Author Archives: Charles Huss

The Cat’s Meow

After more than two and a half years, this toy is still our cats favorite. Admittingly, we gave away the one in this video to my sister-in-law and then bought another one a couple of months later. I usually take it out once every couple of weeks and it is like a brand new toy all over again.

Bad Cat Chris

One of my favorite customers came to see me at work last week with a present for me. It was an electronic cat toy called “Cat’s Meow.” He said he ended up with two and since he knew I had cats thought I would have a use for it.

It took me a couple of days to get batteries but I finally got around to putting it together last weekend. It is a fairly simple concept yet it is amazing that nobody had thought of this before. The toy consists of a motor that turns an arm back and forth around a circle. At the end of the arm is a small ball and attached to that is a tail, or at least what passes as a tail. The mechanism is then covered with a round cloth so that only the tail sticks out.

I put it on…

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Forget Cat Food, We Want Steak

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At dinnertime in our house, Chris is, surprisingly, our best behaved cat. Last night I was cooking steak and they all lined up waiting for it to be done because they know I am a sucker and will give them some.

Frankie is the worst. He will just steal a big chunk of meat off my plate and eat it with no remorse.

Puck is a little better than Frankie but Puck is all about food, always has been. That is part of the reason we named him Puck. Think Wolfgang.

Chris, and to some degree Puck, are dainty eaters when it comes to meat. They don’t like large chunks so I have to make sure they have little pieces. It is like I am feeding babies instead of full-grown carnivores.

Frankie could live in the wild and probably did. He has no trouble scarfing down big chunks of steak.

Yes, we have spoiled our pets and created beggars and thieves, but why not? We don’t have to worry about them going to college and getting a good job or a nice woman. They are only with us for a short time so why not spoil them?

Photo Friday: Use It Or Lose It

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My wife sometimes works from home and has do deal with this whenever she gets up to take a break.

Ultimate Scratching Post… Really?

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We bought this scratching post almost three years ago. When I wrote this blog post, I thought we wasted our money but location is everything. We now have it in a high traffic area and all the cats use it, not only for scratching but also as a perch. It also is still in good condition.

Bad Cat Chris

Last weekend we were at Petco buying cat food when Rose decided the cats needed another scratching post to help encourage Chris to scratch on things other than her chair. We have plenty of approved scratching places in the house that Chris ignores but I figured it was worth a try.

We decided to get the SmartCat Ultimate Scratching Post because it was tall and heavy and seemed like it might be different enough to encourage Chris to use it. It had a hefty price tag of $80 but we decided to spend the money.

I put it together and Puck scratched on it right away but not Chris. I decided to sprinkle a little catnip on it to see if that would help but most of it fell to the ground where Chris and puck fought over it while ignoring the scratching post.

It has now been in our house…

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The Friendly Feral

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My mother-in-law, Elaine, has been feeding several feral cats in her neighborhood for several years now. Currently she has about four, perhaps more, that hang out near her home. Sometimes we go there to visit and there is a cat, sometimes two, hanging out under her carport. She has even been able to coax a couple of these ferals to come inside at least part-time. Her current cat, Pumpkin, is not too keen on an outside cat coming in and sleeping on the bed, but that’s how it goes sometimes.

We went to visit recently and saw a gold cat she named Benny and I was amazed at how friendly this cat was for a feral. It’s possible he was a pet at one time but that would be unusual since the pattern seems to be feral cats in that area. Thankfully, Elaine has done a good job getting the cats that hang around her house fixed.

When we arrived Benny was outside and I called him over to me and he came willingly. He loved being pet and rolled around in the grass while he talked to me. It was a very cool experience to see a feral cat so happy to get a little attention. I recorded it for your viewing pleasure. Please forgive the bad framing. I could not see the screen while I was recording and guessed a bit high.

Benny does have a bit of a skin condition on his nose but Elaine is treating it with an ointment.

So what do you think of Benny?

Chris Demonstrates Dominance

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I have been around cats long enough to be able to predict their behavior somewhat and not be surprised by behavior I didn’t predict. Of course, predicting behavior and understanding it are two different things and I sometimes think I will never understand why cats behave the way they do.

Chris, for example, will often straddle Puck and hold him down by the neck and then he will wash him like nothing ever happened. It seems like he’s showing his dominance but Puck never challenges Chris’s position so I don’t know why he feels compelled to do what he does. If anything, Frankie is the one that challenges Chris leadership but Chris doesn’t hold him down by the neck although he does whack him from time to time.

