When we first adopted Floki, the first thing he did was find this rope toy to play with. Kittens are just so fun to watch. Who needs television?
Playful Kitten
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Author Archives: Charles Huss
Photo Friday: The Enemy of my Enemy…
This picture was taken the day we adopted our kitten, Floki. I think they were discussing how to take him down when they fell asleep.
Meet Floki, Part 2
At this point I think I could write a book about adopting our latest kitten. Instead, I just posted the related links at the bottom of this post so if you have missed what is going on, and if you have a bunch of free time, you can catch up.
Our last episode ended up with our heroes trying to rescue a kitten from the dreaded carrier. By “rescue” I mean they hissed and whacked at him, especially Frankie, but the kitten endured and seemed to be having a good time exploring the house. Whenever Frankie would approach him in a threatening manner, the kitten would hide under the sofa or wherever he would fit and Frankie would not. Once the danger passed, he was out running around again.
Once things settled down a little, I opened a can of cat food and split it in fourths. Chris never eats much of his wet food and this time Frankie didn’t eat much either. The kitten, however, ate like a pig. I had to keep adding food to his plate.
Later that evening we sat down and watched a little television. The kitten was pretty busy since we brought him home and we wanted him to take a nap so Rose held him on her lap for a while.
That calmed him down but sleeping was not on the agenda.
He then found his way to my lap where he dosed off at 9:30. At 9:31 he was awake and ready for the day. That lasted until 10:00 when he fell asleep again… for five full minutes.
We went to bed sometime after 11:00. At this point the kitten had been awake for at least 12 hours straight, minus six minutes. We didn’t want to close our bedroom door and “throw him to the wolves.” so to speak, so he slept on the bed with us. Rose was worried about squishing him in the night but he survived.
The following evening we had to think of a name for him. Rose and I were both reading through seperate lists of cat names but nothing sounded right. Finally I said “Rollo” from the show Vikings. I had a new appreciation for the character when I discovered that he was an ancestor of mine (I also learned he probably never even met Ragnar). Rollo seemed like a great name for a cat but another character from the show, Floki, seemed even better. So Floki it is.
Today the cats are still jealous of Floki but nobody is fighting with him except for the occasional hiss and whack. Rose worked from home the last two days but today they will be without supervision all day. Let’s hope the peace lasts.
Related Posts:
Meet Floki, Our Newest Addition
I felt a little bad Sunday after we went up to my sister-in-law’s vet’s office to look at kittens that needed a home and then left without one (If you didn’t read my last post you can find it here). Rose felt bad too and called her sister and asked about seeing the second male Siamese kitten.
The two cats were being fostered and Felice chose the one she thought was more friendly and brought that one in to be fixed. Rose wanted to see the other one so the foster parent agreed to meet us with the other kitten at the animal hospital, where the first kitten was still staying,
When she arrived, Felice put a ribbon around the neck of the fixed cat so we wouldn’t confuse them and then took both kittens out. The big gold cat was there to greet us again and was a little bit like Baby Huey.
After checking out both kittens, Rose came to realize that the first kitten we saw was the better choice and he was not sickly like she first thought. It was like she was seeing him for the first time and was convinced he was the one, so we put him in the carrier and headed home after briefly considering taking his brother too. Of course, we knew we were pushing the limit with four cats, especially since we are only allowed two.
On the way out we had to pass by this scene, which was very hard to do.
We were happy to hear that this girl’s potential adopter is not as bad as we thought. While she will be an outside cat, we were told that she will be living on a farm with other outside cats that are well taken care of. Apparently, there is a part of the barn that is set up for them. I sometimes think Frankie might be happier living in a place like that where he can come and go as he pleases. I then see him lying upside-down on our bed and I think maybe not.
The kitten cried almost all the way home, and it was a long trip. I heard Siamese cats are very vocal and this confirms it.
I thought introducing a kitten would be less stressful for our cats because kittens are not a threat. I noticed when we introduced Puck, a kitten, Chris was happy to have him but when we got Frankie, an adult cat, Chris was not happy about that.
