I guess this is what my Saturday nights have become- get my cat all smacked up and film him trying to clean the hard to reach places:
He missed the entire lower half of his body a spot. I am, however, a major fan of the barrel roll maneuver he executed at 40 seconds.
In all honesty, he is losing weight. I can tell.
demkat620
You could post that on twitter as your hostage video.
Litlebritdifrnt
I love it Tunch break dancing!
sloan
That was awesome.
drainflake77
can i get the number of that cat’s dealer?
khead
Alligator!
(Slow motion version…)
gogol's wife
The contrast between the music and the action is very piquant. Tunch looks very happy in his new home.
Comrade Mary
Yay for twisty Tunch! I also love his polar opposite, Standing Cat, that Kevin K. at Rump Roast featured the other day.
Max
I have arrived in Vancouver, WA, as had my stuff. For any BJ’ers in the area that wish to come unpack all my shit… there’s a case of beer in it for you.
I have reached that stage in my unpacking where I need to determine where to put dishes, spices, glasses, etc in the kitchen.
I know there is a formula for this type of thing, but damned if I know where stuff should be put.
Mike Kay
Tunch – the New spokescat for Jenny Craig
Short Bus Bully
If that is “losing weight”…
The agility on display is breathtaking.
Kristine
Are we sure that he isn’t Smudge’s dad? Or at least related? Those schmears atop his head–mere coincidence?
madmommy
@Max:
Think about where stuff should be in relation to when you need it. While you’re cooking, you want to be able to reach pots, pans and utensils easily. Spices should also be close to hand. Save harder to access cupboards for things you don’t use all the time. I like dishes and glassware near the dishwasher because it’s easy to put things away after they’re washed.
Don’t forget to save back one drawer , if you can, for junk. Everyone needs a junk drawer!
jl
It’s clear by the end of the clip that The TunchRoll is totally c-nipped out of his mind.
As for this:
“In all honesty, he is losing weight. I can tell.”
I take that as proof that Tunch reads this blog, and rewards or punishes Cole according to what he sees. Why else type a doubtful thing?
If not, The Tunchinator is one of the hugest strangest low density puffy furball entitites in the history of the universe. In which case, you could pitch it as a story for whatever Star Trek is going to be on the TV soon.
I can see Captain Picard, or whoever the captain is now, cautiously but bravely steering his star ship towards the mysterious and gigantic Furball Entity, which has engulfed the largest bedtime snacks ever mapped in the known universe.
Edit: But I did forget to mention the TGLE (Tunch Gravitational Lensing Effect) which makes him appear smaller than everything else combined. That might be fooling Cole. Sorry. My bad.
gbear
The upper half tastes better. Fewer bodily functions. Just sayin’…
drainflake77
maybe have your gauge checked? cat looks a little over-inflated.
Polish the Guillotines
The Mrs. had to take our youngest cat, Bella, to the vet this morning (thank goodness they keep Saturday hours) because we noticed her acting like something was caught in her mouth.
Turns out she’s got some kind of weird cat virus not fully understood by veterinary science that’s going to result in the immediate extraction of one — possibly two — teeth on Monday, and many more to follow throughout her life.
Sad as this sounds, the other possibility for her dental problem might have been feline leukemia. Thankfully, the blood tests were negative. This would have destroyed the Mrs.
Maude
@Max:
Trial and error. I put some things in cabinets and then arranged as needed. That was before I unpacked the boxes.
Good luck unpacking. Yuk.
Evelyn
But our Saturday night is watching this video so…
The Moar You Know
John: your cat cannot bend in the middle.
I’ve owned plenty of cats in my day. I’ve had one that was that fat. It’s not healthy – mostly because, as you note, they can’t clean themselves properly.
I don’t know how you’re gonna pull it off, but you need to put Tunch on a real diet.
philly71
@John Cole;
Tunch’s tail looks specific to the ‘Turkish Van’ breed. Is that the case?
MTmofo
Excellent song choice. That choreographed quite nicely.
gbear
@Polish the Guillotines:
My little old kitty’s had most of her teeth removed. She just has a few left in the front. The cats get both hard and soft food and if she’s in a mood for the hard food, she can still eat it. Bella will get by without them. I hope the same can be said for your budget. Pet dental work is damned expensive.
demo woman
@Polish the Guillotines: Bella is a beauty. I hope she is okay.
jl
@The Moar You Know:
I think it was obvious that Tunch was stoned out of his mind.
John Cole needs to post a clip of a sober Tunch cleaning himself.
