I started this post last night and saved it to finish this morning. Before I did I read Sammy’s post from One Spoiled Cat. In it, I got the feeling that Sammy would not be with us much longer. I was feeling bad about that when I found out that Easy from Easy Blog had suddenly died. It is a sad news day, and I hope that Easy’s parents, as well as Sammy’s parents, will be okay.

Chris has seemed to mellow out lately and has not been getting into as much trouble as usual. At first, I attributed that to his age and his weight, but I noticed he seemed to be more cautious when jumping down from the bed or whatever else he is on. He also sometimes sits while momentarily holding his paw off the ground. It got me thinking he might be developing arthritis, but at seven and a half years old, he seems too young for that.

It should go without saying that I am very concerned about Chris’s health, as well as the health of all of our cats. Between 2010 and 2013, we lost four cats: Flash, Abbey, Alex, and Tigger. Flash was less than five years old, and the other three were around eight or younger. It is terrible knowing that you have given your beloved pet only half the life that they were capable of.

Since Flash died in 2010, I have learned more and more about cat health. I learned that dry food is bad for them and started feeding them more wet food as well as raw cat food. I now make my own raw cat food that I mix with high-quality canned food, but I still give them some dry food because Chris will only eat a very small amount of wet food before giving it up to one of the other cats. I make sure to only put small amounts of dry food in the bowls so that they will long be empty when wet food time rolls around, but Chris never seems hungry enough to eat the wet food until five minutes after it’s gone, then he is “starving” in front of his empty dry food bowl, giving me that desperate look. I don’t want to starve him, so I give in and put a little dry food in his bowl.

Since Chris is now approaching the eight-year mark, it makes me nervous to see his lack of badness. While I am still worried about him, I am relieved to see him getting into trouble recently.

A few weeks ago, I pulled a box out of the closet to look for something when I heard a crash. I turned around and saw Chris on the top shelf in the closet. I then looked down and saw he had knocked a bunch of greeting cards and other stuff to the ground.

The commotion got the attention of Frankie, who soon joined him in the closet.

Not long after this, Chris was getting into cabinets again.

He started low, but the next time I saw him in there, he moved up a couple of shelves.

Then he was in the cabinet above the refrigerator.

I still worry about Chris, but at least I feel like I can worry just a little less.