Our last house was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, Puck doesn’t go outside anymore because he is easily frightened. This area is not enclosed and I don’t want to lose him. I tried the harness but he freaked out before leaving the house.
Chris loves going outside and sometimes he is just downright annoying about asking to go out. The other day I gave in to his demands and let him out.
When I let him out, it is usually for just five or ten minutes while I stand there and watch him. Sometimes he runs out the door when I come home, despite my best efforts to contain him, and I just give him a few minutes before retrieve him.
When he goes outside he usually just eats grass for the first few minutes, unless a lizard crosses his path. I have heard that cats eat grass when they are not feeling good but Chris always wants to eat grass. I hope that doesn’t mean he always feels bad. He sure does not act like he’s sick.
My sister-in-law is at it again. She has been busy saving the lives of more kittens and still has one gold kitten that will need a home soon. Rose has been hinting that she wants to adopt him but emotional decisions do not always end well. Let’s consider the pros and cons, starting with the cons:
We are already over our two cat limit.
Raising cats the healthy way is expensive.
We already have three boys. Perhaps a girl is needed.
Our dream of traveling after retirement could be more difficult.
We would be dangerously close to entering the Crazy Cat Lady/Man Zone.
Now for the pros:
Chris is a very touchy-feely cat. He might like having someone else to nap with.
Cats can tolerate a new kitten better than a new adult cat.
A new kitten might motivate me to start making my own cat food.
We would be helping a kitten in need.
Retirement is still more than 10 years away, 20 if they keep raising the retirement age.
Kittens are super cute.
I do not yet have a picture of the kitten but I snagged this picture off of Pixabay. It is what I imagine he looks like.
Photo by Rudy and Peter Skitterians, Skitterphoto on Pixabay.
I saved this photo from yesterday’s post because I thought it was a very cute photo of Frankie and deserved its own page. Isn’t it so cute when cats show their bellies when they sleep.
Cats, like humans, follow a routine. Our cats are no different. Our catio has awnings that block the sun most of the day but there is a great chance to catch some rays after the sun comes up and all our cats usually take advantage of that. In fact, as I write this, Chris and Puck are lying in the sunbeam. I don’t know where Frankie is off to now but he is usually here to enjoy the sun.
I have changed our cats food again. I keep discovering undesirable things about their dry kibble food and then switch to something that I think is better, only to discover that is not so good either.
I have known for at least five years that kibble is bad for them. I tried to switch them to a raw food diet and started buying frozen raw cat food but they didn’t like it. Chris was the only one who would eat it and even he was not impressed. I started mixing it with canned food and that worked until I tried to go beyond a 50/50 ratio and then they didn’t eat it. I experimented with different canned foods but it seemed that the worst quality canned foods had the best results which just seemed to work against what I was doing so I eventually gave up.
I did start feeding them more wet cat food though, eventually settling on Earthborn Holistic Chicken Catcciatori and other flavors. I give our three cats one 5.5 ounce can in the morning and another in the evening. On weekends or when Rose works from home they get a third can.
I have wanted to get rid of the dry food for a few years now and just give them wet food but Chris won’t eat the wet food. He has become addicted to the dry. I made this video two years ago, It shows how Chris will eat very little of his food before abandoning it or allowing another cat to take it. He hasn’t changed since then. He may even be worse.
I still put dry food out for the cats, mostly so Chris won’t starve but I have been only putting small amounts in the bowls and I allow them to remain empty for a fair amount of time before I feed them wet food. My hope is that Chris will be hungry and eat more wet food but that never seems to make a difference. Lately I have been putting even less dry food in their bowls but still Chris won’t eat the wet food.
I recently started working for a company that makes herbal health products. I commented to one of the owners that one of their products might help my cat (Puck) with his skin condition. He said I should look up a Dr. Will Falconer, which I did. Dr. Falconer has several good articles on his website, most of them confirming what I already knew and some expanding beyond my knowledge.
For example, he says cats should never have dry food. This I mostly knew but he makes you realize how important it is. He talks about how a dogs tongue can curve like a spoon and lap up lots of water but cats can’t do that. They are designed to get most of their moisture from their prey, which is 80 – 90 percent water, but now eat kibble that is 10 percent water.
Another problem with dry pet food is that they all contain starch. Even a food that is grain free contains loads of starch. It is the glue they use to hold the pieces together and it is not good for your pet. Dr. Falconer recommends Wysong for dogs because it is starch-free, among other reasons. I read that it was the only starch-free, dry pet food on the market but I don’t remember where I read it.
Even though he doesn’t recommend it for cats, I picked up a bag anyway. I figured I would try to give them the healthiest food available until I can transition them off the dry food. I purchased a five pound bag of Wysong Epigen 90 for dogs and cats. Yes, this food is for both dogs and cats. That is the first time I ever saw that so it must be different.
All of our cats seemed to like the taste of the new food, so that is a start.
This is certainly not an advertisement for Wysong, nor did I get any free products but do have an affiliate account with Amazon so if you purchase anything through my link I will get a small commission (very small). I will say that I noticed some bad reviews on the product from 2014 that were related to a change in the formula but since then all reviews have been good so I assumed any problems have been addressed. The problems at that time seemed to be intestinal related, like diarrhea, hopefully that won’t be an issue now.
