What could be better to scratch on than a real tree like nature intended?
Photo Friday: The Best Scratching Post
10 Replies
Tag Archives: cat
Checkmate
Chris doesn’t always win. Sometimes I am smarter than he is. When he started knocking over his food bowl, I started keeping the end bowl mostly empty but then he would go to a lot of trouble to knock over all the bowls, which seemed illogical because he started doing it because he was too lazy to stand up.
I decided to buy another pair of bowls on a wooden stand so now he has to eat standing up again.
Check and mate!
Photo Friday: Young Floki
Here is Floki before all his colors came in. It was taken on October 18, 2016.
We estimate that Floki was born on or around April 18, 2016, so he would have been about six months old here.
Chris’s New Bad Habit
I mentioned before that Chris started knocking his bowl over because he was too lazy to get up and eat standing up. It was limited to the Bowl on the end so I started keeping very little food in that bowl. Of course, as usual, whenever we compensate for one of Chris’s bad behaviors he compensates for our compensation.
My wife sometimes doesn’t sleep well and gets up for a couple of hours in the middle of the night. She was up very early this morning and came back to bed when I got up. When I walked out to the dining room I saw all three cat bowls sitting on the table and a bunch of cat food on the floor inside the catch-all mat. I picked up the mat and dumped all of the food back into one of the bowls and put it back down on the floor.
A little bit later I looked down and saw this.
Rose told me later than he had dumped over all three of the bowls. We now need to compensate for his compensation of our compensation. Perhaps I will look for those bowls on a raised wooden block like we had before.
Photo Friday: Boxed In
All our cats love boxes but Frankie, above all, can’t resist jumping inside a new box, often without looking at what is inside first.
After the Storm
I want to thank everyone who expressed concern for our safety during Hurricane Ian. Just like Hurricane Charley in 2004, this was a category 4 hurricane that was predicted to hit the Tampa Bay area but changed course and hit Southwest Florida. This storm was far bigger in size, though, than Charlie. one graphic I saw put Charlie inside the eye of Ian.
The storm is so big that it is still quite windy here almost 22 hours after the storm made landfall. It is looking like the damage caused by this storm could be among the worst in history. I have not heard of any loss of life and I hope that is the case. I also hope the people impacted can get back to normal life as quickly as possible.
Here we had little damage in our area. The power is out at my work so I am home today. I saw the governor say that 150,000 are without power in my county, Pinellas. I don’t know if that is people or homes. It is a drop in the bucket compared to Southwest Florida. I joke that I have been dodging bullets for 34 years but this area has been spared for much longer than that.
I mentioned before about the Indian legend that says there is something here that repels hurricanes. The last time a hurricane made landfall in our county was in 1921. That one hit Tarpon Springs at the far northwest corner. None have ever hit, as far as I know, the peninsula part of the county where I live.
I went outside this morning to see if there was any damage and found only fallen tree branches.
Our cats made it through the storm well Nobody was nervous the entire time.
On a bright note, the sun just came out.
Grandma’s New Cat
A couple of months ago, my mother-in-law’s beloved cat, Finnegan, died at a fairly young age. I wrote about his adoption three years ago here. Recently, a stray cat started coming to her door. I think the word has gotten out amongst the homeless cat community that her house is the place to go.
This new cat was very friendly and must have had a home at one time because he had worn-out nail covers, but he was not neutered.
I don’t know how long he was coming around. I assume long enough to know he was separated from his original family. So my mother-in-law decided to bring him in and make him an inside cat.
We were there visiting Sunday morning and the cat was happy getting attention from all of us. She had an appointment to get him fixed this week and the only thing left is to name him. Someone suggested Zorro and she liked that name but I don’t know if she officially decided yet.
Frankie’s So-called Walk
I took Frankie for a walk on Saturday and we stayed relatively close to home this time. Frankie spent a lot of time doing things other than walking.
After hanging out by the pool area we spent some time relaxing at the picnic area. By that I mean napping.
Eventually we made our way back home but when I opened the door Frankie didn’t want to go inside so I had to pick him up and put him in the house. When I did that, Chris was at the door waiting to go out but we needed to leave for a wedding, so Chris didn’t get his turn. I felt really bad about that.
Our Huggable Cat
My stepson, Nick, flew in yesterday with his girlfriend and the four of us are going on vacation together this week. I posted recently about how Puck was nervous around Nick, but not so with Chris.
Chris loves everyone and he especially loves to be hugged, which is not a typical cat behavior. Of course, Chris is not a typical cat.
Floki’s Vet Visit and Near Disaster
My wife called me at work yesterday and said Floki was behaving strangely when he ate so we decided it was best to call the vet right away since the weekend was coming up. She got him an appointment for 11 a.m. this morning.
I noticed when I got home yesterday that he did seem a little off when he ate, like he was having trouble swallowing or something but then, on the next bite, he seemed fine. Nevertheless, we wanted to make sure he was okay.
So, amazingly, we were able to get him in his carrier and I brought him to the vet. I didn’t get any useful photos but here is one from another trip to the vet.
The vet checked him out pretty thoroughly and found nothing serious wrong with him. He did say he had slight gingivitis but not enough to cause problems. He also said he had wax build up in his ears and suggested we clean them. I laughed at that because Floki is a Cat 5 tornado when we try to do anything that he doesn’t want done. That is why I asked them to clip his nails while he was there.
When I checked out it was raining pretty hard outside. I usually wear moccasins that are comfortable but are slippery when wet. I didn’t think about that since it wasn’t raining when we left the house.
So I went out the door in the pouring rain and walked quickly to my car. As soon as I stepped on the asphalt I slipped and fell forward. If Floki wasn’t with me it probably wouldn’t have been a big deal but Floki’s soft carrier hit the ground and I was about to land on top of him. I twisted my body to the left to keep from crushing Floki but hit my elbow hard on the pavement. I also got very wet because I ended up laying on the flooded pavement. Fortunately, I only hit Floki with a glancing blow so at least he is okay.
Bad Cat Chris 