo’s footprint on the bed grew smaller that week as he gently pushed down any barriers I’d previously maintained. I’d wake to find his little paws resting on my arm, or his body squeezed between my arm and my ribcage. Chihuahuas are true burrowers.
Cosmo traveled the world with Mike and Jen. He was a California sunshine dog, then a New York City dog, then a Washington, D.C. dog. He was with them for their years in Japan and, until very recently, their post in Ukraine.
Cosmo hated every minute in that dark, frigid country, even before Vladimir Putin started a bloody war there. He was overjoyed when the family moved from bone-chilling Ukraine back to sunny Virginia, unaware that he’d missed a war by a week though undoubtedly bummed that Mike, his favorite human, remained in the country for the next five months helping Ukrainian friends.
Before they left for Tokyo in 2017, a veterinarian told Mike that Cosmo, already suffering from several ailments, probably wouldn’t live another two years.
That was more than five years ago. Cosmo made it to almost 15 years old. He was mostly deaf and nearly blind. His eyes became milky from cataracts. He limped and it took real effort to pump his little legs when Mike took him for his walks. He wasn’t able to jump up on the couch anymore, and signaled when he wanted a human to pick him up and put him in a comfortable spot.
By the summer of 2022, the little guy was on borrowed time.
My brother, ever stoic, seemed to accept it as he cradled Cosmo like a baby and told me Cosmo had cancer one night last summer. Mike doesn’t often show his emotions, but I know he’s crushed. He loved that dog. The dog adored him.
I’m not good at masking my emotions, at least when it comes to things like this. I started writing this blog post that same night before bed, a few hours after Mike told me Cosmo was dying. Tears welled in my eyes as I thought of Cosmo as a puppy wandering the streets in Oceanside, and his days as an old, tired dog. (I can imagine my brother reading this and thinking, “You pussy.” But hey, we’re all different. I’m the witty one, obviously. Also, I have more hair.)
Before we crashed on that night last summer, Mike and I watched a movie. Cosmo looked at me and gestured with his paw, signaling that he wanted up. I picked him up gently, put him down on the couch, and he nestled into my side like old times.
“He hardly does that with anyone,” Mike told me.
But that’s because we were pals. Cosmo was my buddy before there was a Buddy. Without Cosmo to show me animals could be a source of great joy, there’d be no Buddy in my life and no Pain In The Bud. Buddy would be living with someone else, and his name would probably be Rufus, or maybe Mr. Jerk. It’s difficult to imagine anyone loving him like I do, or being best pals with him. In a very real way, Cosmo gave me that gift.
Back in 2019, before PITB had its own domain and was read by a handful of friends and relatives, I wrote about Cosmo. That’s him in New York at a family gathering at my aunt’s house, and on the balcony of the apartment in Tokyo. It’s shocking to see how much he aged in only a few years.
At the risk of overdoing the anecdotes, I think the following one is illustrative of what a good dog Cosmo is.
A few years ago a bunch of us were hanging out at night drinking beer and talking around a backyard fire pit when everyone went to crash except Jen, Mike’s wife. She wanted to stay up a while longer and I agreed, so we went inside to get more beer with Cosmo following us in. The temperature had dropped and the little guy was shivering.
When we went back outside, Cosmo hesitated by the door. He wanted to hang but he was freezing and didn’t know I’d brought out a few blankets. But when I called to him he came anyway, jumped into my lap and looked at me with gratitude when I swaddled him in the blankets and moved closer to the fire. He trusted me. He knew I wasn’t going to let him freeze.
I will never forget the adventures we’ve had together. The time in California when he was barely more than a puppy and got away from me on a walk, leading me on a chase through the parking lot as I wondered how I’d explain to Mike and Jen that their beloved dog was gone. I did an entire lap around the development and was gassed out when I saw the little guy had returned to the house and was waiting for me on the front steps with a look on his face that seemed to say “Where ya been, dude? Couldn’t keep up?” Cheeky bastard.
