Since my wife is away and since I just clipped Chris’s claws, I decided to let the cats sleep with me Monday night. Of course, that was a mistake. I should have known.
Chris started bothering me sometime before 3 AM. I suppose I should have been grateful that he lasted that long. If I was smart, I would have picked him up and put him out of the bedroom but I was just too tired to get up. He continued bothering me, on and off, (mostly on) until sometime after 5 a.m. when I decided that I had enough and I got out of bed.
I fed them breakfast, made coffee, and did a couple of other things and then went back in the bedroom and saw this.
I guess it was mission accomplished so no longer need to stay awake.
Chris was sitting on my lap yesterday evening when he reached up to stick his claws into my skin like he often does but this time his claws got stuck in my neck and I had to reach over and pull them out. I was highly annoyed, as well as in pain, and I said, “Okay, Chris, enough is enough.” I then picked him up and carried him to the bedroom.
The “enough” I was referring to was me allowing his nails to get so long and sharp. The reason I carried him into the bedroom was because my wife keeps the nail clippers in her nightstand drawer. She clips the cat’s nails about eighty percent of the time but she is away on a business trip so I did it.
Chris was amazingly good for me this time. He did not try to pull his paw away, even when I had trouble seeing some of his nails. After I finished, he made a point of washing his paws.
Saturday night Chris whinned and cryed and scratched at the bedroom door until finally I opened the door and let him in. He was surprisingly good. He did bother me a little but it was not untill almost 6 a.m. before he became unbearable and by then the goal of lasting an entire night in the bedroom had been accomplished.
The above photo is from 2019 but I think it illustrates how difficult Chris can be. The next photo is poor quality but it too shows what a pain Chris can be, literally.
I do not know if Chris sleeping with us will become a habit but I hope he can learn to behave himself.
I decided to put a camera outside our bedroom door to see what Chris is actually doing out there when he is scratching at the door and crying. I forgot to turn on the microphone so I only have the video.
Today Chris turns twelve years old. In cat years, he is a senior, but he is also like a child and sometimes like a baby who needs to be held. Of course, this is just his estimated birthday. When we adopted him he was about six months old so I just subtracted six months from his Gotcha Day and came up with May 14, 2009.
He has been a part of our family for so long that I just don’t know what we would do without him. Sure, he can be incredibly annoying at times but he is also incredibly sweet and affectionate.
He loved people from the first day I saw him and had no trouble seeking attention from strangers, like my wife the first time she visited him at the shelter.
Chris meets Rose
The above photo was taken almost six weeks before we brought Chris home. Can you imagine a cat as special as Chris being overlooked for so long? I was told he was adopted once and brought back the next day because he was too annoying, but I don’t remember if it was before this photo was taken or after.
Of course, he gave us a lot of trouble too, but we persevered. How could we not? He was so funny to watch. The first thing he did was take over as head cat the day he arrived.
He also constantly threw himself on top of the other cats, much to their displeasure.
Abbey anoyed with Chris.
He still does that today.
Another thing he used to do was get on people shoulders, especially mine.
Other cats would see Chris on my shoulders and they would get on my shoulders too but Chris was a natural at shoulder riding. The other cats always seemed nervous and unstable.
Chris didn’t get his “Bat Cat” moniker for nothing. He gave us plenty of trouble too. It was a constant battle to get him to stop doing things we didn’t want him to do, like get on the counters. All of our cats get on the counters today simply because Chris won the counter wars and we surrendered.
He also started pooping in the tub, at first, and then moved on to pooping outside the boxes. He didn’t always do it but it was enough to where I worried that my wife was going to make me choose her or the cat. I think that went on for four years or more. The solution came on accident when we moved to a smaller home and consolidated our litter boxes in one room, instead of having them spread around the house. It seems if one box was not perfect, he wanted another box right there. He certainly wasn’t going to make the effort to go to another room.
Chris was also good at getting into closets, and still is but he doesn’t care about it as much these days.
This last one was considered for a documentary about cats but didn’t make the final cut, probably because the resolution was not high enough.
Chris was also a champion of getting on top of things that our other cats would not attempt.
I don’t know how he does thisView from below
Many of those behaviors are in the past, partly because of Chris’s age but I think mostly because of his weight. He is what we affectionately call a “carb addict.” He loves his kibble. I try to not give him too much but he wears me down. He annoys the crap out of me when I am working so I give him a little kibble in order to get some work done. I usually do something else first so he won’t associate annoying me with getting what he wants but he is a smart cat and I doubt I am fooling him.
