At some point this past year, Chris mostly lost interest in going outside but lately his interest has returned. Now, when I take Frankie for a walk Chris waits by the door so he can go out when we return.
Unlike Frankie, Chris is happy to stay close to home. Sometimes he eats a little grass but mostly he just wants to enjoy the great outdoors.
This post is from the summer of 2016. Frankie hasn’t changed much since then.
Chris’s bed needed to be washed. The last time I washed it I noticed it was ripped at the seam.
This time we decided it was time for a new bed. The photo above was from when it was new about a year and a half ago. You can see he barely fits in it. This time we decided to get him a bigger bed. The one we got is actually for dogs, but don’t tell him.
As soon as we put it down, both Chris and Floki were interested in it, but Chris muscled his way onto it first.
He then settled in for a long nap.
This new bed has enough room for Floki to join him. I’m hoping to see that sometime soon.
Here is another throwback photo. This one is of Chris, Tigger, and Abbey taken on this day in 2011.
Back in June of 2012 I wrote a blog post titled “Tub Pooper C.” It was only my eighth post and it talked about how Chris would poop in the bathtub if the litterbox was not perfectly clean. He went from pooping in the tub to pooping on the floor. It was a problem for years. He was four or five years old when he finally stopped doing that. I previously had litterboxes in separate rooms. When we moved to the place next to the marina, I combined two litterboxes in the same room. That solved the issue.
Now, years later, Chris is pooping on the floor again. It started a few weeks ago when Chris pooped under the dining room table while Rose was sitting at the table working. Since then, the number of times he pooped on the rug under the table or on the living room rug has increased until it was happening at least once a day, sometimes more.
I suspected that some of Chris’s age-related issues, such as arthritis and obesity, has made it difficult to use the litter box. Perhaps walking to the next room or climbing into the box has become too much. Of course, he can do it when he has to pee and he can also get up on a relatively high perch, but I still thought a lower litterbox closer to the dining room might help.
As an experiment, I picked up a disposable litterbox at the Grocery store on Friday and set it up under the dining room table.
As expected, our other cats used it, but Chris deposited his calling card on the rug a few feet from the box Saturday morning.
I ordered a large stainless-steel litterbox from Amazon that morning which is only four inches tall. It arrived Sunday. By then we had removed the rugs and washed them. We didn’t put them back because it seemed that Chris was targeting the rugs. I didn’t want to put the new box under the table, so I found room in a nearby bathroom.
It is now 2:00 p.m. on Monday and I have not seen a stray poop. I don’t know if Chris used the new box or if he didn’t poop because he only likes pooping on those rugs. Either way, I’m hopeful.
I didn’t have many new photos this week so I thought I would find an old one (or three) taken on this day. I found a folder from April 26, 2011. It was labeled “Camera Test.” I don’t know what camera I was testing but I think it was a film camera. It looks like I took pictures of whatever, and whoever, I could find.
Here is Chris in our spare bedroom looking out the window. I think that was his favorite place in the condo. The photo is not great, probably due to poor lighting and no flash, but it is a good memory of Chris.
The next is Tigger. He was probably on the same bed as Chris but because I wasn’t pointing the camera at a bright window, the picture is much better.
Here is Abby looking out the window in the master bedroom. It’s another bad photo but a good memory.
A couple of people said happy birthday to Floki the other day even though I didn’t post about it. It reminded me his birthday was coming up and I made a note to look it up when I got home, which I forgot to do until this morning.
Floki was born on or around the eighteenth of April 2016. Since we don’t know his exact birthday, it could very well be today. Even so, I feel bad that other people remember before I do.
I tried to find a recent photo of Floki alone but everything recent has Chris lying next to him or on top of him. The photo below was from two months ago.
Hopefully I won’t forget Chris’s birthday next month.
Some days our house seems like a satellite office of the post office. I won’t mention any names but someone I’m married to likes to shop online.
After I took Frankie for a walk yesterday, Chris wanted to go outside, so I sat on the front step and watched him while he lay in the driveway and enjoyed the sun. The door opened and that someone I mentioned earlier threw the empty box from the first of four packages she received that day out the door. We often throw empty boxes out the door until one of us goes outside and takes them to the garbage can. The box was too much for Chris to resist.
This is what I saw when I sat on the sofa yesterday.
My wife runs several apartment communities. During covid, they started unlocking available units so people could look at them without the staff present. The called them “self-tours” and they still sometimes do that on the weekends when the office is closed.
Now, whenever Frankie escapes, we say he is on a self-tour of the neighborhood. He took one of those self-tours this morning at around 5:15. My wife was going to one of her properties fifty miles away and realized she forgot to plug her car in last night so she asked if I would plug it in for her. Even though she had 200 miles left on her battery, she still felt like she needed more. That’s because she drives 357 miles per hour, which drains the battery faster.
I had just fed the cats and Frankie was busy eating so I thought it would be easy getting out the door. I thought wrong. As soon as the door opened six inches I noticed a tan flash zip out the door. I tried to get him before he got too far but he quickly ran under a car where he knows I can’t reach him. I went back inside, put my shoes on, and returned to where Frankie was last but he was gone. I looked for a while, but it was dark except for the nearby streetlight.
Rose and I opened the door every five minutes or so to see if he had returned. After forty-five minutes, I opened the door and saw him on the street. He ran to the house and climbed the steps. He was met by Floki at the door. I certainly didn’t want Floki to get out because he is a big freaker-outer so I pushed him back to give Frankie room to come in. Frankie just stood there sniffing. Then Floki walked around me and showed up at the door on the other side. Again, I held him back, but Frankie had made up his mind. He wasn’t ready to come in. He turned around and headed away from the house.
Fifteen minutes later I opened the door and called Frankie’s name. I waited several seconds but didn’t see him so I started to close the door. When I did I felt resistance and looked down to see Frankie coming inside.
After his return, Rose said, “You are NOT taking Frankie for a walk today. You shouldn’t reward his bad behavior.” I happen to have today off, and Frankie is relentless about asking to go outside. The weather is bad. It is very windy, and rain is expected soon, but Frankie cares about none of that.
I didn’t get a picture of Frankie today but here he is on another self-tour.
Bad Cat Chris 