This time Chris and Puck did a little growling at the kitten but were mostly tolerant. Frankie, however, wanted the kitten gone. He spent his time hissing at him and trying to whack him. Fortunately, the kitten was small enough to get into places where Frankie couldn’t reach him.
Floki and Chris
I wanted to tell the story in one post but preparing the pictures and videos is time-consuming, and I have very little spare time these days. I will finish this tomorrow, hopefully. I will say that as I write this, Frankie is mostly over being mean to the kitten but he is still jealous and needs attention.
We Came, We Saw, We Left With No Kitten
Yesterday, we went to visit my sister-in-law and her husband, Felice and Jeff, for the fourth of July, even though it was the third. After we settled in for a bit and met the little gold kitten that they decided to adopt, we took a short ride to the vet’s office where Felice works. That is where the two cats were that needed a home.
We first went to an examination room that held the female kitten that needed a home. Her two brothers were in there also and all three of them were very cute and playful. The female had unique markings. She had sprinkles of gold but she wasn’t technically a Calico or Tortie. I don’t know exactly how that works but Felice says in both cases they have black patches, which this kitten doesn’t have. Wikipedia does mention a “Tortie-Tabby” or “Torbie” which is what this kitten might be.
Is she a “Torbie?”
Next we visited the Siamese kitten. This one was a bit shy at first but warmed up very quickly and had a nice loud purr. Rose was a bit disappointed in him for some reason. She said he looked sickly and she noticed he wasn’t the same kitten that she saw in the photograph. I didn’t think he was sickly. In fact, he seemed somewhat energetic.
I didn’t know this then but there were actually two Siamese kittens that needed a home. They were brothers that were left in a carrier at Wal-Mart on Memorial Day when they were about six weeks old. Also in the carrier were three other kittens from a different litter that were about eight weeks old. Felice picked the one that seemed the friendliest and brought it to her work to have him fixed, just in case we decided to take him home.
After I shot the above video, we put the kitten on a table where a very overweight gold cat with bent whiskers was hanging out looking for attention.
This cat was extremely friendly and we considered adopting him but Felice said he likes kittens but he does not get along with adult cats. We joked that he eats them, which was not very nice (even though we laughed).
We decided to think about it and we went back to Felice’s house and talked while her husband, Jeff, made his famous chicken barbecue.
While we were waiting, the gold kitten was out playing and he really seemed to take to me. I was petting his belly and he was “fighting” my hand. He then lied on my lap and purred and purred and purred. I was thinking about what a couple of commentators said on my last post. They said “let the kitten choose you,” or something similar. It seemed this kitten was choosing us but Felice and Jeff already chose to adopt him and wouldn’t give him up. In truth, I couldn’t blame them.
Rose decided she didn’t want to settle for a kitten she wasn’t sure about and I suggested that we go back and look at them both one more time. It was agreed that we would do that but when it was time to go, Rose’s mom was not feeling good and wanted to go home right away so she could “take a pill.” So that was the end of that, but we did pay the $60 for the kitten’s vet bill. it was the least we could do for leaving without a kitten.
If you have made it this far, I will tell you there is more to this story, so check back again soon.
The Kitten Dilema
I recently wrote about a kitten that my sister-in-law, Felice, was raising and would need a home soon (read here). We decided we would meet the kitten on Sunday (today) and make the decision then. At the time I did not have pictures of the kitten but Felice sent a few the other day.
A day or two after we heard about the gold kitten, Felice informed us of another kitten that needed rescue. This was a female that was being taken care of at the vet’s office where Felice works. Her litter-mates have a home to go to when they are old enough and she also had someone interested in adopting her but, if I understood it correctly, that person plans on keeping her outside, perhaps as a mouser. I don’t know.
Now it gets even more complicated. a couple days after we find out about the girl kitten, we also find out that Felice and her husband decided to keep the gold cat. That is a good thing because even though they have about 100 cats, give or take, they lack a gold cat.
