Author Archives: Charles Huss

You’re Not The Boss Of Me!

New Cat… Almost

The Sunday before last, Rose and I were in PetSmart buying cat food. Of course, we can’t go there without looking at the cats that are up for adoption and then feeling bad because we can’t save the world.

Frankie

This particular day we saw a cat named Frankie. He was the largest domestic cat I had ever seen in person. He seemed to be the size of a bobcat but with different markings. His description said something about him being gentle and not to worry about his size. Rose noticed he had deep blue eyes and basically fell in love with him right there. There was nobody working in the adoption center at that time so we took it as a sign that maybe we shouldn’t rush into getting another cat.

Chris has needed another playmate (napmate actually) since Tigger died and after thinking about it for a day Rose decided she wanted to adopt him. It was too late to call Monday night but Tuesday Morning Rose called the Oldsmar PetSmart and talked to someone who, let’s just say, did not impress her very much. She was given a phone number that turned out to be wrong.

I ended up calling PetSmart and got the correct number. It was for a cat rescue group called Here Kitty Kitty Adoptions. I spoke with a nice couple, first the wife and then the husband, who told me Frankie was removed from the shelter because of a slight health concern and that he had a possible adopter but they wouldn’t know for certain until that Thursday.

I’m not sure why but somehow things become more desirable when there is competition for it. That is what happened here while we were waiting for Thursday to come. Rose decided that she didn’t want any other cat but Frankie, even though we had only seen him through a window.

It didn’t help when I saw he was listed as a snowshoe. I never heard of of the breed so I looked it up on Wikipedia. The article states: “Snowshoes were first produced in Philadelphia when a Siamese breeder’s cat gave birth to three kittens with white feet. The breeder, Dorothy Hinds-Daugherty, then began a breeding program to produce what were originally called “Silver Laces”,^[1] crossing the strangely marked Siamese cats with bi-color American Shorthair cats and other breeds.”

This made us even more interested and we were disappointed when we heard the news that he was adopted. I then looked up snowshoe cats to see if any others were for adoption to no avail. I only found breeders and I won’t buy a cat from a breeder when there are so many cats in shelters that need a home. Besides, I have not found one breed of cat to be better than another. They are all individuals with distinct personalities.

Since that ordeal is now over, I think we need to focus on getting a cat that can put up with Chris’s annoying behavior. Like I said before, Puck will play with him but he won’t nap with him and I think Chris needs physical contact. He has become very needy lately and it is even difficult to write this post because he is on the desk looking for attention.

The problem we have now is that the property Rose manages is being sold and we do not have confirmation that the new company will retain the staff. It is pretty certain that they will but if they don’t, another cat could be a problem. I think we will know pretty soon.

New People To Annoy

Badder Cat Chris

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This is the story of Bad Cat Chris. The name implies that this cat is bad so if I would say to you that Chris had been bad lately, you would probably say, “Duh!” From your point of view, you would be right to say that but when you live with a bad cat every day you tend to become immune to the behavior. So, the fact that I think Chris has been bad lately must mean that he has been really bad.

Perhaps Tigger’s death has affected him, I don’t know, but he seems like he doesn’t know what to do with himself lately. It is like he is a kitten again with all this built up energy. My wife and I like to read at night but lately he has been going back and forth between us, first interfering with her book and then, two minutes later, interfering with what I am reading. This continues back and forth until Rose gets angry and throws him down. This slows him down but soon he picks up where he left off.

Of course, getting in the way is not enough. he has to also bite. For some reason, Rose is immune to most of the biting but I am not. If he is not biting my nose, he is biting my knee, ankle, shoulder or whatever else he can bite that will annoy me. He doesn’t always do this but sometimes he just gets in a biting mood. Those moods seem to be quite frequent lately.

I have been working on this post in the evening using my tablet computer that has an attachable keyboard. I sit on the bed and write while Rose sits on her chair and reads. When it is my turn to be bothered, Chris goes out of his way to step on the keys. This is my second evening trying to write and I think I will have to finish this post tomorrow on the desktop computer, even though Chris bothers me there too. Below is a Simon’s Cat video that does a great job explaining what I go through.

Chris also seems to spend more time getting into cabinets lately. He has become a pro at opening the doors and climbing inside but the doors shut behind him and he is not as good getting out as he is getting in. Often we hear the familiar bang…bang…bang. It’s Chris in the cabinet pushing the door open. Usually he has to step over a bunch of stuff to get in, but then he is behind all that stuff and he can’t get the leverage needed to open the door, so I have to find the cabinet he is in and let him out.

He has figured out where we keep the catnip. Until Rose moved it the other day, it was on the top shelf, above where we keep our spices. The video below shows Chris getting to the top of the cabinet above the catnip but it does not show him opening the door from above and reaching in it. A couple of days ago he was actually able to pull it out of the cabinet. That is what prompted Rose to put it in the storage closet.

