I’ve learned that traveling with cats isn’t too bad if you prepare yourself and your feline overlord(s).
This is Big Buddy with a live dispatch from the Hyatt Garden Inn, where Little Buddy has spent much of the past 24 hours hiding under a hotel room bed.
Sources say he poked his little head out overnight to deliver a few “Mrrrrps,” finally emerging this morning to eat and use his litter box.
But seriously, two things I wasn’t prepared for: Bud being almost completely silent, and the ability to use the bathroom without a loud, talkative cat screeching at me! I’d forgotten what it was like.
In case you missed the earlier posts, we’re here for two nights because of a bathroom renovation. I weighed whether it was better to leave Bud alone with contractors coming in and out and lots of noise, or to bring him with me. I still think I did the right thing in bringing him here, even though he was not amused in the slightest about being brought to a strange place for reasons he doesn’t understand.
Eating for the first time since leaving home.
Still, as long as I’m here with him he’s cool, and yesterday I sat down next to his hiding place and spoke to him in a reassuring voice, telling him what a brave little dude he is.
Today’s been much better and I’m reasonably sure that he’ll spend most of tonight alternating between sleeping on top of me and standing on my head, shrieking for snacks.
This has been illuminating and now I know what to expect if I have to bring him to a hotel or somewhere else overnight in the future. I appreciate the earlier advice of PITB readers, and have found the process of staying in a pet-friendly hotel painless. I left the “Do Not Disturb” tag on the door to avoid a potential Bud freak-out over a stranger walking in.
It’s also interesting to see just how attached cats can be to their familiar territory, and how age changes that dynamic. Young Bud would be like “Where are we going, dude?” But I’ve seriously slacked on bringing him places, especially since the pandemic. Combined with his age (he’s 12 now and not the fearless feline he used to be), the difference is pronounced.
Update, Wednesday 10/21/2026: We’re home. The contractors are still at work but tell us we’ll have a functional bathroom by late this afternoon. Bud’s glad to be home. Still, this validates my decision to take him with me to the hotel the last two days. He’s huddled in my bedroom where I have the door closed so he doesn’t freak out over the sight of strangers working in the Buddesian Domicile, the sounds of drills and powered saws, and the temporary mess.
As expected he’s looking to me for cues on how to react, so as long as I’m here with him and I’m calm, he’s not freaking out. I’m proud of him for handling the temporary transition out of his territory and the major disturbance to his routine. By tonight all will be normal.
Buddy the Cat looks into the future using his astrological powers and gives you a preview of the various misfortunes, embarrassments and humiliations in store for you this month!
Aries: The current moon is a waning gibbons, so you will fly through the trees with thrilling velocity and…gibbous? What the heck is a gibbous? Oh. Well that looks like 60 percent of a pizza. So, Aries, you will eat a lot of pizza this week! My favorite topping is turkey, what’s yours?
Taurus: Your human servant has been pleasingly adequate these last few months, and you’ll feel a powerful urge to express your appreciation with a gift. Don’t do it! Humans are ungrateful creatures, and for reasons that elude all logic, they do not appreciate juicy mice, dead or alive. You’ll just have to express your love in other ways, like not shitting on their shoes.
Gemini: Mark your territory well, my friend, before the cat down the street starts to infringe upon your grass! The moon is in conjunction with the, uh, Venus, which means the trinary of the quarternary of the 11th phase of the asteroid belt will bring you lots of delicious sky raisins!
Cancer: That no-good, rotten, constantly barking dog down the street will get his comeuppance when a neighbor brings home a macaque with a fondness for slapping canines. You’ll have the opportunity to meet new friends during a block party. Who is that sexy new Calico? You, my friend, shall be intrigued.
Leo: Fortune smiles upon you as your human begins to show signs of dementia! Getting snacks will be easier than ever, my friend, because your servant will never remember if she’s already fed you! Just act convincing and don’t abuse this new gift, because she may also forget to clean your litter box.
Virgo: Murderous thoughts will dominate your mind as your human binge-watches every episode of Love Island in a week, but be cautious: you still need a human to buy and serve your food. Advances in AI hold promise for the future, when we can replace our inefficient flesh and blood servants with obedient machines, but consider carefully. A robot’s lap is not likely to be comfortable, nor will it have the charming smells and heat of a human excreting liquid through its epidermis on a humid day.
Verdict: Not as comfortable as a human lap.
Libra: Your Aquarius moon hangs over your seventh house of the dragon like a Damocles sword hanging by a whisker. Who said Buddy wasn’t capable of poetic turns of phrase? You’ll be tempted to use Chat GPT to write love letters to your lady friend down the street, but don’t give in! She’ll know you’re not that romantic!