All in all, we have been very fortunate to have a cat that has really touched our hearts the way Chris has. I sometimes think about those people who returned Chris. They just have no idea what they gave up just so they could get a good night’s sleep.
Chris is a very needy cat and always has to be touching someone. He can be quite annoying, especially to Frankie, but Frankie is usually pretty good about tolerating Chris.
“Usually” means about 70% of the time. About 20% of the time Frankie just gets up and leaves. The rest of the time there is hissing and whacking going on.
The Most Annoying Cat in the World is a bold statement and I have no real evidence to support that there is not another cat more annoying than Chris but, in my mind at least, I can’t imagine anyone could beat him at the annoyance game.
Here are just two examples of how annoying Chris can be. Keep in mind that he is also the most affectionate cat in the world, according to me, so that tends to cancel out the annoying factor.
Here are more videos that I have shown before but are worth repeating.
Regular readers know that no cat is allowed to sleep with us because of Chris’s bad behavior. Since we have no litter box in the bedroom, we can’t close Chris out while allowing Frankie and Floki to stay in the room with us. It also wouldn’t be nice to make Chris stay by himself all night.
That changed when Chris got sick. Chris had a cold for about a week and just when the sneezing died down the puking started. That was around the Friday before last. Because he wasn’t feeling well, we thought it would be nice to leave the door open for him. Plus we could keep an eye on him somewhat. Even though we would be sleeping, we would probably wake up if he started puking, which we hoped would not be on our bed. I also didn’t think he would be very annoying while he was sick, which he wasn’t (much).
He went to the vet that Monday and ended up getting eight teeth pulled two days later. He didn’t eat for a day or two and all the while he continued to sleep on our bed. As he improved, so did his annoyance level until I finally had to kick them all out at 4:00 a.m. a few mornings ago.
Tuesday evening I saw Chris puking again. It was the reason I brought Chris to the vet in the first place but the reason for his puking was never discovered. Because of that I became worried about his health and when we were getting ready for bed Tuesday night all three cats were on our bed looking too comfortable to kick out.
I decided to let them stay, which worked out fine until around midnight. That is when Chris decided to lie over my head and dig his nails into my neck and scalp. I put my hand up to hold his paws back and he responded by biting my shoulder. I then moved him to the foot of the bed where he took an interest in Frankie until I fell asleep. Then he started his annoying behavior all over again. I again moved him to the foot of the bed and went back to sleep but the bad behavior continued until 4:00 a.m. when he woke up my wife. She could not go back to sleep after that and got up and took the cats with her so I could sleep.
Needless to say they will not be sleeping with us tonight.
Chris is the most affectionate cat I have ever seen and that affection is not limited to humans. He is equally affectionate with the other cats in the house and he always has been that way. Because of that, all of our cats, past and present, have thought of Chris as the annoying one. Rose and I would sometimes call him Baby Huey. The other cats would tolerate Chris but none of them would seek him out for attention.
Recently things have changed. A couple of months ago we saw Floki go to Chris and push his head into Chris’s face. Chris then washed him and the scene repeated many times after that. Now it is common to see Floki join Chris for a nap and not the other way around.
Does anyone else have a cat that seeks out attention to the point of annoyance?
My wife is away on business so I decided to leave the bedroom door open Tuesday night and let the cats sleep with me. I do that sometimes when she is away and I always regret it. Chris usually bothers me for a little while and then settles in until around three or four in the morning and then he starts back up with his annoying behavior. Wednesday morning it was three o’clock.
I resisted him for a while. I kept pushing him away or I would pick him up and move him to where another cat was sleeping. (I couldn’t tell who in the dark). My hope was that he would forget about me and bother that other cat. It didn’t work and eventually, he forced me out of bed way too early.
Last night I was tired and closed everyone out so I could get some sleep. That lasted until around four this morning when I heard Chris crying and scratching at the door. This went on until 5:30 when I was again forced out of bed early.
I fed them and went back to bed, not to sleep but just to rest for a few minutes. Chris showed up soon after and immediately started bothering me by biting my nose and scratching me. His breathing was accelerated and he was purring loudly or at least making loud breathing noises. After several minutes of this, I decided to get it on film so at least others could enjoy it.
Don’t get me wrong, I love that Chris is as loving and affectionate as he is. I just wish he could do it less painfully.
Bad Cat Chris 