We thought getting Puck would be good for Chris because he would finally have another cat that was willing to play with him. While that has been true, since Tigger is no longer with us, he now has nobody willing to nap with him and perhaps he needs more physical contact. I don’t have the answers but I hope we figure something out soon before he drives us crazy.

Needy Cat Chris

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Chris on my lap – Not my best photograph but…

As I write this, Chris is napping on my lap. Oops… I disturbed him reaching for my phone to photograph him. I was able to get one bad picture before he disappeared.

There is a point to mentioning this. Chris has sought more attention from Rose and I since Tigger passed away. That is not to say he didn’t want attention before, it just seems like he has become even more needy lately.

Chris has always sought attention from other cats and received it. Usually he would lie down on top of or between two other cats, who would at first be annoyed with him but then would settle into washing his ears or something. This happened often with Tigger and Abbey who would be sleeping together and then would be suddenly awakened by Mr. Rudeness himself.

Now, all the cats we introduced Chris to three and a half years ago are gone. Tigger, Abbey, Alex and Flash have all passed away. We now have only Chris and our newest cat, Puck. The problem is, while Puck is a good cat, he prefers to sleep alone. He will play (fight) with Chris, which the other cats wouldn’t do, but he won’t sleep with him, so Chris has turned his attention to us when nap time comes around, which, for Chris, is not very often.

We feel bad for him and have even considered getting another cat but there are many problems with that idea. Someday we want to live in a motorhome and/or a boat and travel a bit. When that happens, we won’t have room for more than two cats. Even before that happens we may rent a small place near the beach and the same reasoning will apply. Also, we have no way to be sure the new cat will even like Chris. Judging from experience, that would probably be no.

Yesterday, Chris climbed to the top of the of the cat perch and lied on top of Puck and started washing his ears. This went on for a minute or two and Rose and I were hopeful that this would be their first nap together, but Puck then got up and left the perch, leaving Chris there by himself. So sad.

Perhaps as Puck matures a little more, things will change. We can only hope.

Loss of Bedroom Privileges

Big Baby Chris

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The other day was nail clipping time. It is a joyous time that everyone in the house looks forward to…or not. Since I am a bit too nice for the task, my job is to bring the cats to Rose and help hold them down while she clips their nails.

Time to trim nails again (Photo credit: AlexanderY)

We started with Puck, who is never a problem when it comes to clipping his nails. I was not even needed to hold him. In fact, he was actually purring while Rose was clipping his nails. If only all cats would act that way.

Contrast that behavior with Chris’s. It is an absolute nightmare to get his nails clipped. He screams, cries, growls, bites, scratches and oh…did I mention farts? If someone didn’t know better they would think Rose was cutting off his toes or something. Why is he such a baby? It’s just nail clippings.

Last week he had a problem with his eye and we wanted to hold a warm, wet cloth on it for a short time. This was as painless as clipping his nails but he wanted nothing to do with it. It was difficult to keep the cloth on him for more than twenty seconds. I do not look forward to the day when we have to give him medicine, or worse, a shot.

We’ve had experience with several cats over the last decade and a half and only one, Princess, has given us as much trouble at nail clipping time as Chris has. I’m curious to know what other people go through at clipping time. Please leave a comment. Tell me I’m not alone.

Goodbye Tigger – Rest in Peace

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I am very saddened to say that Tigger is no longer with us. He was a good, loving cat who died too young. He will be missed.

I woke up Saturday morning around 4 a.m., as usual, because Chris was bothering me. I think I managed to get him to stop a couple of times, just long enough for me to go back to sleep before he would start biting my nose again or treading on my neck. I finally dragged myself out of bed a little before 5 a.m.

I didn’t turn the light on because Rose was still sleeping so I walked downstairs in the dark. When I reached the bottom of the stairs and turned the corner I stepped in something wet. I turned the kitchen light on and saw there were two or three small spots of poop on the floor. I thought Chris had a problem with runny poop again and it all didn’t come out in the box.

I cleaned my foot, cleaned the poop off the carpet and then made coffee. While it was brewing, I went into the bathroom to clean the box and noticed several more spots of poop next to the litter box and in front of the bathroom. It was looking like a real problem so I decided to check the rest of the first floor. There were several spots in the living room but under the stairs and behind the television, where the other litter box is, was the biggest problem.

There were several more spots of poop but there was three large areas of vomit. I spent quite awhile cleaning the mess quietly, and while I did that, I saw Tigger climb into the litter box and vomit again. I suspected it was Tigger but I knew for sure then.

When I heard Rose was awake I brought up coffee and noticed more poop in our bedroom. That started a cleaning frenzy that lasted almost four hours. Rose notice vomit on the bed downstairs and washed the comforter, only to have him puke on it again as soon as it was replaced.

She made an appointment at the vet for 11:00 but wouldn’t let me come with her. She suspected Tigger would not be coming back and thought I couldn’t handle it. I knew she was wrong and I insisted that I come with her but she said she wouldn’t go if I went. Eventually I just gave up and let her go. She was right, he did not come back.

