I was looking through my pictures and I found this one of Chris taking a cat nap on my leg and thought it was cute enough to share. It was taken July 4th. I’m not sure but I would guess it was after our guests left and the day was winding down.
It seems like we are always moving. This was two moves ago.
Late in 2011 we decided to move out of our waterfront condo and live where Rose works. Part of the reason for doing that was to save about $400 a month. The other reason was for convenience. Since Rose managed the property that we were moving to, she would not have to drive to work and she could better keep an eye on the property. It also cut in half my drive to work and eventually led to me being able to ride my bicycle there. (See newlybent.wordpress.com)
It was also better for the cats. I don’t think they appreciated the waterfront view as much as we did. What they wanted, especially Chris, was to go outside. Well, that wasn’t an option, but the new place had a screened in patio that the condo did not have.
We spent weeks packing, during which time our home was basically turned…
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Chris used to hang out in the bathroom with Rose while she got ready for work but he stopped doing that until recently. Now he is in the bathroom with her every morning taking up the little space she has. There is even less space in this house because there is a fan on the counter to compensate for the lack of an air conditioner vent in the bathroom.
Chris can stay with her as long as he stays on the other side of the sink, but that is too far for Chris so a conflict always arises. Rose either has to push him off the counter or she can ask for help in the form of, “Chuck, Come get you cat!”
This morning, Chris decided he was going to get attention one way or another so he got on the toilet and unwound the toilet paper roll. Maybe next time rose will think twice about sharing her space.
“If this behavior continues, I will take that cat to the animal shelter so fast your head will spin!” Yes, those words actually came out of Rose’s mouth on Thursday morning. She wouldn’t really do that but she was very angry, and rightfully so.
To explain, I need to back up this story to last weekend when we got new furniture for our patio. We got a sofa/sleeper along with a baker’s rack and a dinette set. The sofa came with a sign in cat language that said, “SCRATCH ME,” so Chris and Frankie complied.
I covered it with a blanket and a couple of towels over the arms, not just because of the scratching but also to keep it clean and free of cat hair. When guests would come for a visit, we could remove the covers and they could wonder how we keep it so clean with three cats.
The covers didn’t completely stop the scratching. Chris would get under the towel and scratch the edge. That prompted Rose to buy a product called 3M Petcare scratch protection film, which is basically wide packing tape for ten times the cost. I put in on the corners and have not seen any cat scratch there since then.
Rose must have decided that the blanket was ugly so she folded it in half and placed it over the top of the couch only, leaving the seat cushions exposed. By now you probably see where I am going with this.
Thursday morning I did my usual chores. I gave the cat’s wet food, made coffee, scooped the boxes, swept the litter, put down fresh water and dry food, etc. Shortly before we were to leave for work, Rose walked onto the patio and said, “It smells like poop out here!” For this story, I have decided to substitute the word “poop” for another word.
“Can’t you smell that? Someone has pooped out here!” I did clean the boxes but they do tend to use them when they are clean.
“Oh my God! There is poop on the couch! Chris has pooped on my brand new sofa!”
Sure enough, there was a pile of poop on the seat cushion. That was bad enough, but instead of a nice hard poop that would be easy to clean, this was like soft serve ice cream. What a mess.
Chris has long had a problem with pooping outside the box but that problem went away two years ago when we moved into our last home. He always had a chronic loose stool but around the same time he stopped pooping on the floor, his poops got better too. I hope this doesn’t cause Chris to fall off the wagon.
To make matters worse, we hired a painter to paint our cabinets. He was here Wednesday and removed all our cabinet doors and drawers and brought them to his house to sand and paint them. With no doors, Chris was in the cabinet with our food, probably looking for treats or catnip. That happened right after he was yelled at for pooping.
I had enough and yelled at him and tried to pull him out but he put up heavy resistance. I finally got him out and finished getting ready for work. When I was leaving, I gave him a little pet goodby and he growled at me. I pet him again and he growled some more.
I don’t know why but I was actually upset about it on the way to work, even though I wasn’t the bad guy.
Chris isn’t always bad, although he was very, very bad yesterday morning. Before I tell that story, let’s just look at him and Frankie, on our new sofa, actually getting along.
Chris was a bit younger when I first posted this but he hasn’t changed much.
