Here is Frankie at dinnertime waiting for me to put food on his plate.
I made a meme of this photo. You can see it on my blog, Just Fur Laughs.
Photo Friday: Time For Dinner
23 Replies
Tag Archives: cat
Chris Almost Made It
Sunday night, shortly after we went to bed, Chris started his usual crying and scratching at the bedroom door. This time was worse than usual and he would not stop. After about a half hour I gave up and, over the protests of my wife, let him in.
He actually did pretty well. He bothered me a little but I put him down at my side, away from my face, and he stayed there for a long time. I think he bothered me one more time but I again put him down and he again stayed.
Some time between 3 and 4 a.m. my wife got up and said she couldn’t sleep because of Chris. “He’s behaving,” I said. “How is he keeping you awake?”
“You guys are hogging the sheets and taking up the entire bed,” she said before getting up and going downstairs.
My mind went back to the time before Chris when four to five cats would sleep on the bed next to me and that didn’t cause a problem for Rose. On top of that, I’m pretty sure we had a queen bed back then instead of the king we have now.
Rose came back to bed around 4:45 and about five minutes later Chris started bothering me but this time I could not get him to stop. If it was 5 a.m. I would have considered it too late to go back to sleep and got up. That would have meant that Chris made it through an entire night in our room. Instead, I put him out and closed the door ten minutes shy of the goal.
I managed to sleep almost an additional hour before Chris started scratching and howling at the door. Some day I will get eight hours of sleep. Perhaps when we take our vacation a year from now.
Cries of Desperation
The other day I posted a video of Chris scratching at the bedroom door at night but I forgot to turn on the microphone. I recorded another video the next day so you can hear the pathetic cries that we have to listen to every night.
Sometimes those cries make me feel so bad that I get up and open the door, only to soon regret it.
What Happens Outside Our Bedroom Door
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.
Maybe tomorrow I will post one with sound.
Frankie’s Defiance
I came across a video I took of Frankie a couple of months ago after one of his escapes. He was hiding under a car and I was trying to talk him out as it started raining. I wrote about it in a previous post but I must have forgotten I had a video too.
Catching Rays
One of the great things about our new catio is that it offers a large area of ray catching opportunities.
Two Options for Losing Sleep
Since moving here to West Virginia, Chris has become quite the pain at night. Not that he wasn’t before but now he is worse. Chris is too annoying to allow in our room at night so we close all the cats out of our bedroom when we go to bed. At our Florida home, Chris learned to accept this and was usually quiet until around 4 a.m. or so. Here, he is quite different.
I have water and food bowls upstairs and downstairs for the cats. The food is usually empty except for a small amount a few times a day. I save one of those times for bedtime and I draw Chris out of the room with kibble and then close the bedroom door and go to bed.
The quiet lasts until Chris is done eating and then there is a constant scratching at the door and crying. The cry is almost a howl and it sound so sad and pathetic, as well as annoying, that I feel like I need to let him in, if only for a little while.
So lately I look at it like sleep training. When he starts his nails in the face routine I move him down to my feet. Sometimes that works for an hour or two and sometimes he is back in fifteen seconds. Never had I made it through the night with Chris. Sometime between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. I have to get up and put him out the door along with any other cat in the room.
I think what irks me the most is once Rose and I are awake and up for the day, that is when Chris decides to go to sleep on our bed.
I feel like sleep training will never work so I should probably give up and just ignore him, but it is equally difficult to sleep with him out there making all that noise. Plus, he is ruining the door.
In Search Of: The Lost Frankie
Welcome to another episode of the drama that is the life of a cat parent. In this episode, we will look into the disappearance of Frankie, who was suddenly and inexplicably absent from the lunchtime meal on Friday.
I scooped out three plates of wet food at about 1:30 yesterday afternoon. Chris and Floki were there waiting but no Frankie. I put the plates down and called, “Frankie! Frankie!” but he didn’t come. I then went upstairs, calling his name and looking in each room but saw no Frankie.
I looked under the beds, which I knew was fruitless because Frankie is not a UTB kind of cat. I looked in my bedroom closet but no Frankie. By then Floki was upstairs eating Frankie’s food that I temporaraly set down.
That is when I got worried and told Rose that I couldn’t find Frankie. I retrieved Frankie’s dish from Floki and headed downstairs to look. I checked the closets down there and Rose went upstairs to look. I also checked behind the sofa and I looked outside on the catio and in the laundry room.
Not finding him, I set the food down and looked upstairs again after Rose came down without finding him. We considered the possibility that he got outside because we had a visitor and because I went out several times that morning, but the laundry room is a buffer and we always close one door before opening the other. Nevertheless, I walked around the block looking for him.
I returned without any luck, but I did meet some nice neighbors who said they would keep an eye out for him. Rose wanted me to drive around the neighborhood but I wanted to search the house one more time.
I turned on the flashlight on my phone and started checking closets more thoroughly. I checked downstairs and then upstairs. I then checked the bathtubs because Frankie likes to go in the tub sometimes but no Frankie. It was then that I remembered the closet in the bathroom and opened it and saw Frankie looking up at me. He gave me a short “meow” and then walked out.
We headed downstairs where he found three empty bowls. I figured after what he went through he deserved some wet food so I opened another can for him.
About an hour or so later, when I decided to write about his adventure, he was on my desk looking for attention.
How could I refuse?
Photo Friday: Frankie in Contrast
I was at our local riverfront park taking photos yesterday morning. As I was downloading them into the computer, I noticed Frankie next to me soaking up the sun and decided to photograph him with my Canon, which I have not used much since moving.
There was so much contrast between Frankie’s bright fur and the black background that I thought it was different enough to be good. What do you think?
What to do About Chris
Last night we closed the cats out of our bedroom so that Chris wouldn’t bother us, but I’m not sure if he bothers us more in the bedroom or outside the bedroom. Shortly after we closed the door, Chris started scratching at the door and crying that desperate cry of his. We tried to ignore him but he just wouldn’t stop. After about five minutes of constant crying and scratching I couldn’t take it anymore and open the door and let him in. I don’t know how he does it but he always wins.
After his initial pesty behavior of scratching my face and biting my nose, I moved him to the side. Surprisingly, he behaved for a while. I was able to fall asleep but by around midnight Chris couldn’t behave any longer and started bothering me again. This time he didn’t bother just me, he had to bother Rose too, who insisted that I put him out.
That worked and we were able to fall asleep, but early this morning he was crying and scratching at the door again. I was concerned about what all the scratching was doing so when I turned on the light and looked at the door, I saw scratch marks along the side of what I believe is the original 120 year old door.
The problem is I do not know what to do about Chris now. I do not want him ruining this door but I also don’t want him ruining my sleep. I thought about putting a metal plate and the door where he is scratching but putting screw holes in the door can be almost as bad as the scratches.
Ideally, I would like to train him to not be so annoying but it is in his nature. You would think that he would eventually realize that when he digs his claws into my face I get upset, but he never seems to make the connection.
What do you think? Does anybody else have this problem?
Bad Cat Chris 