The time I was dog-sitting again and he refused to do his business on his morning walk, then dropped a fresh turd on the gleaming marble floor of the Manhattan high rise where Mike and Jen lived, right in front of a rush of commuters exiting the lobby elevators.
The subsequent dog-sitting stints, when we’d hang out on the couch and watch horror movies, jolting upright together during jump-scares.
The time we all went hiking in a state park near Albany and a huge bird-of-prey began circling above, apparently deciding Cosmo would make a nice lunch. (Jen had to pick him up and cradle him protectively on the walk, and the bird eventually went in search of easier pickings.)
The first time I babysat for my newborn niece, fresh off of learning how to change a diaper by watching a Youtube video, and began to freak out as she cried and Cosmo barked. They seemed to be stuck in a feedback loop and for a panicked moment I thought I was in way over my head. Cosmo took the arrival of the girls in stride. He’d gone from the center of his human parents’ world to still very much loved, but forced to share time, affection and attention with one little human, then another. He never took it out on the kids even when they occasionally played too rough, as all kids do.
And of course that first hesitant occasion in California when I allowed him to climb into my lap and decided not all animals were bad after all.
If not for Cosmo — and, coincidentally, a friend’s super friendly tuxedo cat who was also named Cosmo — I would not have known my allergies could be managed as an adult, and I would almost certainly not have looked into adopting a cat. I was coming off a brutal few months of seasonal affective disorder and for the first time I gave the idea serious thought. Cosmo showed me that animals could be good friends, stress relievers and a constant source of entertainment, as well as loyal and never judgmental. (Well, mostly…I do think Bud’s judging me every time I go to the kitchen and don’t fetch him a snack.)
Buddy owes a debt to Cosmo even though he’d never admit it.
It’s the night after Thanksgiving 2022 and I’m trying to finish this blog post after letting it rest for months. On Thanksgiving Day, Cosmo didn’t seem to recognize me in a noisy house full of family, but tonight he ran to the door to greet me, barking happily and pressing his paws against my legs just like old times. He spent the next few hours in my lap, soaking up my body heat as I scratched his head and back.
It’s Dec. 29. Cosmo spent the holidays by the fireplace, swaddled in blankets. Normally no one, human or animal, would sit that close to a fire. For Cosmo, it was the only way to stop shivering as the heating system struggled against record-breaking cold.
It’s now early August and my brother is visiting with his wife and kids. This is the last time I will see Cosmo, but neither of us knows it.
I’m relieved to see he recognizes me. The last time he was in New York there were too many people, too much commotion for an old dog. Now he wags his tail and jumps up like a puppy, and I bend down, rub his head and tell him how happy I am to see him.
Aug. 16, 2023:
Cosmo died at about 11:30 pm in Mike’s arms, in Mike and Jen’s bed, his bed. He’d been having a rough couple of days and after he’d been sick a few times and soiled himself that evening, it became clear the end was near. They were at their vacation home in the Outer Banks at the time, and the nearest emergency vet was more than an hour away. Cosmo wouldn’t have made it anyway.
Cosmo was a happy dog, but he was never happier than when he was with Mike, and I have no doubt that there’s no place he’d rather have been, no person he’d rather have holding him in those last few hours. He died with the people who loved him most, after living almost 15 years as part of their family.
I spoke to my brother the day after Cosmo passed and checked in with him a day or two later to ask how he was handling Cosmo’s death.
“Honestly, having never had a pet before, I was not expecting to be this impacted by his death,” he texted back. “It’s shitty.”
Indeed. I mourn Cosmo knowing that the day will come when I’ll mourn my own best little buddy.
If there’s any real downside to opening your home and your heart to an animal, it’s the fact that their time on Earth is unfairly short. Some people say the pain of losing them is too much, but no matter how difficult it is, it can’t compare to the years of companionship, memories and love. As my canine friend crosses the fabled rainbow bridge, he’s taught me one last lesson about pets: To cherish the time we have and remember that, one day, we’ll happily trade a puked-on carpet, a broken guitar or a scratched-up chair just to have a little more time with them.
Pain In The Bud 