The other day Chris was outside and caught another lizard. That is bad enough but he has this irresistible urge to bring his catch into the house and doesn’t know what to do with it when he can’t get in.
I’m not sure why he has to bring it inside. At first I thought it was instinctual but then I realized that lions don’t kill a gazelle and then drag it back to the den to eat it. Maybe he just wants to show it off to Puck and Frankie.
We took out the suitcases for our upcoming vacation and, as expected, all the cats had to lie on top of them. It happens every time. I think they know what is coming and they want to make sure we know that they don’t want to be left home again.
We’re going with you.
I’m staging a sleep in until you agree to take us with you.
I hate leaving them alone for so long. We do have someone who will come in twice a day but that won’t be the same for them. Honestly, I don’t worry about the diminished attention they will get. They have each other and they can survive a week with little human attention.
What I do worry about is the unpredictable. What if the cat-sitter accidentally lets a cat out? Worse, what if something bad happens to her? What if a burglar invades our home and leaves the door open? What if someone gets sick? What if there is a fire? The possibilities are endless.
Yes, I’m a bit of a worrier, and no, I’m not going to let it ruin my vacation. I will just make sure I do everything possible to lessen the chances that something bad will happen and leave it at that.
I’ve taken out of storage our gravity feeder and water dish that holds several days worth of food and water. The cat-sitter may be a bit insulted by this but that is the least of my concerns. I also plan on giving a key to the neighbor for emergencies. In addition, I will unplug everything I can to reduce the risk of fire. I can’t do much about burglars but hopefully our lack of valuables will be a good deterrent.
Hopefully I will be able to enjoy a worry-free vacation. If anyone has any other tips, please let me know.
I guess a bad cat’s got to do what a bad cat’s got to do.
After months of fighting, Chris is now going to the extreme in trying to be Frankie’s friend. He always seems to follow Frankie when he notices him get up to leave. He walks alongside him and pushes his head into Frankie’s. It reminds me of the scene in Jurassic Park where the Tyrannosaurus headbutts a jeep as it is running next to it. I’m afraid Frankie is ready to file a restraining order.
He also has to butt in when Frankie comes to me for attention. I’m not sure if he is jealous of me giving Frankie attention or the other way around.
How can I lose this guy?
Every time I clean the house, I can’t help being amazed at Chris and Frankie’s total lack of fear of the vacuum cleaner. I have shared videos like this in the past but, at the risk of beating a dead horse, I would like to share one more.
I don’t know why but cats seem to have a fascination with lying on purses. So when Rose put several purses on a chair (temporally), Puck couldn’t resist napping on them.
We know nothing about Frankie’s back story. We adopted him at Petsmart from The Pinellas County Animal Services. The person at Petsmart did not know anything about him so we just didn’t think much about it, although I did send a Facebook message to the animal services with his reference number but, even though they have an active Facebook page, I got no response.
I couldn’t help being perplexed, though, by the ear notch on his right ear. I have heard about ear notching before. It is the method of cutting a notch in a cat’s ear after spaying or Neutering. Sometimes it is called ear tipping when they remove about a centimeter off the tip of the ear.
Ear tipped cat
Ear notching or tipping is mostly done to feral cats involved in a Trap, Neuter, Release (TNR) program. It identifies that they have been fixed so they are not trapped again and put under the knife a second time. I prefer the notch because it is less disfiguring but a ear-tipped cat is easier to identify from a distance. It is also more likely that a notch could be mistaken for an injury or vice versa.
The notch got me thinking. If he was a feral cat, why is he so friendly? Of course, not all notched cats are feral, some are strays, but if Frankie was caught as a stray with the intention of fixing him for adoption, why would they notch his ear? Perhaps it isn’t a notch. After all, it looks more like a slit than a triangular notch.
Frankie’s ear notch
I did a little research and found that ear tipping on the left ear is most common but there is no universal standard. Frankie’s quasi notch is on his right ear. That led me to believe it was more likely the result of a fight and didn’t think about it again until we visited my mother-in-law.
She has two cats. One of them is a gold cat named pumpkin that has the same slit on his right ear. Coincidence? Possibly. It is also possible that in this area, a small sliver of a notch in the right ear is how some vets do it.
Pumpkin
I tried to do a Google search to see what the standard is where I live on the west coast of Tampa Bay, Florida, but I found nothing concrete. I searched Petfinder for cats in my area and found four or five with a tipped ear but none with a notch. So the mystery remains. It doesn’t really matter where Frankie comes from and if I never find out, I won’t care. I just can’t help loving a good mystery.
Do you have a cat that has been notched or tipped? Do you know what is common where you live? I’d like to hear about it.
Out of our three cats, Chris, Puck, and Frankie, I am starting to think that Frankie is the most photogenic. That is not to say he is better looking but he does not have the disadvantages that make things more difficult for photographers.
For example, Puck is a good-looking cat but he is all black and it is difficult to pick up fine details, especially when you must underexpose him to keep the background from becoming too overexposed.
Chris’s problem is “eye boogers.” He always seems to have a bit of goo in the corner of his eyes that can be a distraction. On the other hand, he has had that problem his whole life and that may be considered a distinguishing characteristic.
Does anyone else have one pet that seems to be more photogenic? If you’d like, post a link to their picture.
We keep the catnip in the cabinet above the stove because it is the one cabinet in the house that Chris can’t open. Nevertheless, he knows it is in there and he is on a mission to get to it.
I have learned that if you want to get a cat’s attention, start making the bed. They could all be sleeping in the other room but once you start to pull the sheets up, you’ve got a party.
I didn’t always know that bed making was a favorite activity of many cats. I first noticed it with our cat Tigger many years ago. I would pick him up and put him on the floor and he would jump right back up on the bed. This became the routine every morning. I started singing a song by Chumbawamba while making the bed; “I get knocked down but I get up again. You’re never going to keep me down.” I never knew the rest of the lyrics so I would just repeat those to Tigger while I struggled to finish the bed.
Now that Tigger is gone, Chris and Puck are happy to take over the duties of making my job as difficult as possible and they are very good at it.
