Tag: National Cat Day

Happy National Cat Day: Here’s How To Celebrate

Little Buddy the Cat tells humans how they can mark this day dedicated to the most awesome species on Earth.

Happy National Cat Day! To help us learn about this important day and what it means, we turn it over to Little Buddy the Cat:

“Ahem. Is this thing on? Okay. Good!

National Cat Day was founded to help buddies all across America find homes. Did you know about three million of us enter the shelter system every year? That’s a lot of cats who don’t have homes, couches, food bowls, toys, favorite blankets, regular meals, and most importantly love. They don’t have humans to tell them how amazingly cute they are, and to transform into Furniture Mode for napping on.

Close-up of a gray cat with striking yellow-green eyes, looking through the bars of a cage.
“Scuse me, but how am I supposed to sing the blues about being in the big house without a harmonica?” Credit: Pexels

The best thing to do on National Cat Day is to adopt a cat, but even if you don’t have room for Additional Buddies in your domicile, there are other ways you can help!

  • Volunteering at your local shelter
  • Feeding a cat (like me) extra treats
  • Donating to your local shelter
  • Buying toys for an athletic feline (like me!) who likes to play
  • Foster cats or kittens for your local shelter
  • Letting a particularly handsome furry fellow (like me!) lay down in your lap, absorb the warm and have a nice nap
  • Raise awareness of stray/homeless cats, so maybe someone you know might provide a good home for a buddy
  • Give a good girl or good boy (like me) some catnip and silvervine, then scratch our heads and tell us how awesome we are

tl;dr version: Help other cats, spoil your own cat(s). That’s what today is for!”

A vibrant, futuristic cityscape featuring neon lights and digital advertisements, including a large cartoon cat and a glowing pink lotus flower above the skyline.
Larger Buddy has been playing some stupid game about building cities, but this one’s pretty cool ’cause everything’s named after me or other cats, and there are lots of homes for little buddies.”

Happy National Cat Day From The Buddies!

Shelters are full of felines who need forever homes, and National Cat Day was founded to make sure they’re not forgotten.

The number of “cat days” keeps growing, with separate dates for national and international cat days, dates honoring black cats, tabbies, calicos and tortoiseshells, and more.

But National Cat Day is one of the OGs, beginning 21 years ago, and it’s endorsed by the ASPCA. The main purpose of National Cat Day, per its founders, is to help homeless kitties find forever homes by inspiring people to adopt.

So we’ll say what we always do: shelters are full of little buddies who are just as lovable and deserving as Little Buddy himself, and all they need is a home, some love and patience to help them feel secure. Once they know they’re safe and loved, their personalities shine through.

If you like feline-centric fiction, Mollie Hunt released her 12th Crazy Cat Lady Mystery novel today. It’s called Cold Case Cat and you can read more about it here.

Meanwhile over at Catwoods, Leah writes about — and includes great photos of — her “Halloween cat,” Shelley. She also revisits the Facebook hoax posts we wrote about a few weeks ago, in which users claim the big cat was spotted in places as varied as Louisiana’s bayou, the Houston region, West Virginia and Wyoming.

Finally, the satirists at McSweeney’s have a new post titled “A Brief Questionnaire Before You Adopt This Rescue Cat,” which takes aim at overzealous shelter/rescue operators who make the process of child adoption look easy by comparison, and are constantly at capacity because they’ve made perfect the enemy of good.

Wanna adopt this cat? Hand over a list of every person you associate with along with their addresses, phone numbers and social security numbers, prepare for a 30-day in-home evaluation by a shelter staffer, and agree to feed kitty a diet of sushi-grade tuna!

Credit: Denitsa Kireva/Pexels

While it seems outlandish, I encountered some contracts that were only slightly less onerous before I adopted Bud, and it’s obviously the McSweeney’s team has too.

Now I understand a bit more why some shelter staff are so cautious. They see some of the worst behavior, after all, including people who return cats because they’re too affectionate, animal abuse cases, and cats on death’s door because their humans ignored decades of research and tried to turn their obligate carnivore pets into vegans.

They want to make sure the cats go to good homes, which is admirable, but they shouldn’t overlook potential adopters who are well-intentioned and looking for a little pal.

Buddy Updates His Dating Profile Pics

Buddy knows what the ladies want.

NEW YORK — Disappointed with the lack of responses to his dating profile, Buddy the Cat updated it on Sunday with “much more accurate and badass” photos of himself.

“These oughta do it,” the gray tabby cat said, laying back with his paws behind his head and his feet up after successfully updating his Meowr profile.

The dating app, which is exclusively for the use of felines, boasts more than 24 million users and saw an influx of new accounts registered over the weekend after a National Cat Day promotion.

buddy_datingapp
A new and “more accurate” cover photo for Buddy’s dating profile on MEOWR.

Disregarding the advice of his human to “just be himself,” Buddy headlined his profile “Catdonis Seeks Super Hot Model Types.” Under a column titled “Describe yourself in a few words,” the model-seeking feline wrote: “Brave, handsome, meowscular, really really funny, an incredible dancer, and the 2023 National Competitive Table-Setting Champion.”

His human spat out his drink.

“Brave? Competitive table-setting champion? What the hell?” he asked, awe-struck.

Buddy rubbed a paw against his fur and matter-of-factly explained what his dumb human was unable to grasp.