Tigger has been somewhat unhealthy for a while. When he was young we had to rush him to the emergency clinic late at night because he was having trouble breathing. It turned out that he had eaten too fast and had a clump of food stuck in his esophagus. They took x-rays during their diagnostics and noticed, in addition to his current problem, that half of his heart was enlarged.

A couple of years ago he developed a problem with his gums and had a problem eating. The vet said it is something that cats sometimes get and did not have a real solution to the problem except to give him steroids or antibiotics, either treatment was only a temporary fix. He said that removing all his teeth might stop the problem from coming back but he couldn’t guarantee that, so every couple of months the problem would come back and we had to get more antibiotics. We picked up the last prescription last Saturday and had not finished giving it to him yet.

He also seemed more Grumpy lately. I wrote in a recent post how he had been attacking Chris lately, which was not his character. We thought Abbey’s death had affected him, since they were close, but it could have been that he was just not feeling well.

Now it is just Chris and Puck, and Rose does not want to get any more pets because it is too hard to lose them. I totally understand. We have lost too many pets during the last three years.

In memory of Tigger I have created (on Flickr) a set of photos here. I also created one for Abbey here.

Tigger and brother Flash

Tigger and Alex

Tigger and Abbey

Tigger playing Monopoly

Tigger in Flowers

Young Chris and Tigger

Tigger, Chris and Puck

The Wrath of Tigger (badcatchris.com)

Adopt a Bad Cat

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This post is going to be a little different today. I was at PetSmart recently and passed the cats that are there for adoption. They have, I believe, eight small cages and one larger one. The small cages have a small door that connects to the cage next to it and it is up to the animal shelter that happens to have their cats at PetSmart weather or not to open or close the connecting doors. I hate seeing the cats in those small cages and I always look to see if the doors are open. If they are, at least the cats can socialize with their neighbor and I feel a little better about it.

I mention this because it was at a Petsmart in Myrtle Beach that I first met Chris. I was volunteering at a cat rescue organization called Sav-R-Cats at the time. My main job was to photograph the cats and put them on Petfinder.com. I also created their website and designed one of their brochures.

They rotated at Petsmart with two other organizations and were there for two weeks and then off for four, if memory serves me right. They had volunteers that would take care of cleaning and feeding the cats every morning and afternoon. I was not one of them but I did fill in as needed.

One of the cats at Myrtle Beach Petsmart

Our shelter did leave the small doors open and let the cats mingle, except for certain cases when they could not do that. That made it easier because when I cleaned the cages I would let the entire row out at once to play while I cleaned. One day I had a cat jump on my shoulders while I was cleaning the cages. That cat was, of course, Chris, and my world has never been the same.

Notice the open door.

When I saw those cats in their cages recently, I thought of Chris and tried to imagine him today in a small cage all day, every day. It seems like that kind of confinement would be devastating to a cat like Chris who loves the freedom to explore and even wants more freedom to explore outdoors. I then thought there must be many, many cats with similar personalities that are, right now, stuck in an eight cubic foot box.

I would like to ask everyone reading this to just consider adopting a homeless pet. It doesn’t matter if it a cat or a dog. They all deserve a good home and whether they are bad like Chris or well-behaved, chances are they will reward you in ways you can’t imagine.

If you can’t adopt a pet, another rewarding thing you can do is volunteer. There are so many pets in shelters and while they are there, most just don’t get the attention they deserve because of limited resources. By that I mean people.

Thanks for reading and I welcome any comments or suggestions you may have.

…and the Bad Shall Lead

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When I met Rose, we both had an eight year old son living with us. My son, Chris, was somewhat easy-going and spent too much time indoors playing video games. (Just a side note: Bad Cat Chris was not named after my son. That is the name he had when we got him. See “What’s in a Name“) Rose’s son, Nick, was hyper-active and it was difficult to keep him in the house. When we all moved in together, we thought Nick would motivate Chris to go outside, but instead, Chris got Nick interested in video games. I don’t know if undesirable behavior is more influential or not, but in our household, that seems to be the case.

Take Puck for example. He came to us as a kitten and had surprisingly good behavior, but lately he seems to be picking up some of Chris’s habits. Recently he started jumping on my shoulders. I don’t consider this a bad behavior but I think he learned it from watching Chris. What he didn’t learn was how to stabilize himself. Chris is a natural and never seems off-balance but I have to move carefully when Puck is on my shoulders because I fear he will lose his balance and dig his claws into me, which has already happened a couple of times.

The other day he picked up another trick from Chris’s playbook and used me to get onto the refrigerator (See “Chris’s Springboard“) and from there to the top of the cabinets. Now he skips me and hops onto the counter, then the fridge and up to the cabinets, just like Chris. He hasn’t yet learned to jump from the fridge to the cabinets on the opposite side of the kitchen but that will probably be next.

Bad Cat Chris and Puck on top of the Cabinets

Now Puck is starting to bother us when we are sleeping. He is not bad yet but if he gets to be like Chris, I won’t feel guilt about shutting the door and keeping them all out at night.

Update: I created a motivational poster using the image above. Click here to see it.

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