Here is Abbey, Tigger, and Chris from 12 years ago yesterday, December 8, 2010.
Today also would have been my dad’s 83rd birthday. After almost 24 years, he is still very much missed.
I believe this was taken at his parent’s 50th anniversary in early 1986.
Someone recently commented on an old post where I mentioned that I was worried because Chris was almost eight at the time and we had lost three cats, Tigger, Abbey, and Alex, all at eight years old. Now Chris is thirteen and still going strong. That is not to say he doesn’t have problems. He is still prone to ear infections, he is quite a bit overweight, and he possibly has arthritis to some degree.
Age has taken a toll on his “bad” behavior. He no longer fills his days with naughtiness, but he can still be plenty annoying. What hasn’t changed is his affectionate behavior. Chris has always been the most loving cat I have ever seen, both with humans and other cats, and that has not changed one bit.
He started out a little love bug . . .
. . . and now he is a big love bug.
I can only hope Chris will be with us for a long time because the void he will leave behind will be way too big to ever fill.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It just occurred to me that today is Chris’s birthday. I should have had a big, elaborate post planned for his birthday but instead all I have is a quickly thrown together post with a photo of Chris on top of our kitchen cabinets on his fourth birthday, which I have never posted before to my knowledge.
We don’t know exactly when Chris was born but since he was about six months old when we adopted him I just celebrate his birthday six months before his gotcha day. I will have to make sure he gets plenty of Stella and Chewy’s today for a treat.
Yesterday our little boy turned four and we missed it because I made a stupid mistake. We actually don’t know his exact birthday but I was told that Floki and his brother were left in a carrier at Walmart on Memorial day and they were about six weeks old at the time so I did the math and came up with April 18th. I then had Alexa remind me of that date but for some reason thought Saturday was the 16th and I had made a mistake. It reminds me of the old joke, “I thought I was wrong once but I was mistaken.” This time being wrong about being wrong was a mistake.
In either case, my wife wanted to celebrate “early” with a cake. I told her it would have to be a tuna cake but she din’t like that idea but she wanted me to pick up some tuna for him as a treat. Since I had to get cat food anyway, I looked for something special and found something called Churu that were squeeze tubes of different flavors of treats. I chose the chicken recipe.
I opened two of the four tubes and squirted it on paper plates for the cats. They all loved it.
Rose decided since it was Floki’s birthday I should open up the other two packages and give that to them too. I did and they gobbled that up as eagerly as the first two. Hopefully, next year I will get the date right.
If you want to read more about Floki’s early days, check out the links below.
We Came, We Saw, We Left With No Kitten
I missed Chris’s birthday again. For some reason I keep thinking it is on the 18th but it is really the 14th. Anyway, we don’t know is real birthday but celebrate it six months before his Gotcha Day because he was about six months old when we adopted him from the cat shelter.
I thought today I would just re-share some pictures of Chris since his last birthday and later, before I go to work, will pass out kitty treats (Stella and Chewy’s) to celebrate.
Here is Chris last June stopping to smell the flowers
Here he is in July getting along with Frankie.
In August he had a rare opportunity to be outside at the same time as Frankie. I am sure this is because he escaped as I tried to get out with Frankie.
I bought a new computer in September and Chris got the box . . . that he wouldn’t share.
Also in September he had an eye infection and had to visit the vet for the first time ever, except for shots.
Here he is in October doing his famous “Happy Roll.”
In November he teamed up with Frankie to be bad.
More badness.
Even more badness. November must have been a bad month.
Some goodness in January with Floki.
February, not so good
Here he is in April getting cat hair on my underwear. Not that many people would notice.
Last, but not least, here he is on the day we adopted him, November 14, 2009.
When I started this blog I couldn’t decide what to name it. I had several names in mind, none of which I can remember now. I only remember that all of them were taken. I eventually settled on Crazy Cat Chris and registered it at WordPress.com.
Almost immediately I realized that I made a mistake. Chris was not a crazy cat. I think I just liked it because all the words started with C. I then choose Bad Cat Chris but the truth is, Chris is no more bad then he is crazy. The “bad” in Bad Cat Chris only refers to his behavior, not to Chris himself, and it really only refers to the human interpretation of the word “bad.” What is bad to a human is not necessarily bad to a cat. Like Shakespeare said, “there is no good or bad but thinking makes it so.”
The first several months after we adopted Chris, he kept us from getting a good night’s sleep by attacking our feet, biting our noses, treading on our bare skin and lying across our necks. BAD CAT! Indeed, the people who adopted him before us thought he was a bad cat and returned him to the shelter after one day.
Chris, November 2009
He no longer attacks feet and he has learned not to bite Rose’s nose but everything else is the same. Jumping on counters is another “bad” behavior that we were never able to correct. Nor were we able to stop him from opening cabinets and closets and getting inside. At eight years old he still tries to get out the door every chance he gets and he still scratches the furniture, but only when he knows someone is looking.
Despite his behavior, I wouldn’t want him to change because that is who Chris is. He has always been very entertaining and he makes us laugh. His bad behavior is not really bad, it’s more like naughty, and even that’s not right. He is just a non-human who is very good at not following human rules.
There is something special about Chris, more special than any other dog or cat I have ever had, and I have had some good ones. Chris is pure love. He loves me, he loves Rose he loves everyone who steps foot in our house and he is not afraid to show it. He bleeds affection. Everybody who knows Chris loves him back.
He is even affectionate to all the other cats, although he will fight with them too.
Rose worries that when we lose Chris I will be devastated and she may be right. I think about that more now that Chris will be turning eight. The last three of our cats that passed away, Abbey, Alex and Tigger, all died at eight years old. But, of course, now is not the time to be thinking such thoughts. We have a birthday coming up.
Today our little Floki turns one year old. 
We don’t know when his exact birthday is but, if I remember the story correctly, Floki, his brother and one or more kittens from another litter were found in a box in a Walmart parking lot on Memorial Day last year. I subtracted his estimated age when we adopted him on the Fourth of July and came up with April 18.
I thought I would show some highlights from the past year.
Below is the picture my sister-in-law sent us to let us know she had kittens available. We don’t know for sure if this is Floki or his brother.
This is the first known picture of Floki at the vet where we came to see him and other kittens.
This was one of his competitors.
Here he is with his brother and another cat. We wanted to take them all.
Here is Chris meeting Floki. This went better then when he met Frankie.
Below is our first vet visit.
Chris shows him who’s boss.
Floki takes to the cat tunnel.
And he turns out to be a daredevil.
He makes friends.
And discovers new heights.
All while finding his place in the group and in our hearts.
We don’t know when Chris was born but I set his birthday at six months before we adopted him, May 14, which I missed. Sorry Chris. Here he is sleeping with Frankie. When Chris was young, he was far from a normal cat because he rarely napped. He was always up and getting into trouble. He still naps less than Frankie or Puck but he is closer to normal now.
Today is Chris’s sixth birthday. Actually, we don’t know his exact birthday but he was about six months old when we adopted him so I thought we would just celebrate his birthday six months from his adoption day. I thought it would be fitting to re-post some pictures of him at each year in his life.
This is Chris between Alex and Tigger in November, 2009.
Tigger washing Chris, June, 2010.
Chris between Abbey and Tigger, February, 2011
Chris the daredevil, November, 2012
Chris at the pool showing off his expanding belly, November, 2013
Chris showing he can still be bad, October, 2014
Chris with Frankie, showing off his catch, March, 2015
Unfortunately Chris has been sick with a cold and we have to work all day and then go to a wedding this evening so he won’t get the attention he deserves. Perhaps I will leave the bedroom door open for him tonight.
Bad Cat Chris 