Sixth Blogiversary

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It’s hard to believe that six years have passed already since I started this blog. Technically, I signed up with WordPress on June 1 but my first post, Introduction, was June 3, 2012. They say time flies when you are having fun and I guess that is true. The best part is all the nice people I have “met.” I haven’t met anyone in person, yet, but hopefully, I will get that chance.

Here are some stats on the blog that you may find interesting:

  • This is my 840th post. That averages to less than three posts a week. Yes, I could do better, but I have a job and other responsibilities and interests that keep this blog closer to a hobby.
  • It is difficult to get stats for the past 12 months but my most viewed post so far this year is Feral Cat Ear Notching. It was published in 2014 and knocked Are Ginger Cats Friendlier off its throne. That post was published in 2013. The most popular posts published in the last 12 months are Rest in Peace Sweet Puck followed by Remembering Puck. These were posts I could have done without.
  • Puck was the only cat to live his entire adoptive life during the span of this blog. He passed away in February on the anniversary of my Dad’s passing.

Chris greets Puck on his first day at our home.

  • My readers come from many countries. The top ten during the last 12 months are United States, United Kingdom, France, Canada, Australia, Philippines, India, Switzerland, Singapore, and Germany.
  • I average 188 words per post, far fewer than the 500 that is recommended but I like photography so many of my posts, especially Photo Friday,  are photos with just a few words. WordPress does not know that a photo is worth a thousand words.
  • The most popular day is Friday and the most popular time is 5:00 p.m. That is Eastern Standard Time.
  • The stats on commenters is vague so I won’t post them here but I appreciate everyone who posts comments and I apologize if my schedule makes it hard to post as many comments in return, but I try.

On a separate note, Chris turned nine around the middle of May and I forgot to post about it. I established his birthday to be six months before his gotcha day, which would put it on May 14, but I don’t know exactly when it is.

Thank you all for reading and I look forward many more years with you.

New Followers and New Spam

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Many new people have followed my blog lately. Some are legitimate but many others have unusual email addresses from outlook.com. I considered this to be a dangerous trend but I just couldn’t figure out how they could harm my blog just by following it.Bad Cat Chris on Laptop

I have had a couple of other WordPress blogs affected by malware and hackers more than once. Since I don’t blog much on those blogs I wasn’t paying attention until I noticed a string of tweets from me that I had nothing to do with. It took me awhile to figure out that I had connected WordPress to Twitter and someone else was posting on my blog.

Bad Cat Chris is my only current blog that is on wordpress.com and not self-hosted. Because of that, I worry a little less about hackers but last week I noticed a flood of spam that was a rare occurrence before.  I don’t know if these new outlook followers are responsible or if it is just a coincidence but am curious if others have noticed a similar pattern.

In other news, I posted a few weeks ago about two cats that needed homes. I am grateful to everyone that shared those posts on their blogs or social media. I don’t remember following up here about those cats and for that, I apologize.

The first was about an affectionate cat at Petsmart.

When my wife saw the video she decided she wanted her so we headed over to PetSmart on Saturday, two days after I shot the video, but the cat was gone along with the Siamese cat below her.

I then posted about a young Siamese cat named Dublin.

Siamese cat up for adoption

He was adopted by one of the vets at the clinic that took him in. She renamed him Oliver.

We are very happy both kitties found a home.

Gifts From the Cat-Sitter and a Forgotten Bad cat

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Here is another post for Throwback Thursday. I had forgotten where the little cat perch came from that our boys use all the time to catch the morning sun.

Charles Huss's avatarBad Cat Chris

While we were on vacation we had two cat-sitters watching our boys. Lynn did a great job keeping us updated with texts and photos (see here) and Nancy was nice enough to bring gifts for the cats. Unfortunately, one of Nancy’s cats recently passed away and the other is not very healthy and does not use the items she brought over.

One of the items was a nice cat perch that I see the cats lying on now more than our other two small perches.

Bad Cat Chris on cat perch

Next is a cat tunnel that everyone loves.

cat tunnelcat tunnelcat tunnel

Finally she brought a nice scratching post. I will let Chris describe his feelings about that.

cat scratching post

Our patio suddenly became too crowded so we decided to give Rose’s sister, Felice, the scratching post, one of our perches and a couple of other items. She said she could use them at the vet’s office where she…

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Turning the Cat Feeding Rule on its Head

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The following post in my unprofessional opinion and should not be considered advice.

I know the rule. When changing your cat’s food you should introduce it slowly while gradually reducing their current food. Everyone knows that a sudden change in diet will cause intestinal problems for your cat that include vomiting, diarrhea and possibly other problems.

That rule always seemed wrong to me. I learned long ago that for humans, variety is healthy and necessary, as long as the various food is not junk food. Cats, too, do not always eat the same food in the wild. A wild or feral cat might eat a mouse for breakfast, a bird for lunch, and a lizard for dinner. They might even have a bug or two for a snack. Why don’t they get upset stomachs?

Maybe eating the same food day in and day out, over and over, may be the cause of the problem and not the solution. It could be like a drug addiction and change could induce withdrawal symptoms. I’m just guessing and I have no evidence but logic tells me eating the same thing all the time is not what nature intended for cats.

I have gradually moved our cats from sameness to variety with no abdominal distress except for Frankie who has been a puker since we adopted him. I think he just eats way too fast and then pukes it up.

Currently, I feed them high quality, grain-free canned cat food as well as homemade raw cat food. I also give them dry kibble but I limit that to a small amount per day in an attempt to break Chris’s addiction to dry food.

I had been feeding them the same canned food and homemade raw food but I would buy a different dry food. I always chose a high-quality food but bought what was on sale at the time. Recently, I started changing the canned food as well because the Earthborn Chicken Catitorrie suddenly became less desirable to our cats. Perhaps they became bored with the same flavor.

I chose several different brands and varieties and decided to do a test to see which ones they liked and which ones they didn’t like.

canned cat food

Our boys seemed to prefer the two b.f.f. varieties shown above. The chicken and lamb and the chicken and turkey were a big hit even though they seemed quite watery to me. They liked the Dave’s almost as much but they left the Tender and True almost untouched. The other foods fell somewhere in the middle.

The important point here is that during this trial none of our cats got sick. In fact, I don’t recall Frankie puking at all during this period.

So my feeding routine now starts with a can of B.F.F. in the morning but since one of the pet food stores I shop at doesn’t carry it, that will change from time to time. Next, after they digest their food a little and start looking for more, I dish them out some of my homemade raw cat food. This is usually made from chicken thighs or chicken breasts and it does not change because they won’t eat it if I use beef or turkey.

During the late morning, if I am home, I try to avoid going in the kitchen because I have to listen to Chris’s pathetic cries for kibble. Sometimes I feel bad for him and give him some and other times I wait but they always get a small amount of kibble between meals. If I go to work, I give them a small amount of kibble when I leave. I do this because Chris does not eat as much wet food as Frankie and Floki do. For dinner it’s the same thing; Canned food and then raw food. Then it is a little more kibble before bedtime but not too much.

This is my experience with my cats but this probably won’t work for all cats. I am curious, though, if anyone else feeds their cats a variety and how do they do with it?