My ultimate goal is to start making my own raw cat food. I need to get a good meat grinder but before I do that I need a good source of quality meats and organs that I can’t find near me. I don’t want to give them raw meat from a sick, industrial animal. There are some places that sell organic meats but I also need things like heart and liver which they don’t sell. If anyone has any ideas or comments, please enrich me.
Chris might be the King of the Lizard Catchers but Frankie is the King of Cuteness. He is always lying around the house in some cute position that often involves showing off his belly.
The title may be exaggerated but lately it seems like I find the cats playing with a lizard almost everyday. Sometimes it happens more than once in a day. I can only guess that they come in under the patio door, Chris or Puck finds them, asks them nicely if they want to play, and when hearing no reply (lizards can’t talk silly) bring them into the house for fun and games. It always seems to be a group event. Apparently they think they are pack animals like wolves.
This past week I had to dislodge three lizards from either Chris or Puck and put them outside. A couple more times I was too late.
The other day I walked by the bathroom and noticed Puck in the litter box and Chris standing next to it as if he was waiting his turn. Upon further inspection I noticed that Puck had…
As some of my readers know, our Puck has struggled with an over-grooming problem since shortly after we moved into our new home just over a year ago. He licked most of his fur off of his legs and backside.
The first vet we brought him too said he had a flea allergy even though the vet never saw any fleas on Puck and neither did we. Nonetheless, and gave him a steroid and antibiotic along with flea medication. I don’t know what brand it was but I do know we were buying Advantage at Petsmart after that for a ridiculous amount of money.
None of that worked although he did get slightly better for a short time before getting worse again. Off we went to vet number two several months later. He checked the records from the last vet and then did a test for mites. When that came back negative he decided to go the natural route first and put Puck on a special diet to test for food allergies. We tried that for a while but that ended in failure.
I didn’t want to go back to the vet and subject Puck to more useless drugs so I did nothing for a while. Eventually I brought him back to the second vet’s office where Puck was seen by vet number three. This vet was the owner of the clinic.
He examined Puck and saw no fleas but, like the first vet, assumed Puck had a Flea allergy. He gave Puck a Steroid and antibiotic, which all vets love to do, and started him on a flea medication called Activyl. He said Advantage no longer works in Florida even though Petsmart has no problem selling it here.
I hate to admit it but these invisible fleas seem to have been the cause of Puck’s problem because he now has fur again, It hasn’t fully grown back yet but there is a noticeable difference and his skin feels smoother.
Compare these to the one below taken several months ago.
I don’t like that I have to put medication on our cats every months but I am glad Puck is finally doing better.
I know I just celebrated my 500th post two days ago but today is my fourth blogiversary. According to WordPress, the anniversary of this blog was Wednesday, the same day as my 500th blog post, but they are using the date that I registered for the blog from WordPress.com. I go by the date of my first blog post, which was June 3, 2012, Since then I have met a lot of great people, and pets, along the way, and I have had a lot of fun.
Here are some stats about the blog you might be interested in:
The most popular day for this blog is Thursday.
The most popular hour is 1:00 p.m. Hmm… maybe I should schedule posts for just before 1:00.
My most viewed post this year was Are Ginger Cats Friendlier? which was posted in 2013. The second most viewed post was Feral Cat Ear Notching, posted in 2014.
Readers this year come from 86 countries. The U.S. is first followed by The U.K., France, Australia, Finland, Canada, South Africa, Brazil, New Zealand and Switzerland.
Since this post is interrupting my regular Photo Friday post, I thought I would end with a picture taken on the day this blog started. That’s what I thought but I didn’t take any pictures that day so here is one I found from almost two weeks later.
I used this picture on Chris’s Twitter page but I don’t think I ever posted it here. I like it because it is related to my last post and shows that Chris has always been a good lizard catcher. I actually found another picture of Chris with a lizard from a day or two earlier than this but the quality was not good.
In closing, I just want to thank you all for reading this blog and being so nice in your comments. I hope blog here for many more years.
Sunday I decided to take Frankie for a walk. He loves to be outside but since he is an adventurer, I have to bring him out on a leash and harness. That means he doesn’t go out much because I am either too busy, too tired, it’s too hot outside, or I am just plain lazy. These are the same reasons I don’t have a dog.
Frankie likes to travel in a straight line down the sidewalk, like he knows what it is for, pausing occasionally to smell stuff and then moving on.
I let him lead and keep hoping he will eventually start travelling back toward home but he rarely does. I usually have to pick him up and carry him home. I tried to pick him up on this day but he would have none of it and changed direction on his own and headed home.
When we got home he walked up to the front door, instead of the usual side door, and I opened it a bit for him to go inside but he changed his mind. I changed it back for him and picked him up and put him inside.
Chris was at the door wondering why Frankie got to go outside without him so I let Chris out. Chris usually goes out the side door and eats grass next to the driveway so this was a bit of a treat for him.
He started by looking for lizards but found none so he ate a little grass for a while.
Before I knew what was going on, Chris was at the door with a lizard in his mouth. Even with his added girth, he is still the King of the Lizard Catchers.
I tried unsuccessfully to get him to give up his lizard but he is stubborn. Finally I was able to get him to drop it and the lizard ran away, but Chris was off in hot pursuit. He caught him, lost him and followed him into the brush to catch him again. Check out the video of the incident below.
Chris enjoying the great outdoors. 
Mmmm. Good grass. 
What happened to the catnip plant? (Note:…
Bad Cat Chris 