toyger – Pain In The Bud

Hello and welcome to Amazing Cat Breeds™, our new column about the finest cat breeds!

Savannah. Bengal. Toyger. Lykoi.

Those are just some of the names that come to mind when the topic of discussion turns to the rarest and most singular of cat breeds, those wildly expensive designer felines who are the exclusive animal companions of people with impeccable taste and equally impressive bank accounts.

But what if we told you there’s another option that stands above the rest in beauty, temperament and exclusivity? What if we told you there’s a breed that makes the mighty Bengal and the exotic Toyger look downright pedestrian?

Enter the Buddinese, a breed so rare and so difficult to acquire, most cat fancy aficionados consider it cryptozoological.

buddy_july2020_1a — The Buddinese: A cat breed so exclusive, you’ve never heard of it until now.

What is a Buddinese?

With its stunning emerald eyes hinting at deep sapience, its graceful gait and its sleek, powerful musculature, the Buddinese most closely represents a tiger in miniature, squeezing all the ferociousness of that majestic animal into a more compact form factor.

Those who count themselves among the lucky few to know Buddinese firsthand find it impossible to agree on the breed’s finest quality. Is it the Buddinesian’s fierce feline intelligence? Its regal presence? Or is it the breed’s astonishingly silky coat, shimmering like a beach of crushed diamond under starlight?

Putting guard dogs to shame

One argument frequently employed by those lacking discernment is that dogs, those olfactorily offensive beasts, are superior companion animals because of their watchful nature and ability to neutralize unwanted intruders.

But what if we told you the growl of a Buddinese strikes fear into the hearts of even the most accomplished burglars and home invasion artists? This breed is the dictionary definition of fearless, its dread visage enough to call forth rivulets of terror-piss from those who harbor malicious intent.

With a Buddinese guarding your home, the question isn’t “Will it be a match for armed intruders?” It’s “Will it even have to growl before the unfortunate souls who entered its territory unbidden are seized by mindless dread and involuntarily evacuate their bowels?”

buddesianjungle — Apex predator: No sane person or animal would willingly confront such a powerful felid.

The Adonis of cats

It is said that it’s impossible for a Buddinese to strike a pose, for every snapshot of this wondrous cat is worthy of its own Michelangelo. If the breed existed in antiquity we’ve no doubt its likeness would be rendered in marble and gold flake, guarding the tombs of pharaohs and emperors alike.

Dragons and other mythical creatures would become redundant, for how can something as limited as human imagination improve on peak magnificence?

buddy_july_2020_03 — The breed in its native habitat, where it reigns as the apex predator.

Where did the breed originate?

Unlike lesser designer cats, the Buddinese owes its existence to a singular breeder: Mother Nature. It’s said these magnificent cats are native to Buddesia, a jungle region of New York rich with fauna and flora.

Buddesia is so idyllic that Buddinese have no problem adjusting to human homes: After all, what is Buddesia if not one large, comfortable living room?

The envy of every other cat enthusiast

There’s more to a Buddinese than dashing good looks, fur that feels like Egyptian cotton and unequaled intelligence. To have a Buddinese is to have a felid who will win every cat fancy event.

Your friends think they’re special because they’ve got Persians or Siamese? That’s cute. You’ll be able to smell their jealousy as they look upon your Buddinese, wondering how they can acquire one. They can’t.

Would you like to see your cat featured in Amazing Cat Breeds™? Drop us a line in the comments with a photo of your stunning feline and a short description outlining why it’s awesome.

Sometimes it seems like writers at the New York Times are in a competition with each other to prove who’s the most out-of-touch.

The latest effort comes courtesy of Alexandra Marvar, who begins her profile of a designer cat breeder by reminiscing about the good old days when those lacking sense or self-awareness could be fabulous by keeping wild animals as “chic pets”:

Not so long ago, wild cat companions were associated with glamour, class and creativity. Salvador Dalí brought his ocelot to the St. Regis. Tippi Hedren lounged with her lions in her Los Angeles living room. Josephine Baker’s cheetah, collared in diamonds, strolled the Champs-Élysées. In their time, these wild creatures made chic pets.