Photo Friday: Good Enough to Print

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This photo of Frankie and Puck would make a great print, if only I had a printer that wasn’t jammed with a cat.

Catnip Bender

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This catnip plant has long since died but after seeing this post again I want to grow another one.

Bad Cat Chris

I have a catnip plant that I have been growing for several months now. It has been outside all this time because the first time I brought it inside for the cats they didn’t seem interested in it. Yesterday I decided to try again. What a difference a few months make. I don’t know if it smells different now but the cats had their faces so deep into the plant that I thought they were going to get sucked in and disappear.

Chris was being a bit possessive of the plant and would whack Puck every now and then. When I saw how funny they were I ran to grab my camera. I wanted to also grab my video camera but the memory card was full because of my wretched procrastination. I snapped some pictures and took a short video using my Canon SLR but as always happens when shooting…

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Puck Visits the Vet… Again

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Puck’s last vet visit left us with some hope. We went to a new place called The Animal & Bird Medical Center of Palm Harbor for Puck’s over-grooming problem. The vet put him on a limited ingredient diet and didn’t push the steroids and antibiotics that most vets use to solve all problems that cats have. He did suggest antibiotics as an option but did not push it. He also suggested a Feliway diffuser to help with Puck’s stress, which we bought and plugged in between the Catio and living room.

Unfortunately, after giving the diet and Feliway a good amount of time to work, we saw little improvement. I then tried changing their water and gave them bottled spring water. Puck seemed to improve slightly after that but then got worse again. I hesitated to bring him back to the vet for fear that they would use the nuclear option of steroids and antibiotics but I had to do something so I made an appointment for last Saturday.

My wife went with us this time and just as we were ready to put Puck in his cat carrier, Frankie went inside of it and I couldn’t get him out. I tried reaching in and pushing but that didn’t work. I then picked up the carrier and turned it so the opening was facing the floor but Frankie held on like he was Spidercat. I finally had to shake it to convince him that maybe there were better places to nap.

Puck was good and didn’t cry one time on the way to the vet but when the vet tech needed to get him out of the carrier he decided to apply the lessons he learned from Frankie and made it very difficult for her.

After the vet tech left, Puck just stayed where he was. If that was Chris, he would be exploring the exam room.

We saw Dr. Murphy, the owner of the clinic. Dr. Murphy had a lot of good reviews when I was originally looking for a new vet and I noticed he was trained in traditional and holistic medicine, which is what I was looking for. Puck saw another vet the first time we came but I wasn’t disappointed. He seemed to know what he was doing.

The Doctor ran a flea comb through what was left of Puck’s fur and found no sign of the little buggers but he still suspected fleas might be the culprit. I have not been a fan of putting poison on the cats and even bought a container of Diatomaceous Earth, which is a natural, edible product that kills fleas, to spread around their napping areas. Rose is more concerned about effectiveness and has insisted we treat our cats with Advantage for several months now. That started when Frankie escaped and came home with a flea.

We told the vet we were using Advantage and he said it no longer works in our county because the fleas have become resistant to it. Later he said that it doesn’t work in the entire state of Florida. That was a shock because it is very expensive. It’s $58 for six treatments on Amazon but we were buying it locally at Petsmart and paying around $80 or so, with the two pack being much more per dosage. A lot of money for a product that doesn’t work.

He said Revolution works 90% of the time and it has the added benefit of preventing heartworm. He seemed to think it is very safe for the cat. He also recommended another product that was even better but only controlled fleas. That product was called Activyl.

In the end, Puck ended up getting a shot of Steroids and antibiotics. I think I should find a supply of steroids and antibiotics and start treating cats in the neighborhood for a fee because that is always the solution. Do you think I’d get in trouble? Actually, the vet was very nice and really seemed to care so I need to trust that he knows what he is doing.

We also got a tube o Activyl for each of the cats and the doctor put it on Puck. He said he wanted us to use that for six months and by then we should know if fleas are Puck’s problem. After six months, he recommended we switch to Revolution for the added heartworm protection.

Rose was also convinced she saw tiny black spots on Chris and Frankie’s tails, indicating fleas were there, even though there were no fleas found on any of the cats. Nevertheless, she also had them add a shampoo to our bill which ended up to be about $230.

When we got home, Chris and Frankie were more interested in Puck’s carrier then they were in Puck.

It wasn’t long before they forgot about that because Rose decided to wash their tails and backside. Chris was first and he was miserable to deal with. He spent the entire time growling, hissing and crying while he struggled to get free.

He then went into the living room to groom himself. Frankie was very curious what happened to him but he soon found out. At least Frankie was a little better behaved than Chris.