Cat flap | Bad Cat Chris

In my last post I mentioned that we were finally able to close our bedroom door by putting plastic under the door and objects next to it that kept Bad Cat Chris from digging the carpet. That, combined with the fact that Chris now had a cat door to the patio, meant that we were able to finally get a good night sleep. He usually woke us up in the middle of the night with some whining and scratching on the door but we ignored him and he soon went away.

This lasted a week or two until Chris focused on a new strategy to open the door. Actually the strategy was old, annoyance, but the method was new. He started trying to open the door using the door handle. This particular door had a lever handle instead of the more common round handles. This made it easy for him to stretch and pull the handle down. The only thing that kept him out was the fact that this door had a slightly tighter fit that the closet door that he could open at our last home. It also opened in, instead of out and he did not have the weight to push it open.

None of that mattered though because I don’t think he was trying to open the door. I think he knew that was not possible so his plan was to get one of us to open it. If you think about it, he did the only logical thing he could do. He annoyed the crap out of us. Every time he pulled the handle down and let go, it made a loud noise. He would stand on two legs and flip the handle repeatedly.

I think he could only stand on his hind legs for short periods of time so there would usually be thirty seconds of handle flipping followed by a ten second break and then it would start over again. It worked. This was his ticket into the bedroom. We still locked him out every night but usually sometime between 3:30 and 4:30 the handle flipping would start and he would be let in.

Chris won that round but we humans were not going to let a cat outsmart us (again) so we did the only thing we could do. We installed a round door knob. Score one for the humans. Our victory was short-lived though but that is yet again, another story.

Chris is now on Facebook and Twitter, click the link on the sidebar or go to facebook.com/badcatchris or twitter.com/badcatchris.

After moving into our townhome, the cats were very happy to be able to go out on the patio again.This patio was even better because it was on the ground floor where they could better see the ducks, squirrels, lizards, dogs, people and whatever else walked, crawled, slithered or flew by.

There was a couple of problems however. First, there is a saying that “no matter what side of a door a cat is on, he will always want to be on the other side.” This is true for our cats and it was somewhat annoying having to let them out and back in all the time. Chris was especially annoying because he was very vocal about wanting to change sides.

The other problem was that we had to keep them inside at night because there was no food, water or a litter box outside. This meant that Chris was upstairs annoying us for half the night while we were trying to sleep. Then one day the solution just appeared.

: Our new cat door

We ran across someone selling a cat door that attaches to a sliding glass door, so we decided to buy it. We had one in South Carolina but it would not fit the tracks. It did fit the track for the screen however so we put it on that track. This worked but did not allow us to lock the door so the cats had to stay in at night and when we were not home.

Now we actually had a cat door that worked the way it was supposed to. Chris, of course, had no problem zipping in and out through the door. Abbey and Tigger were a few weeks behind getting the hang of it.

: Chris and Tigger enjoying the patio.

The best part about the cat door was that it cut down on the amount of time that Chris was upstairs keeping us awake. After a short time I decided to try closing the bedroom door again. As usual I put the plastic runner under the door and put an object on each side in hopes of preventing Chris from digging up the carpet. This did not work before but now it seemed worth another shot.

Miraculously, we were finally able to get a good night’s sleep. Sure, Chris would come up at 4:30 in the morning and cry and scratch at the door, but we would just ignore him and eventually he would quit and go away. I think this worked because he had somewhere better he could be.

But alas, he would not truly earn his name Bad Cat Chris if this was the end of the story. When it comes to Chris, any solution is only temporary until he can find a new way to cause trouble. I’ll save that story for another time.

On another note, Bad Cat Chris now has his own Facebook page. There is a button on the side bar if you would like to “Like” him or you can check out the page at facebook.com/badcatchris.