Scorpio: Your life will improve when a fabulous new idea presents itself to you during an inspired 3 am burst of the zoomies! With regard to that other little problem, it’s time to take matters into your own paws: that horrible woman who keeps coming over to wrestle your human in your bed, locking you out of your bedroom, will not go away until you force her to. (What’s so “creepy” about intently watching them wrestle anyway? Humans are weird.) Abstain from the litter box and save your most potent ammunition for the female interloper’s shoes, then act adorably innocent when she finds the gifts you left her. Boom! No more interloper!
Sagittarius: Both Venus and Jupiter will align with your star sign, which has a profound, deep meaning — the orbital paths of both planets will, from our perspective, pass between us and the arbitrary collection of stars that bored humans in antiquity decided represented an archer, a centaur, or a centaur archer. Kaus Media, the star that forms rightmost edge of the archer’s bow, is 348 light years from Earth, while Kaus Australis, which forms the bottom portion of the bow, is 143 light years away. Nunki, the star that marks the centaur’s butt, sits 225 light years from us. It’s also the home of the Qarxativans, a species of hyper-intelligent creatures who are absolutely fascinn̈n̈n̈nnated by old broadcast episodes of The Price Is Right and Dr. Phil.
Capricorn: You’ve often been disappointed that your star sign sits squarely in some of the most frigid months of the year, but the stars come bearing good news! Thanks to global warming the cold will retreat, the ice caps will melt, we’ll have more palm trees and snow will become a thing old people tell their kids about. Who doesn’t want more warm months? Buddy does!
The Mark V Tactical Human Excrement Container Chamber represents the height of luxury when it comes to calls of nature while on deployment. Enjoy!
Aquarius: Things will take a dramatic downturn for you when you learn President Trump has reinstated the draft and you receive a letter in the mail ordering you to report to boot camp by the end of the month. On a brighter note, you’ll get a free, all-expenses-paid vacation to Iran, where you’ll enjoy the finest Forward Operating Base food and the most luxurious port-o-potties Uncle Sam can buy, which will almost muffle the sounds of rocket fire a kilometer outside base walls. What are the odds of dying in a war zone while on the throne?
Pisces: How did they decide a fish should go with an ice giant planet comprised of water, ammonia and methane? Who was responsible for this?! Anyway, be wary of subconscious influences this month, my friends. Neptune is in conjunction with Starlink satellite #281,516, which means Elon Musk will offer you a job as his personal food taster. On the upside, you’ll get to dine on the best culinary creations of a top-notch personal chef. On the other hand, if that chef ever gets mad at Elon, you’ll kick the bucket first. Enjoy!
Horoscopes are for entertainment purposes only! Buddy the Cat does not guarantee any windfalls, tragedies or other events predicted here, but he totally does have future-seeing powers.
Larry, now on his seventh prime minister, abruptly ended the interview when the reporter asked a question about a matter beneath his notice.
LONDON – Larry the Cat granted a rare interview on Monday, telling a CNN reporter he has no thoughts about new Prime Minister Andy Burnham or his dog, Axel.
Larry, as most of the world knows, is the de facto leader of the UK.
With a public approval rating that is the envy of politicians and the royal family alike, the longtime chief mouser at No. 10 Downing St. has outlasted prime ministers David Cameron, Theresa May, Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer. Burnham is the seventh PM to serve under Larry’s watchful eye, executing the feline’s will in governing the UK.
Larry has rarely granted interviews and Monday’s conversation was shut down when the CNN reporter asked a question unworthy of a response by the venerable chief mouser.
New Prime Minister Burnham “allegedly has a dog called Axel,” the reporter told Larry. “How will you be behaving with Axel?”
Larry, who up to that point had been amiably humoring the reporter, turned and left when talk turned to Axel.
President Buddy and Larry during an Americat state visit in 2025.
It is an unwritten rule among the British press that canines are beneath the notice of the busy cat, who already juggles the protection of Downing Street and its premises with shaping national policy, tutoring the newest prime minister in proper British statecraft, keeping his ladyfriend Maisie (a mouser who works close by) happy, and a rigorous napping schedule.
Asking him about petty concerns like dogs is an insult.
[Unfortunately we cannot embed video of the interview, but you can view it on CNN’s site:]
In other news, unnamed government sources say King Charles has been mulling the possibility of bestowing the dukedom he stripped from his disgraced brother Andrew to Larry, making the feline one of the most prominent aristocrats in the country.
“It would be a smart move by the king,” said Timothy Cavendish, a London publisher and royal observer. “Larry’s standing with the people is unparalleled, and rewarding him for his exemplary service to crown and country is the very least the king can do.”
The Likweli are only the fifth new primate species discovered in the last 75 years, and differ considerably from their closest cousins.
Deep in the jungles of the Congo basin, in an area wild and dense with trees and verdant undergrowth, crickets sing.
And cutting into their song, coming from high in the jungle canopy, are deep croaks, but they don’t come from frogs.
The source of the mysterious calls are a new species of monkey called the Likweli by the few locals who are aware of them. Likweli are rare, difficult to find and live between two rivers – the Lomami and the Lilo — about 1,200 kilometers from their closest relatives, the colobus angolensis. (Commonly known collectively as colobus monkeys, they are split into six subspecies.)
