Zoo Visitors Shocked To See Tabby Cat Napping With Lions, Jaguars And Tigers

Zoologists were at a loss to explain how the tabby cat moved effortlessly among the big cats without becoming a light snack.

NEW YORK — Zoo visitors and keepers alike were flabbergasted at the sight of a small gray tabby cat lounging in several big cat enclosures on Monday.

Zoologists and a security team were called to the tiger exhibit at 11:45 am when guests reported the domestic cat had somehow entered the enclosure and had settled down between two adult Bengal tigers for a nap.

“It almost looked like the little cat was demonstrating his form for the tigers,” said Al Farelli, who brought his two girls to the zoo Monday and witnessed the strange event. “Both tigers copied the small cat’s posture and then they all dozed off.”

Buddy the Cat enjoying a late morning nap with tigers Zeus, left, and Achilles, right.

Zookeepers, initially fearing for the tiny cat’s safety, were conferring and were trying to coax the domestic feline toward a keeper entrance when the little cat lifted his head and hissed. Zeus, taking notice, followed the smaller cat’s lead and growled at the keepers.

“Never seen anything like it, and I’ve been working with predators for more than 20 years,” said Wendy Johnson, a senior zookeeper.

Zoo staff breathed a sigh of relief when the feline left the enclosure about an hour later, but were incredulous when they received guest reports that the cat had popped up again in Jaguar Jungle.

“We’re just standing there and admiring these majestic big cats when a gray kitty comes padding into the enclosure with his tail up, as if he didn’t have a care in the world,” said Melissa Matthews, a Manhattanite who was at the park with friends.

“Then when the jaguars saw him I gasped because I thought he was about to become an hors d’oeuvre for one of them,” she said, shuddering. “But they chuffed happily, exchanged paw bumps with the little guy and groomed him.”

Once again, the tabby cat settled down for a nap, laying on top of a jaguar named Ixchel.

Buddy finally made his way to the lion exhibit by late afternoon, settling down to nap with a lion named Colossus.

Meanwhile a New York man arrived at the zoo, explaining he’d seen clips of the bizarre scene on social media and recognized the feline as his cat, Buddy.

“He’s always doing this!” the man told zoo staff. “There was the time leopards almost ate him on the Masi Mara, the incident in the Amazon when he took ayahuasca with jaguar shamans, and the debacle when he tried to make himself king of the rusty spotted cats.”

As of late Monday the man was seen arguing with the silver tabby and trying to bribe him out of the enclosure with an impressive snack spread.

Naughty Felines: The Cat Chef And The ‘Wake Up And Play With Me’ Technique

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.

Buddy The Cat Dismounts Couch In Laziest Way Imaginable, Sources Say

Witnesses praised the slothful feline’s dedication to the path of least resistance.

NEW YORK — In a sluggish ballet involving gravity, the malleability of couch cushions and an ironclad commitment to expending minimal effort, Buddy the Cat unburdened the couch of his weight on Saturday.

Sources said the feline signaled his intent to leave the couch with a subtle shift of his weight, applying just enough pressure to angle the cushion downward and allow gravity to assert its tug on his portly frame.

What followed was a 15-minute process sources described as “like watching the last glob of ketchup slide out of a glass bottle.” Yawning with the non-effort, Buddy allowed gravity to shift his bulk millimeter by millimeter until part of his pudgy primordial pouch and one chonky leg dangled over the edge of the cushion.

Buddy pictured shortly before committing to his gravity-assisted dismount.

Within another five minutes the remarkably lazy tabby cat had crossed a gravitational Rubicon and the edge of the cushion gave way, allowing him to drip languidly off the side of the couch and onto the floor.

Shifting his weight just enough to begin the slow process of sliding off the cushion.

Buddy sat up, licked his left paw, then roused himself with a trill and sauntered over to his dining nook to lap up some water.

“It’s a bit like watching paint dry, but I applaud his unwavering commitment to laziness,” said a witness. “This is obviously a cat for whom even the thought of burning a single calorie is deeply offensive.”

Buddy was last seen screeching at his human to fetch him a snack to replenish his “electrolytes and stuff” after his arduous walk to his bowls in the adjacent room.

Buddy using his human’s leg as a pillow.

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.

If A Feline Write-In Candidate For New York City Council Actually Wins, What Happens?

A Queens woman is urging voters to support her cat as a write-in candidate for city council District 30 in an attempt to spoil a term-limited councilman’s “cronies” from sailing into office without opposition.

It’s an interesting time for politics in New York, and not just because of a mayoral race in which voters have apparently rejected Republicans and mainstream Democrats.

Over the last several weeks, stickers urging voters to cast their ballots for a house cat for a city council seat have been appearing in a Queens district.

In a story about the write-in campaign, the New York Post devotes most of the ink to political disagreements between Leo the cat’s human and the district’s councilman, Robert Holden. (He’s a moderate Democrat, she doesn’t think he’s progressive enough, but the things they’re arguing over are above the paygrade and influence of a city councilman.)

But the more interesting issue, for us at least, is what happens if Leo rides a wave of populist support and actually wins as a write-in candidate.

When asked what would happen if the nine-year-old feline earns an improbable victory at the polls, a humorless Board of Elections official asked a Post reporter if he was drunk, then told him “we can certainly say that only a human being — specifically a US citizen — can hold elected office in NYC.”

Oh well. It would be amusing if some clever attorney found a loophole to pave the way for a feline councilman, and there isn’t much chance Leo would be less productive than the rest of the council. He might even provide some fresh perspective on how to deal with the city’s eternal rat problem.