But, Marvar writes, those animal welfare activists had to come and ruin things for fabulous people:

But by the mid-1970s, a wave of awareness and wildlife protection legislation changed both the optics of owning a big cat, and the ability to legally purchase one.

Killjoys. Don’t they know Dali, Hedren and Baker were just being fabulous? They were being classy and creative! Who has time for people who claim it’s wrong to keep a wild animal that ranges 50 miles a day confined in a living room? They have gilded cages, diamond collars and meals of filet mignon!

Hedren being fabulous with one of her fabulous lions in 1971. Credit: Michael Rougier/LIFE

Now that wild cat ownership has been relegated to mulleted felons and gun-toting Texans who keep exotic cats to hold on tight to “muh freedoms” — stripping the practice of all glamour, class and fabulousness — where can the wealthy turn when they don’t just want pets, but status symbols?

The creators of the latest designer breeds, Toygers and Bengals, of course. Meet our heroes, the late breeder Jean Mill and her daughter, Judy Sugden:

Meanwhile, a cat breeder named Jean Mill was working on a more practical alternative: her leopard-spotted companion was just ten inches tall. At her cattery in Southern California, Ms. Mill invented a breed of domestic cat called the Bengal, which would offer wild cat admirers the best of both worlds: an impeccable leopard-like coat, and an indoor-cat size and demeanor.

Note: If you think a Persian makes you fabulous, surrender that cat to the nearest shelter immediately. Persians are so 2013!

[A Bengal cat breeder] recalled there used to be “tons” of ads for Persian cats in the back of Cat Fancy magazine. But the Persian’s prim, manicured aesthetic is no longer en vogue. “That look doesn’t say, ‘I can survive in the jungle,’” Mr. Hutcherson said. “It says, ‘I need somebody to open this can of cat food because there’s no way this cat is catching a mouse.’”

Carole Baskin, the founder of Big Cat Rescue and a star of Netflix’s “Tiger King,” has called toyger owners “selfish” and said creating new breeds is “strapping a nuclear warhead to the feral cat problem.” Others might argue that compared with shelter pets, designer species (the rarer of which may cost as much tens of thousands of dollars per kitten) are a different beast altogether.

Others might argue! Who are those others? Uh, Marvar and…and…nevermind. The important thing to realize is that there are cats — the riff-raff adopted from animal shelters by plebs — and there are chic, elegant, glamorous beasts. To compare a shelter pet to a Toyger would be like comparing a Geo Metro to an Aston Martin.

bakercheetah — Brigette Helm being fabulous with her cheetah in 1932.

JosephineBakerStory-1991-paris-1920s-cheetah — A close-up of Josephine Baker’s cheetah, Chiquita, and her diamond collar, photographed in the 1920s. Credit: FrockFlicks

In the glowing profile of Mill’s daughter, the toyger breeder — whose cats the Times compares to the Mona Lisa and whose work it describes as a “creative effort” in “cultivating” perfect “beasts” — the newspaper devotes a single line to those who object to the industrial manufacture of designer pets when shelters are forced to euthanize cats who aren’t adopted:

…the designer cat market is a thriving one where supply rarely meets demand, and in its service, more than 40,000 registered house cat breeders around the world are devoted to supplying pet owners with Ragdoll, Sphynx and other prized breeds. (PETA has argued this clientele should instead adopt cats from a shelter.)

The fact that 1.4 million pets are put down every year in the US wasn’t considered important enough to mention in the Times story. Too much of a buzzkill. Ain’t no one got time for that!

The rest of the Times’ editorial staff and its stable of contributors will have a tough time topping Marvar’s masterpiece. But as they try — and try they will — remember these are the same people who want to teach the rest of us about privilege and inequality in modern society as they social distance in their Scarsdale homes and file their stories from their couches next to their $10,000 pets.