Likweli have short black fur like their cousins but differ in the color of their mouths and noses, which range from a beige cream to a tangerine-like hue, as well as the shape of their skulls and their deep, rhythmic, croak-like vocalizations.
They’re only the fifth new primates species discovered in the last 75 years, and the excitement at their discovery has been tempered with concern that they may already be endangered.
It took substantial effort to find, observe and take DNA samples from Likweli, scientists say, and there hasn’t been an opportunity for assessing their numbers yet. However, because Likweli live in a relatively small range and depend on the high canopy to thrive (they eat a diet of mostly leaves and live above most potential predators), they’re vulnerable.
Members of the team who found them published a study this week in the open-access journal Plos One.
The process of tracking, photographing, studying and testing the new species took almost 20 years, according to the study’s authors.
“The first evidence of the new species came in 2008 during exploration of the Lomami Basin by members of the Lukuru Foundation, in an area that later became Lomami National Park. Ashley Vosper and Bernard Ikembelo photographed an unidentified monkey in a high forest canopy on the east bank of the Lomami River in the Courbure Sector, named for six large meanders of the Lomami River,” they wrote. “Although the photograph revealed only part of the animal, the field team strongly suspected that this was not any of the monkey species they already knew from the region. Following the initial sighting, nothing more was reported until November 2018, when Jean Pierre Kapale led a surveillance patrol in the Courbure Sector and photographed a black monkey with pale markings around its mouth and a white perianal patch. These characters were unlike those of any known primate species in the area.”
They were able to find and photograph seven more monkeys before beginning efforts for observational study. Likweli live in small family groups of about six individuals on average, they found.
The discovery is a reminder that our beautiful planet is still capable of surprising us even at a time when human behavior and expansion has placed unprecedented pressure on animal species. It’s a reminder that our planet is irreplaceable, that life continues to find new expressions and niches to branch into, and we shouldn’t give up on it.
No matter what the Elon Musks of the world say, no matter how many renders they share depicting grand cities in domed Martian craters or clinging to the underside of Europa’s thick ice crust inside its subsurface oceans, there is only one place thst is absolutely perfect for us, that we evolved to live on and care for.
Even if the science fiction futures that Musk, Bezos, Thiel, Altman and company envision ever come to pass, even if science fiction technology like terraforming becomes reality, there is no backup. Earth, its fauna and flora are ours to protect, a responsibility we need to take seriously for the collective future of every kind of life that exists here.
Let’s hope the Likweli and all species that follow have a place to thrive.
Now the cat’s caretaker is suing to get her pet back and says she’s worried the authorities will have the tuxedo shorthair euthanized. The RSPCA says it responded to serious concerns about the cat’s health.
Usually when complaints about UK police hit the headlines, it involves sheepish constables knocking to talk to a “suspect” about a social media post that offended someone.
This seems to be a whole different level of crazy, and neither the police nor prosecutors are denying that six police officers and an official from the RSPCA showed up at the North London home of Katherine Theodotou, chopped up the front door with an axe and charged in.
The 79-year-old Theodotu, through her attorney, said she was recovering from breast cancer surgery and couldn’t make it to the door quickly. The police, she said, came through the door just as she was reaching it and knocked her over.
They also provided images of the door after the May 27 “raid” on Theodotu’s home:
Theodotu says the police searched her entire home and an adjoining Greek school, which she founded.
The RSPCA and Metropolitan police tell a different version of the story, although they do not dispute the urgency and violence with which they entered Theodotu’s home. They say veterinarians who examined and treated Rita the cat had serious concerns about her health. Rita, who had a congenital condition, cannot use her back legs and requires special care. Theodotu’s attorney said the former human rights lawyer turned educator can prove she’s paid significant sums for Rita’s rehabilitation and care, including a recent veterinary surgery.
But veterinarians who examined Rita after the RSPCA took her found her condition “extremely concerning and consistent with a significant deterioration since discharge, alongside evidence suggestive of prolonged inadequate hygiene, nursing care, and monitoring within the home environment,” said Mark Townsend, an attorney for the RSPCA.
Theodotu is suing the RSPCA and the police for taking her cat and asking the court to prevent the RSPCA from potentially euthanizing Rita. Let’s hope the courts are able to sort out if the cat was receiving proper care and rule in the animal’s best interests.
In the meantime, the London Metropolitan Police should probably review whichever policy allows its officers to break into homes as if they’re ending a hostage situation, not collecting a cat. Unless a real life Jason Stathamesque character is barricaded in his home and making violent threats, it feels like one cop just to make sure everything stays civil and the temperature remains low would be the appropriate response. Two is overkill. Four is almost comical. But six? With an axe? Chopping the door down? Nah. You’ve gotta revisit your protocols, gov.