Or maybe repost the infamous NSFW clip of Tunch cleaning his **** or his *** or his *****, or all three, so we can make a fair determination of the size and middle-bendability of this here TunchMass.
drainflake77
@max:
the trick is to find an ideal spot for the boxes, then just live out of them.
Mnemosyne
We’re babysitting my niece and nephew tonight (10 and 7) and let them have the fun of using the laser to play with the cats. Much fun was had by all, though we had to cut it short because Charlotte (cat, not niece) loves the laser a little too much and will play until she starts panting really hard.
Alan
My cat, Autumn, needs to gain weight. She’s as skinny as a rail. So I feed her twice a day with can food and leave a bowl of hard food available if she wants to nibble. I don’t know how often you feed Tunch but my bet it’s more than once a day. Dude, leave a bowl of hard food available all day but only feed Tunch once a day. It’s just not healthy for a cat to have that much weight on him.
And if you can afford it, buy the Evo brand of hard food–it has no grains (read no sugar).
demo woman
Does this mean that Tunch can no longer tip over the La-Z-boy? I don’t think so.
Alan
Don’t feel guilty though. I love the video.
firebrand
Losing weight? Maybe. But it just means that this kitty is going from super fat to just plain fat. Which is still fat.
Tunch is fat. :)
Polish the Guillotines
@gbear:
That’s pretty much what the vet said, so the Mrs. and I are talking about taking her in ever six months to see what’s happening. And yeah, I’m gonna have to start saving up for it.
@demo woman: Thanks, and thanks. Sounds like she’ll be fine. Apparently this is not uncommon, but I’ll take a healthy, toothless cat over having to put one down because of leukemia any day.
Litlebritdifrnt
Ya’ll are just mean. Yeah perhaps Tunch has Rubenesque proportions but he is already on a strict diet and Cole is trying. Listen, sometimes there are just fat cats. I have nine cats total, Cadbury looks like she is permanently carrying 13 kittens (she is fixed so no not happening), whereas Lari is very slender, Tilly even more so. They all have the same access to food, dry food available in the feeder all day and wet food for dinner in the evening. Just as there are people like me “I can eat whatever I like and never put on a pound” there are people like my Mum who can restrict herself to 800 calories a day and she still can’t lose weight.
Give Cole a break. Tunch is just big-boned, or has a slow metabolism or carries alot of water, or something, but one thing I know for sure there is no way on this earth that the anal retentive, attention to detail, persnickity Cole is over feeding his cat. Ain’t happening.
gbear
@Polish the Guillotines:
My cat had to have an operation once when I was unemployed, and I found out that my vet clinic has a fund set up so that well-off pet owners can donate money to cover the cost of pet care for financially struggling pet owners. They took a couple hunderd dollars out of the fund to help me pay for the operation. I heart my vets.
robertdsc
A wonderful video. Tunch is perfect. Thank you.
Max
Thanks for the tips! Funny you, drainflake. :P
Since my last post, I have decided to put the spices on the corner cabinet lazy susan thing.
And with that, my unpacking for the night is over. Time to have a couple beers and enjoy my brand new HD tv. First time HDTV person. Liking it. Can’t wait until football season.
I wish there was the catnip equivalent for dogs. I’d love to see Max the Wheaten high like his Tunchness.
lamh31
Man, I know this is probably not the best place to post this, but Dixie Carter…”Julia Sugerbaker” has died.
I loved Designing Women, and Dixie and Suzzane were my favorite ones.
RIP Dixie
http://www.etonline.com/news/2010/04/85796/
Annie
@madmommy:
In our house we call it the “drawer from hell.” We are almost afraid to open it….
Maybe next Saturday we will have a video by Tunch of John taking a shower….Wonder what music he will use??
Allen
Everyone says get a Furminator, get a Furmanator. So I did, today. Working on the first bag o’ hair and I’m one tenth of the way brushing her. And she’s been well brushed before, but not Furmanated.
Back to work.
Damn you Mr. Cole.
Joel
I’m pretty amazed by the lack of coverage in Thailand right now. The demonstrations there just turned fierce. Massive clash at the Democracy Monument — just a few blocks from the Royal Palace. Hard to believe, really.
Allen
And oh yes, she doesn’t like to hit the nip.
kommrade reproductive vigor
If it weren’t for Tunch’s orange spots I would have thought I was watching self-kneading bread dough.
sukabi
sort of reminded me of a buoy rolling about a quiet lake…
if that’s as hopped up on catnip as he gets, it might be time to switch to another brand…. or grow your own… AND cut down on his munchies after….
