Like all kittens, our little Siamese Floki is a ball of energy that is busy all the time, so a photo of him during a calm moment is a pleasure to look at.
Photo Friday: The Calm Before the Floki
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Monthly Archives: September 2016
New Cat Troubles
When we introduced Frankie to our house in early 2014, Chris was not happy about it. He gave Frankie a hard time for a month or so and then decided he wanted to be friends, but he burned his bridges and Frankie didn’t want that. Fortunately, they get along now.
I have introduced many cats to our household over the years and it is never easy but usually after two or three days the war is over except for some minor skirmishes now and then. This time the war lingers on after eight days. It is getting better though. This weekend has been a bit of a turning point and the war has gone from the Civil War to the Cold War.
I did not expect Chris to be this bad. When we introduced Puck, Chris was eager to play with him. It was Tigger who had the problem. I can’t say it is all Chris’s fault though. Frankie gets very defensive when Chris or Puck enters the room and hisses and growls at them. Puck does the right thing and keeps his distance but Chris is undeterred and pushes forward, causing Frankie to retreat under the bed or stand…
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Couch Pooper Puck Strikes Again
Puck has been pooping on our sofa in the “cat’s” room. At first we blamed Chris because that is something Chris would do but we soon realized the the evidence started pointing to Puck. We bought another litter box (see here) because we assumed the boxes were not always as clean as they should be after adopting Floki. That worked for a while but soon we found poop on the sofa again so I moved the new box next to it to see if that would help.
A day or two after putting the box there, I think it was Saturday, Rose was at her desk when Puck decided to poop on the couch. Keep in mind that her desk is inches from the couch, but she felt compelled to call me in from another part of the house to stop what was going on. I arrived just in time to see the event unfold in real time. There wasn’t much I could do at that point. If I were there from the beginning, oh, like maybe sitting in a chair next to him, I could have picked him up and put him in the box. The funny thing is, we never knew for certain that Puck was the culprit, but he showed us he was guilty in a big way.
At this point, I don’t know what to do with him. I have a bottle of Nature’s Miracle Calming Spray that I bought for a problem long ago but I can’t remember what that problem was. In any case, I sprayed it on the sofa this morning and Frankie and Floki became very interested in the smell. I also have a bottle of “No Scratch” spray, which I think is like a repellent, but I don’t want to repel the cats away from the sofa. I hope the calming spray helps because I don’t know what else to do to get puck to poop where he is supposed to.
Maybe next I can put the litter box on top of the sofa. My wife would love that.
Photo Friday: Jelly Belly Friday
I don’t know where it started but #jellybellyfriday has become popular on Twitter. I know WordPress isn’t Twitter but it is Friday so I thought I would show our cat Frankie showing his belly.
The Story of Casper, The Friendly Cat
I want to re-share this story of Casper on Remember Me Thursday.® This may not exactly qualify because Casper was not stuck in a shelter. He had a home, but it was not a loving home,
“Some day soon, perhaps in forty years, there will be no one alive who has ever known me. That’s when I will be truly dead – when I exist in no one’s memory.” – Irvin D. Yalom
I think writing about my cats helps keep their memory alive, perhaps indefinitely, which makes me feel good, but there is another cat, one who belonged to someone else, who I feel deserves to be remembered. I thought about Casper while reading a post on Rumpydog called The Damage That Ignorance Can Do. Part of the story was about people moving and abandoning their cat. It reminded me of how Casper was abandoned, not physically but emotionally. He had no home where people cared about him. I suppose I should start from the beginning.
The year was 2004, long before Chris was born. We had three cats at the time; Princess, Sneakers and…
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Chris’s First Vet Visit
Since we adopted Chris in November of 2009, he has never been to the vet for a health related issue until yesterday. He did go to the vet for a mandatory vaccination late in 2010 when we moved back to Florida, and when he was a kitten he was fixed and vaccinated, but that was all. He has been a pretty healthy cat, despite his weight gain these last couple of years.
That changed when we adopted Floki a few months ago and illness spread through our house like wildfire. Everyone was sneezing but the eye infections were the worst. Frankie had to go to the vet because one of he eyes was very bad. We treated him with the medication they gave us but then noticed his eye became very dilated (see here).
Frankie’s eye got better after a few days but then we noticed Chris had the same problem in one of his eyes. We were giving him Frankie’s eye medication but he got worse so we decided it was time to bring him to the vet.
We have two vets. Vet number 1 is about a ten or twelve-minute drive and vet number 2 is about two minutes away. Vet 2 is where we brought Frankie. Vet 1, called The Animal and Bird Medical Center, is harder to get an appointment with but I like them better because they are less likely to shoot your pet up with steroids and antibiotics on the first visit. In other words, they usually try to take a natural approach, but not always.
Rose brought Chris to Vet 1 yesterday morning and was nice enough to take pictures for me.