Even though Chris is a bad cat he has a few good qualities. Besides being the entertainer in the house, he also keeps our home relatively bug free. To be honest, Tigger deserves partial credit for that but Tigger is more of a spotter, Chris is a take action kind of cat. Weather Chris spots an invader first or Tigger, it doesn’t matter, Chris is on it like a fly on…well, lets just say he is extremely focused.
It is funny to watch him too because he doesn’t just catch insects, spiders, lizards or whatever other small creature enters our house, he has to play them. He keeps them alive for a while and watches them, when they try to escape, he corrals them with his paw.
More than once I saw him catch a fly and play with it like that. Somehow he knows how to disable the fly’s ability to fly…
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Chris was being very annoying this morning, crying at the door to go outside. Rose asked me to let him out for a few minutes so she could have some peace while she got ready for work. I complied, since I had things to do outside anyway and then brought him back in after a few minutes of him eating grass.
While he was out, Frankie was very upset that Chris was out and he wasn’t, so when I got back inside Rose said I should put Frankie’s harness on and take him for a walk. I didn’t really feel like doing that but I got his harness and my camera (just in case there was something worth sharing) and opened the door to let him out.
Frankie was a little nervous at first, for some unknown reason, but he soon was on his way. Within two minutes of being outside, Frankie managed to slip out of his harness. Fortunately I caught him in time. I brought him back inside, Rose put his harness back on and then I tried again. Chris slipped out the door at the same time and Rose said not to worry, she could see him from the door. It soon became clear that, despite Rose’s assurances, she was not watching Chris. I tried to keep Frankie close so I could also watch Chris but it wasn’t easy. Eventually I had to bring Frankie in, a little earlier than Frankie wanted, so I could go get Chris.
That was more difficult than expected because Chris pulled Frankie’s old trick that Frankie learned from Chris. He hid under Rose’s car. My efforts to get him out resulted in only growling, hissing and biting. It didn’t help that the lady across the street chose that time to take her two dogs for a walk.
Rose needed to leave for work so my only recourse was to turn the hose on and squirt him out. That worked, but then he got under my truck. Eventually, I was able to get him close enough to the edge to pull him out. He was not happy about that.
Since my last post on the subject, I have seen the feral cat that has been eating the food I put out at work two or three more times. It is strange that I put food out for a month or more without seeing who was eating it, but now I see him almost every day I am at work. I call it “him” because it sounds better than “it” but I don’t know the sex of the cat. I know there have been other cats in the area. One even looks like a skinny Chris, but they have either moved on or are much shyer than my new friend.
The last time I pulled into the driveway at work, he was nearby. It almost seemed like he was waiting for me. I quickly went inside for the cat food, put a handful in the usual place, backed away to a safe distance, set my camera to “video” mode and waited for him to move to the food, but he didn’t move. He stood there waiting for me to leave. It was just as well. The camera lens had fogged up due to leaving the air condition truck to the warm, humid Florida outdoors.
I walked inside my work and wiped the fog off the camera lens. I then looked out the door to see he was no longer in sight. I walked outside and quietly walked to the edge of the building while zooming out the telephoto lens. I peeked around the corner and saw him eating the food I put out. I then pointed the camera in his direction and got off a couple of shots. I even made a noise so he would turn around and look. People driving by must have thought I was some weird voyeur or something.
I can’t wait to see if he is waiting for me on Monday. Maybe I should bring him a treat like sardines or something. What do you think?
I get blamed for spoiling the cats to much but in our house, there is another spoiler.
Chris hasn’t changed much since I first posted this. He is still a master at getting doors opened.
People that think dogs are smarter than cats haven’t met Chris. Dogs may be more trainable but that is only because they are more dependent on humans. Chris on the other hand can’t be trained but he certainly can learn, and he has amazing deductive reasoning skills.
For example, we had a storage room under the stairs in the condo. The door to the closet was a standard door with a standard round door knob. One day Chris decided he wanted to investigate what was behind that door. He worked on it for a while pulling at the bottom to no avail.
Eventually he tried reaching for the doorknob, which he could barely reach. He would grab it with both paws for a split second and then drop to the ground and pull at the bottom of the door. Then he would repeat the routine. Eventually he was able to turn…
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Bad Cat Chris 