Photo Friday: In a Fog

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Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night keeps Chris from wanting to go outside. There have been times when I have come home at night during a cold rain only to have Chris slip past me and run outside. Once out, he doesn’t care that he is getting wet. He only cares that he is outside.

Last weekend he was begging me to open the door on the patio and let him out, despite the fact that it was foggy and wet. I complied and he ran out and immediately started eating grass. He must be getting old. Two years ago he would have raced out the door to look for lizards (see here), now he just eats grass. Granted, he does other things too, but he always starts with the grass.

Sparring Partners

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Since the first day Chris graced our home with his presence, he has had a fighting spirit. He would attack the other cats, hoping to find someone willing to play with him but would instead just get growls and hisses.

That changed when we got Puck, who was a kitten at the time and is now about a year and a half old, still young enough to keep up with Chris. That may change when Puck matures and Chris doesn’t, but we shall see.

The other night the two of them got into a major fight, taking it from one room in the house to the next.

My box, stay away!

Oww! You’ll pay for that, Puck!

This should show you who is boss around here. (Chris will sometimes hold Puck down by the scruff to show dominance)

No, wait! That tickles.

Let’s dance.

Do you want a face full of this?

You can’t hide from me!

Who’s the boss now, Chris?

We are fortunate that our two cats, while they fight a lot, are also friends. By that I mean Puck is able to tolerate Chris’s behavior and occasionally put him in his place when necessary.

Photo Friday: Eat Your Greens

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Last week I showed you what I go through when I try to make our lunches in the morning (see here). I mentioned that puck takes lettuce out of my salad. This time I caught him stealing spinach straight from the package.

Are these vegetables organic?

Fun in the Sun

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I believe in an ideal world, every indoor cat would have a cat-door leading to an outside area tightly enclosed by a cat-proof fence so the cat could come and go as they please. Of course, this is not an ideal world so we have to make due with what we have. In our case, I try to let the cats outside for a supervised “recess” once or twice a week.

I think being able to run around outside, eat grass and soak up the sun is good for them. I also think there are many dangers outside which is why I won’t let them out unless I have the time to make sure they stay close to the house. It can be difficult to watch them when both cats are out at once but Rose was out there yesterday for a second set of eyes.

They really enjoyed their time in the sun and both were in no hurry to go back inside when we tried to collect them.

Photo Friday: Kitchen Help

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I usually make lunch for Rose and myself every morning. This lunch usually includes a salad which Puck waits for so he can steal a piece of lettuce. I don’t know why. Perhaps he thinks he is a rabbit.

Chris can’t have Puck on the counter without himself being up there to make sure he is included on anything good that might be given out.

Photo Friday: Puck’s Perch

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Our cat Puck has a few favorite spots in our house. Of of them is on the ledge between the kitchen and living room. From there he has a cat’s-eye view of most of the house. It is also a good place to get attention from one of the two-legged creatures that will occasionally walk by. The ledge is also a great place for jumping to the china cabinet, another of Pucks favorite spots.

Falling Off the Poop Wagon

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Since the day we got Chris we had to deal with him pooping on the floor. Usually he would poop in the box but sometimes he would poop on the floor or the bathtub. It was a difficult struggle with him and we finally got some relief with a special litter called Dr. Elsey’s Cat Attract. This helped a lot but I still had to deal with an occasional poop on the floor.

When we moved into our current home last June, Chris pooped on the floor a few times the first month and then suddenly just stopped. For six months we enjoyed a Chris that was actually good, at least as far as litter box usage was concerned. Then Rose’s son came to visit…

Nick came just before Christmas and spent a week with us. He couldn’t handle Chris annoying him while he was trying to sleep so instead of closing his door, he put Chris on the patio and locked him out of the house… without a litter box. He may have tried to close his door only to have Chris flick the handle up and down, I don’t know.

What I do know is Chris had no choice but to poop on the patio, and he did. Like an alcoholic taking that first drink after months of abstinence, Chris found it hard to stop. Several times since then I have found poop on the patio. Yesterday morning I was late leaving for work because I had to clean three piles of poop on the patio. It has been several days since we spent time on our patio so I guess it was accumulating.

Fortunately it is not everyday that he does it and he hasn’t brought the problem into the house yet. Rose wants to put a litter box outside but I want to first work on trying to stop the problem. I have cleaned the area very well and somewhere lost in the house is a bottle of no-go spray. It hasn’t been very effective in the past but it may help a little. Does anybody else have a suggestion that might end this?

Photo Friday: Cat-in-the-Box

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I think cats are genetically programmed to climb inside boxes. Everyone has seen it. Nevertheless, it is still cute so I thought I would share a couple of pictures of Chris recently. This box had some paper on the bottom which made it especially appealing.

The Toy Box

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Our house gets dirty pretty fast for a home with two people who are gone nearly 12 hours a day, five days a week. Of course the majority of the dirt that accumulates throughout the house is cat hair and cat litter. This means that we do a lot of sweeping and vacuuming. We do what we call a quick vac a couple of times a week and then, once a week, we do a major clean that involves picking everything up off the floor.

The things that populate our floor and must be removed include rugs, cat scratchers and cat toys. It is that cat toys that always amaze me. Every week I pick up more toys than the average six-year-old has in their closet.

These are just a few of the toys I collected one day.

We have a toy box where we keep the cats toys. Actually, it is more of a toy basket.

Is this too much?

Chris and Puck know where their toys are kept and have no problem taking the toys out and playing with them. Chris is surprisingly playful for being almost five years old. I see both him and Puck (who is about one and a half) chasing toy mice around the house quite often. I just can’t seem to get them to put their toys away when they finish playing. I don’t suppose there are any parents out there that know what that is like…

What’s Behind Drawer Number One?

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Chris has always had a need to not only get inside drawers but get behind them. I cannot count how many times I had to remove a drawer because Chris has managed to get himself behind it. A recent post, Happiness is a Dresser Drawer, is a good example of this.

The problem is caused partly by my carelessness (because I am usually, but not always, the one who opens a drawer and forgets to close it) but Chris deserves some credit too for being so incredibly flexible. I don’t know how he squeezes himself through some of the spaces he gets into.

This morning I was in the kitchen using the juicer I got for Christmas. I opened the bottom drawer then walked away briefly. When I returned, I saw that Puck was very interested in the drawer. I knew this could only mean that Chris was behind it but how could he have gotten back there with all the stuff in the drawer?

I put my hand in the drawer to confirm he was there and I felt either Chris or a very large rat. I got my camera and stuck it inside and blindly took a picture that came out surprising well.

Instead of taking the drawer out I enticed him with kitty treats. “Who wants kitty treats? Chris? You want kitty treats?”

That worked. Soon I saw a paw stick out into the drawer.

I took some stuff out to make it easier for him and then came his head.

And then the rest of him.

Oh, the power of kitty treats.

Bad Cat Chris

The Baddest Cat You'll Ever Love