Rose said Chris did a lot of crying on the way to the vet, but once there, he was good.
The doc said that the dilation in his eyes was caused by the eye medication we were giving him. Imagine that. We were causing the problem by the very thing we were using to treat the problem.
The vet also said that Chris has some kind of growth in his ears. I don’t think those were his exact words, but that was the second-hand information that I received. He gave Rose some drops to put in Chris’s ears and a different eye medication. No shots or pills, and it only cost us about $115. Not cheap, but better than expected, and I am happy to know that Chris does not have a serious health condition.
Chris was also very quiet on the way home. I guess somehow he knew the worst was over and he was going home.
Cats are Clumsy
Cats have a reputation for being very graceful but in reality, they can be quite clumsy. They are graceful under certain circumstances. For example, they can walk across a display full of porcelain collectibles and leave them all undisturbed. Yes, they are graceful walkers, but what about running and jumping?
Running, and especially jumping, is where they all turn into a cat version of Inspector Clouseau. I don’t know why, maybe nature didn’t prepare them for indoor living, but every time one of our cats jumps on something I hold my breath while I wait to see if something, or someone, falls over. All of our cats have fallen, knocked something over or slid into something but our most clumsy cat has to be Puck.
Who? Me?
One example happened Friday morning. I was sitting at the computer when Puck jumped onto my lap, stepped onto the desk and then jumped to get on top of our laser printer. He missed, and grabbed onto whatever he could to keep from falling. That happened to be me. I supposed I could have backed away and saved myself but I hung in there to save my dear, little klutz.
I ended up with a large scratch on my arm, two scratches on my side and a puncture at the edge of my fingernail. In addition, he hurt an already sore shoulder and I spilled coffee on myself.
That was just one example. It seems whenever a wound from one clumsy cat incedent heals, I end up with another one.
We are not the only household with clumsy cats. Shortly after I started writing this post yesterday evening, I saved it to eat dinner and watch a movie with my wife. She did not know what I was writing about but relayed a story to me after the movie was over. She said her friend’s cat tried to jump on a cabinet and missed. He ended up breaking his femur and now she is faced with a $1500 vet bill.
Okay, it’s your turn. Tell me about your clumsy cats.
To Catch a Cat
Frankie escaped three times last weekend by using a trick that Chris figured out years ago; He no longer hesitates when the door opens. As soon as the door cracks open, out he goes. Once out, he is nearly impossible to catch. I have to wait until he wears himself out before I can catch him.
The following video was compiled from two separate escapes, Friday evening and Sunday afternoon.
It is very similar to what Chris used to do four years ago.
In other news, we could not get Chris a vet appointment until late Tuesday. I am concerned because when we got home today I noticed that both of his eyes are compleatly dilated. I called the vet back but they had closed by then. I did leave a message that I was concerned and asked if they could squeeze him in on Monday. I will be at work so Rose will have to bring him.
Photo Friday: Special Delivery
Chris has not been feeling well lately and spends a lot of time sleeping, which is typical cat behavior but not typical Chris behavior. The last couple of weeks, while our other three cats are gathered in the kitchen waiting to be fed, Chris is laying down somewhere in the house and I have to bring him his dinner, which he does not get up to eat.
We have been debating on whether or not to take Chris to the vet. His eye is still bad but slightly better and he does eat and he does come out for attention sometimes, but not as often as before. I worry that if I do bring him to the vet they will just give him antibiotics and steroids (which he has never had and I would like to keep those out of his system) and I will be out several hundred dollars. On the other hand, I would possibly find out if it is something different than what Frankie, Puck and Floki had.
Couch Pooper Puck
About a year ago a cat pooped on our brand new sofa and we assumed it was Chris. I even accused him in this post. We later realized it was Puck doing the bad deed (see here). We assumed he was doing it because the addition of the sofa interfered slightly with access to the litter boxes, so we moved them to a new location and the pooping stopped.
A couple of weeks ago the pooping started up again. I thought it was because our new addition, Floki, was adding to the amount of poop in the litter boxes and Puck didn’t like that. I scoop more often but it’s hard to keep up when I am sleeping or at work so we decided it was time for another litter box.
I went to PetSmart about two weeks ago on Sunday but their litter box choices were very poor. An employee told me a truck was coming in the next day but I needed something right away so I bought the biggest box that I could find, which my wife thought it was too small. I went back the next day but the selection was still terrible so I just returned it.
We went to a different PetSmart the following Saturday. I was looking for another Giant Litter Pan but the box in the center of the below picture was the best we could find. I should have just ordered it on Amazon since we waited almost a week just to settle for okay.
Since adding the new box, Puck has pooped on the sofa one time. I thought I might have to move the new box in front of it but I don’t want to do that so we will see if the badness continues.
Bad Cat Chris 