LOL
Polish the Guillotines
@gbear: You said it. Vets are pretty special folks. That’s truly heartwarming to know you were able to take care of your cat that way. I’m going to mention this to the Mrs. and have her find out if our vet has a similar fund we can donate to.
We’re lucky to have a great regular vet, emergency vet, and we also discovered a mobile vet who we used for the sad chore of putting down our oldest cat, Abby.
Good mobile vets are a great way to deal with pets who don’t travel well, and when the sad day comes, there’s something peaceful about dealing with it in a familiar place.
Annie
@Polish the Guillotines:
One of our cats was diagnosed with an Immunodeficiency virus — stomatitis — a few years ago. He had several teeth removed as the virus attacked his mouth. It was horrible. Even the vet was stunned at what happened in his mouth.
After six months of giving him steriods — we had to shot it in his mouth twice a day which wasn’t easy — we gave up. Four years later, he is just fine. I flood his food — even wet food — with water — I make a gravy. The only problem is that he is too fat — not from the disease, but because I spoil him. I know I have to stop and control his diet more….
vhh
I hate to say this to you, John, because I enjoy your blog.
But your cat Tunch could be a stand in for Rush Limbaugh.
He’s a real porker with a weakness for mood altering drugs. Catnip, Vicodin, same thing.
I presume Tunch is neutered, making him prone to porking up.
Maybe that means Limbaugh is a eunuch.
vhh
General Egali Tarian Stuck
You all leave Tunch alooooooone!!
He’s fat and happy. And that is how it should be.
Annie
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
LOL…
drainflake77
beluga, right?
…it’s sad when they beach
madmommy
@lamh31:
So sad. I loved Designing Women, and have at least one version of each of the four main characters represented in the southern women of my family. Julia will always be my favorite. This clip of Julia defending her sister is perfect.
Polish the Guillotines
@Annie: Wow. That’s pretty scary. I’m glad he’s doing okay. I guess we’re looking forward to years of kitty gruel.
Jim Once
So, yeah, Tunch is fat. And our sweet boy Grayg was, too – and died of liver disease because of it. We tried – constantly – to bring his weight down, but I have to ask: Does anyone really know any overweight cat that actually managed to lose weight and keep it off? I don’t, and we are huge cat fanciers in our large Irish-German-Japanese family (number two son has five felines). Litlebritdifrnt is right – different cats, just like different folks – doesn’t matter what kind of diet they’re on.
binzinerator
We’re even lamer. We’re spending part of our Saturday night watching your video of this.
Anyhoo, Tunch isn’t nearly as fat as the last time I saw him in one of your vids. I thought he would still look 3 or 4 times fatter than the fattest cat I ever saw, and he now looks only twice as fat, if that.
different church-lady
Well, thank god there’s millions of dollars of technology behind that.
SIA
@Max: How exciting! I love unpacking in a new place.
You can always change things around once you’ve lived there a while.
Congrats on the new town and new digs! How’s Max?
PeakVT
I’m pretty amazed by the lack of coverage in Thailand right now.
All colors have been used in previous revolutions, so this one can’t be happening.
Max
@SIA: He’s still a little freaked out. Trying to find his new “spots” in the new place. I’m going from a 750 sf bungalow to a 2,000 sf house, so he’s got a lot of spaces to try before he settles on his favs.
Found a new doggie day care for him and he enjoyed his half day on Friday. Full day on Monday, so fingers crossed.
Keith G
I haven’t pushed play yet. But…..2 and a half min of a cat licking himself? On Saturday night? Wow. My life has changed.
IndyLib
@Jim Once:
We have a neutered male who was getting very, very porky. Based on advice I gleaned from BJ, I got him off of high carbohydrate food (aka kitty crack) and that helped. He slims down during the warmer weather when he can go outside and harass the rodent population, but fattens back up during the winter (though never to the point he was at before) when he spends 22.5 hours a day imitating a big black tribble hiding in a quilt.
If your cat is an inside cat, I have no advice except to get them off the kitty crack if that’s an issue.
lamh31
@madmommy:
I remember that scene, it was one if my favorites. Gonna have to post it to my fb page
Annie
@IndyLib:
What do you feed him?