“It’s designed to show my artsy and sensitive side,” he said. “Duh. This may come as a surprise to you, but the ladies like a cat who is in touch with his inner artist.”

Big Buddy shot his feline friend a derisive look.

“The only art you’ve made is in your litter box,” he said. “And it’s depressingly apocalyptic.”

Buddy snorted.

“We’ll see who gets the last laugh, human,” he said. “When I roll up to the club with Meowghan Fox or Jennifer Clawrence on my arm, you’ll be super jelly.”

As of Thursday Buddy had received no responses on his profile.

Sunday Cats: Larry Welcomes A New Servant To No. 10 Downing, More Cats Rescued From Ukraine

Happy National Cat Day! PLUS: Some changes to PITB.

Larry the Cat, official mouser in chief at 10 Downing Street, is now on his fifth prime minister.

After the disastrous and short-lived tenure of his predecessor, Lizz Truss, new PM Rishi Sunak officially moved into the UK prime minister’s residence earlier this week — and walked right past Larry without acknowledging him:

Note the reporter doing a live broadcast, which you can hear in the background.

“He is arriving now…the new prime minister of the United Kingdom!” the reporter said as Larry padded his way down the sidewalk and stopped.

Failing to acknowledge the true power at No. 10 is an ill portend for Sunak and the UK. What kind of person doesn’t greet his boss on his first official day of work? Larry will get him sorted in short time, undoubtedly.

Big and small cats from Ukraine find homes in Poland and the US

During the opening phase of the Ukraine war, there was an Indian national webcasting from Donbas, constantly asking for money to keep his “pet jaguars” — actually leopards — safe from the advancing Russians.

idiotandhisjaguar

It was one of the most infuriating aspects of the young war. The guy was keeping the big cats in an apartment, referred to them as his “children” despite not even knowing their species or how to care for them, and he lied to his audience, claiming he’d purchased them from the Kyiv Zoo. He didn’t. Zoos don’t sell big cats to people. He got them on the illegal wildlife market.

I don’t know if those particular leopards are among the big cats rescued from Kyiv in recent weeks, but a new report says illegally kept pets are among the felids who were rescued from Kyiv and Odessa — two of the hardest-hit cities — and brought to sanctuaries in Poland.

That’s good news. Hopefully any remaining wild animals are taken out of the hands of private owners and put in sanctuaries where they belong. Big cats don’t belong in a war zone, and they don’t belong in private hands.

Meanwhile, Homeward Trails Animal Rescue in Washington, D.C., has house cats from Ukraine up for adoption.

Most of the little ones were rescued from warn-torn areas in the eastern part of the country, and the rest were moved from a Ukrainian shelter just in time, as the building was hit by Russian missiles shortly after the animals were cleared out. Some of the cats were found wandering amid the ruins and destruction in towns and villages that had been hit hard by the invading Russians, Homeward Trails’ Sue Bell told WTOP.

The US non-profit will continue to work with a shelter in Ukraine, which rescues cats from heavily impacted areas.

“Right now, Homeward Trails is the only organization taking cats from this new Ukraine shelter,” Bell said. “And so, for every cat that we took from the shelter, that not only gave that cat an opportunity for a home, but it created a space in that shelter for the team to go out there and bring more cats in.”

budandwhitetiger2

A belated happy National Cat Day!

There are so many cat days, I lose track, so apologies for missing this one.

Happy National Cat Day to all PITB readers and your beautiful kitties! It’s a good excuse to spoil our little buddies and remind them how much we appreciate them.

Changes to PITB

You may have noticed, if you don’t have ad blockers installed on your browser, that I enabled ads in mid-September. I strongly dislike ads and I don’t like clutter on the site, but after three years of operating and publishing PITB, I decided to enable a limited number of ads in an effort to get PITB to pay for itself and hopefully a few upgrades that would be helpful in making the site more accessible, while also providing the tools to expand PITB’s content offerings.

Please send us your feedback. If you see an ad that covers the content, let me know. If you see an inappropriate ad, let me know. You should see ads for cat-related products and/or ads for things you may have expressed interest in before — due to the way ad networks use cookies and data from services you use, which is perfectly normal — but I want to make sure no one’s having a bad experience here.

National Pet Day: An Occasion For Extra Snacks And Catnip

Ask not what your Buddy can do for you, but what you can do for your Buddy.

Dear PITB readers,

Today, April 11, is National Pet Day! On behalf of all your kitties, I am here with a gentle reminder that providing more snacks and catnip than usual is the only appropriate way to celebrate this great holiday, and they should be administered along with massages and generous amounts of praise.

National Pet Day should not be confused with Global Cat Day (Oct. 16), National Cat Day (Oct. 29), Hug Your Cat Day (June 4), or International Buddy Day (April 21). Additional yums, catnip and silvervine should be served on each of those days as well.

In addition, on International Buddy Day, there is a feast held in my honor, and my admirers pay tribute with special gifts of turkey pate, turkey treats, turkey bacon or whole turkeys. Toys are also acceptable.

Penalties for failing to observe any of these holidays may include, but are not limited to, extensive yowling, getting the cold shoulder, withholding snuggles, and being deprived of the delightfulness of my company.

Thank you for your understanding and anticipated cooperation.

Your liege lord,
Buddy
First of His Name, Champion of Yums, Prime Connoisseur of Turkey, Feline of Extraordinary Handsomeness, Humble King