Author Archives: Charles Huss

Chris Demonstrates Dominance

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For Throwback Thursday, here is a post from late April 2016. It is Chris holding Puck by the neck. After we lost Puck he started doing that to Floki occasionally. I know some animals do this while mating but that is not what this is.

Charles Huss's avatarBad Cat Chris

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.

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I Was Attacked by Freddy Mercury

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We just can’t get rid of Chris’s ear infection so we made another appointment for him to see the vet. This time they planned on taking a sample and sending it to the lab. The idea is, the lab will grow the infection and then determine what will be most effective at killing it.

His appointment was at 9 a.m. yesterday. At about 8:30, I put his carrier on the kitchen table. Frankie and Floki were both interested.

Floki had a vet appointment several days earlier but his esp abilities had him hiding when it was time to go, so we had to cancel. I wished he had the appointment instead of Chris because how easy would this be to catch him and put him in a carrier?

This is what Chris was doing at the time.

When we got to the vet’s office, the vet tech put me in one room and took Chris into another.

While I waited I got a visit from the office cat, Freddy Mercury.

He hopped on the chair next to me.

From there he leaped at me and pushed himself off like he was trying to topple me over. He then attacked my leg.

He was obviously playing and didn’t hurt me. He hung around for a minute or two and then wandered off, probably looking for more trouble.

While I was there, I asked the vet tech if I could bring Floki in without an appointment if I could catch him. He looked at the schedule and said that would be okay. So about an hour after we got home, the opportunity presented itself, and Rose and I, working together, managed to capture the beast and get his nails trimmed.

Forgotten Video

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I get notifications from Google and Microsoft highlighting photos from this day. Today I saw this one that I didn’t remember from 2015.

I then noticed a video from the same time. I checked YouTube to see if I had posted it there. I did.

I also noticed another video from earlier that month that was still marked as a draft. It was a video of Frankie’s first time on a leash and harness. I don’t know why that video was older than the one above. Perhaps I had too much trouble with that harness so I decided to continue to let Frankie out without a leash. I did put it on upside down that time and didn’t notice until we were outside.

After these videos, Frankie proved too much of a wild spirit and would take off far beyond the backyard. Because we lived close to a main road, I had to start using a harness every time he went outside.

Early Morning Walk

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Our neighborhood is having a community yard sale today. We wanted to get rid of stuff and planned to participate but after a long, hard day of work yesterday I told Rose I just wanted to relax and skip the yard sale. I said we could just donate everything and Rose agreed.

Early this morning I was awakened by a loud noise. It sounded like someone was dragging something heavy across the floor. A few minutes later Rose woke me up and said, “I changed my mind, we have too much (stuff) that we need to get rid of. We need to move our cars before all the spots are gone.” I looked at the clock. It was 5 a.m. Ugh!

I hurt my back a few days ago so moving everything outside was a bit of a struggle. Once everything was outside and my chores were done I decided to take Frankie for a walk. We left the house at 6:40, which is probably the earliest we ever went for a walk.

We were out for almost a half hour and ended up about a block from home. I didn’t want to go further because I almost always have to carry him home. So I picked him up and headed home. It was a struggle because not only was my back hurting, I developed a pain in my leg because of the way I was walking with my back pain. It was a struggle getting home and it didn’t help that Frankie was struggling and hissing for half the walk.

We are now sitting outside and Frankie is keeping watch at the window.

Frankie Meets Another Stray

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Running into strays is starting to become a habit for Frankie and me. Yesterday he took me behind our house. Usually, we travel in front of our house toward the clubhouse and pool area but sometimes he likes to be different. Directly behind us and two streets down we met another stray cat. This one seemed casually interested in Frankie but wasn’t happy that Frankie brought along a third wheel.

I Forgot Frankie’s Gotcha Day

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We adopted Frankie on February 15, 2014. I realized I forgot last week but I was busy and distracted. Pretty much normal for me.

I don’t think I ever published the first photo I ever took of Frankie. We saw him at a Petsmart in Clearwater, Florida. Rose was actually looking for a female cat but couldn’t resist Frankie’s charm.

Rose calls him a liar now because he put on the charm for her in the shelter and soon after we got home, when this photo was taken, but now he is my cat.

We don’t know much about Frankie’s history. He only had a number, no name. His chart said he was three years old, which means he is twelve now but he still acts like a kitten sometimes.