Jim Once
@IndyLib:
For many of the twelve years he lived with us, we had Grayg on low cal Science Diet for “mature cats,” and fed him the serving size suggested by our vet. I don’t know if that’s low carb, but it most obviously didn’t work. There was no way we could let him roam our neighborhood outdoors (too many coyotes, mountain lions, dogs, et al). I bitterly regret the awfulness of his leavetaking. We put off having him put down, on the advice of the vet, and forced milk thistle seed down him for five days – only to have him die the morning of his scheduled “home visit” in terrible agony.
Mnemosyne
@Annie:
I ended up taking the cats off grains entirely because they seem to make Keaton puke (especially wheat gluten). Right now, they’re getting Blue Buffalo Wilderness for dry food and Soulistic wet food from Petco. Purina Pro Plan Selects used to be the standby, but the Soulistic is a little cheaper.
SIA
@Jim Once: Wow, that is tough. I’m sorry you and Grayg had to experience that. It’s not always clear what the best path is.
We lost our beautiful Romeo to a coyote or something. I still work on forgiving myself for letting him out that evening. I remember the moment perfectly.
SIA
@Max: Good luck on Monday. I’m impressed you had the courage to pack up and move the way you did.
@Keith G: I was utterly transfixed for the entire video.
IndyLib
@Annie:
I feed both my cat and dog Wellness.
My dog had a big weight gain due to having surgery on her leg and being pretty immobile for several months and the food and an increase of exercise have worked pretty well for her. She gets half a can of the wet food and 2 cups of dry food a day (she’s a big dog).
The cat gets 1 pouch of the Healthy Indulgence a day and all the Core grain-free dry that he wants. I tried the grain free canned food, but he was miserable and being a cat made sure he spread it around.
The food isn’t cheap, but my vet says both of my babies are healthier since I switched.
@Jim Once:
I’m so sorry you had to go through that with your cat, losing them is painful, but sometimes even more so when you’ve fought for them so hard. I’ve lived in places where the cats I had couldn’t go outside and my neutered males were always overweight. Science Diet isn’t low carb, not even the low-cal stuff. I’m not certain that the super low-carb makes nearly as much difference as the exercise, but I know it made sense to me when I did some research and was reminded that cats in the wild don’t eat anything to speak of except protein and for the most part their nutritional needs haven’t changed much just because they’re domesticated.
gnomedad
Eppur si muove!
DaveM
The cat has fleas.
SiubhanDuinne
This is O/T and it’s actually mostly for asiangrrlMN — I figure if she shows up tonight she’ll head straight for the TUUUUUNCHIE! thread :-)
Anyhow, grrl, wanted to let you know that the NYTimes has a really interesting article on Alan Rickman as theatre director. As a fellow Rickmaniac, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.
The only link I can pull up is for the mobile version and I’m not sure whether it works on a regular laptop or desktop computer but it’s http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=577248&f=63
In case it doesn’t work, the piece is in the Arts section with the title *Alan Rickman Directs Strindberg’s ‘Creditors’ at BAM*
Anne Laurie
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Small-boned, actually. I think (I’ve only seen the photos here) that Tunch actually has the Oriental-cat-style fine skeletal structure, and the “easy keeper” metabolism to go with it, so every extra ounce shows cruelly. Big-boned cats, and people, can get away with a lot more extra weight before they look fat, even if they’re just as clinically obese. Gymnasts and swimmers have to watch every ounce — football and rugby players, not so much.
16 shells from a thirty aught six
A slender Tunch would rock my world in a bad way. It would be like seeing John Goodman skinny, it would just ruin him for me forever.
Mum
@Litlebritdifrnt:
I have a cat that is definitely Tunch’s equal. He’s perhaps a bit bigger-boned, but he is horribly overweight. There are four other cats in the house and they are all slim and active. Wilber, the aforementioned “big boy,” is not a totally inactive act, and he has been eating “diet” cat food for at least three years (he’s going to be nine). He spends his entire day looking for something to eat, which means I have to be incredibly vigilant when feeding the other cats. There’s no rhyme or reason as to why this cat is so fat, and one of my vets has a similar problem in his household – one cat out of several that’s gone plus-size. My major concern is diabetes. My son had a cat who was overweight (not to Wilber’s or Tunch’s extent, however) and he developed diabetes. We had to do the whole insulin injection and glucose testing rigmarole, which wasn’t really that expensive or that much of a bother (he was great about the shots), but it shortened his life considerably.
I have seriously thought about buying a treadmill for Wilber. If anyone has been successful in getting a cat to slim down, please let me know your magic. I’m ready to try anything short of surgery!
Mum
@Max:
Wow! That’s great.