You would think that would simplify things but wait… Felice knows someone who is fostering a male Siamese kitten that needs a home.
Both of these kittens will be together for us to see when we visit Felice later today. It will be difficult for us because we don’t even know if we are ready for a fourth kitten and now we will be forced to reject one or more kittens. This kitten business is tough.
Photo Friday: Tight Fit
We have had this cat perch for almost a year and I have never seen anyone use the cubby hole on the bottom until a couple of weeks ago when Chris discovered it.
Stubborn Cat Chris
This post was from almost two and a half years ago and it illustrates how Chris just loves being where the action is.
We had a party Saturday afternoon for Rose’s staff. I moved the bikes outside and we put a table on the patio for food and refreshments. It was something different and too much for Chris to resist. He kept jumping on the table and we kept making him get down. But being a bad cat is in Chris’s nature so he would not stop getting on the table.
Rose wanted me to put him in the house so I pulled him off the table twice and put him inside. After the second time she realized the cat door was still open. I knew it was open but I felt bad about locking him inside. Rose didn’t feel bad and closed the cat door. That only worked until the first guest arrived and then Chris was on the patio the first time the sliding door opened.
The patio was just the first step. From…
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Tigger’s Near-Fatal Binge Eating
Tigger is no longer with us but his memory will always be here. I was thinking about Tigger today and how we almost lost him due to a new food that was so good but so bad. Let us get into the way-back machine and travel back to Thursday, March 22, 2007. Wait…No! Let’s go back about a week or so before that.
This is Tigger with his buddy Alex taken shortly before the indecent, Feb 24, 2007
Princess, Tigger, Abbey and Flash, Jan 28, 2007
I got a coupon for a free bag of a new cat food called The Good Life Recipe. This was back when I thought Iams was a relatively healthy cat food and that is what our cats were eating. This new food was like giving popcorn to a seagull. They loved it and ate like there was no tomorrow.
Even though I wasn’t as knowledgeable about cat food then as I am now, I knew it was too good to be good for them. I figured I would let them finish the bag. Later I would buy the small bags of it and give them out like kitty treats. It worked and it was way cheaper than real kitty treats.
Now, getting back to the story. Rose and I had met our mortgage broker after work and then had a late dinner at a Mexican restaurant on the way home. We both had our own cars so when we left I followed Rose home. I was delayed in traffic and when I got home I saw Rose’s car in the driveway with the lights on, the engine running and the driver’s door open but there was nobody in sight.
I don’t know what was going through my head at the time but I would imagine it was nothing good. Inside, Rose was frantic. Tigger was having trouble breathing and we needed to get him to a vet right away. Our kids, Chris and Nick, were just about to bring him to the vet but they didn’t know where to go so they called Rose shortly before she got home.
We didn’t know where to go either. This was before we could open our phones and ask Google. Rose drove and I held Tigger on my lap. He was really struggling to get air and I worried we would lose him. Rose was even more worried than I because she kept repeating that he was going to die.
She called her sister, Felice, who knew of an after hours vet in Port Richey but that was too far. We headed that way anyway and I tried calling information to see if I could find one closer. At that time, information had transitioned from a real person to a worthless robot that was no help at all so we made the trip to Port Richey.
They did several tests and found that Tigger had a large blockage in his esophagus so they put a long instrument down his throat and pushed it into his stomach. We will never know for sure what that blockage was, but since he was found at the food bowl, I’m sure he ate that new food so fast that it got caught in his airway. At $500, that was the most expensive free bag of cat food in history.
Nowadays I feed them a much higher quality dry cat food that they like but not enough to binge eat it. I would get rid of it completely if not for Chris’s stubbornness about eating wet food.
So that’s Tigger’s story. I like reminiscing. I think soon I will write about how we came to adopt him and his brother, Flash.
Photo Friday: The Stare
I don’t know what has caught Puck’s attention here but it must be quite interesting.
Bad Cat Chris 