My daughter’s vet offers a credit card for pet care that doesn’t charge interest and allows you to pay off your bills over a period of time. She and her boyfriend adopted a cat with multiple medical issues and they are both starving artists so the credit card really helped.
asiangrrlMN
Tunchie! He looks slimmer here than he did in his recent pic. Cole may not be feeding him enough, if you can believe it. The whole starvation mechanism thing. At any rate, it’s hilarious to see him stoned out of his mind, the sweet boy. Oh, and you might want to get him a brother, Cole (or a sister) of the feline kind to help with those hard-to-reach places. Love that boy.
@Polish the Guillotines: Glad Bella will be OK. She’s gorgeous.
I feed my boys Pet Guard wet and Solid Gold Indigo Moon dry. I used to feed them Pet Promise wet and dry, but they went out of business. Sigh.
P.S. Max, congrats on the big move! Pics when you’re all settled in.
gogol's wife
My cat Louis is probably fatter than Tunch (it’s hard to tell on a video). I have in the past tried to put cats on diets, and it has never worked. But my previous cats were indoor-outdoor, and they didn’t have as big a problem as Louis (and his two sisters, while not skinny, are not fat). Three out of five of the cats I had before disappeared in broad daylight and I never knew what happened to them (probably coyotes). Louis’s weight will probably lead to some health problems, but if I let him go outside every day (which he shows no signs of wanting to do — he seems to think his first six months out there was enough) he’d probably have died long ago. You can’t keep them alive forever, no matter how you try to control the process. I do feel guilty, though — and these comments aren’t helping any!!!
asiangrrlMN
@gogol’s wife: Do not feel guilty. There are trade-offs to everything. My boys are indoor cats, and they have always been that way. I know one of them (Shadow) would enjoy the outdoors, but I wouldn’t be able to get the harness on him. In return, my vet says they are very healthy; they are well-fed and well-loved. (Both are snoozing on me as I type). So, you have to do what you think is best for Louis, and I don’t think getting eaten by coyotes would be a good thing!
gogol's wife
@asiangrrlMN:
Thanks!
Toast
You need a pole in that video.
litbrit
Tunch is wonderful. I keep saying this, but damn, he looks like a white and marmalade version of my jet-black Marley. Marley does exactly the same thing, too–gets himself all silly with the ‘nip and then lies on his back and half-heartedly washes himself in spots that don’t take too much effort to reach. I am also struck by the way both cats have bellies that kind of splay out and anchor them to the floor when they’re on their backs. Marles will even find a sunbeam to warm his tummy and sleep for hours, just like that, belly-up. It seems so counterintuitive for a normally hair-trigger-reaction-prone predator like a cat to sleep in a postition that leaves his soft underbelly and organs so vulnerable, but I guess the spoiled ones like mine are well aware the only thing they have to worry about are tummy rubs–evolution be damned.
Ecks
It’s pretty clear from this video that Tunch has been hanging out with this fellar.
limniade
My cat, Casey, was a 19-pound beach ball until a year ago, when his occasional pancreatitis attacks became a chronic condition and he stopped eating. Through regular vet visits, daily medication and different foods, his appetite is back, but he now weighs 8.5 lbs as of his last vet visit two weeks ago. Not only that, but he’s bald because as a fat medium-hair, I’d get him a lion cut every spring so he wouldn’t be hot. So I shaved him last April and it only grew back a little. Poor guy! But now he’s on prescription food that’s expensive as fuck (and since I have two cats, that means BOTH cats have to be on it because Casey can only eat this one food) and doing well with it, so I hope to have him back to a normal weight within a few more months. I hope. It’s been a long year.
All things considered, having a fat cat who can’t lick his own butt is not ideal. But having a skinny cat whose food isn’t doing him any good is downright pathetic. The best you can do is find a really good quality food that he’ll actually eat and just feed a little less of it than normal. You want to make sure he does eat every day because fat cats are prone to Fatty Liver Disease if they go without eating for more than a day or two, but otherwise, well, I’ve never seen a fat cat just lose weight through Kitty Weight Watchers as opposed to through a serious health problem. I’d rather have a porker myself.
Besides, call me weird, but there’s just something awesome about a chubby cat.
Gatsby
Ah! My favorite, beautiful feline boy! His Tunchiness is a magnificent Feline! You, John, ought to be in awe of His Majesty, who deigns to spend his regal time with you!
N.B.: I think Lily is the absolute best canine one could actually live with. She is beautiful, sweet, and just the best!
Liz
Has anyone suggested that you narrate your pet videos, John? This one clearly calls for a Tunch monologue.