Tag Archives: cat

Floki’s Hidden Stash

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Every morning, my wife plays with Floki while she checks her messages, email and Facebook. She will roll up a little wad of paper and throw it. Floki will then jump off the bed, chase down the wad of paper and attack. After a little playing, he brings the paper back for more fun.

This leads to little paper balls all over the house. Yesterday I found one in the water bowl. Also yesterday I found a hidden stash of paper balls in our hallway closet. I don’t know. Perhaps he is saving them for a potential paper shortage.

paper balls stored in closet

Does anybody else have a cat that likes paper balls? How about one that plays fetch like a dog?

Bad Cat Chris for President

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This presidential election in the United States is different than every past election that I have ever witnessed. There has never been a truly great candidate, but there was always one that sucked less than the other, so at least there was a small amount of hope. Not so this year. My wife and I have been wanting to go to Germany. Perhaps this is a good time to plan a four-year visit.

But there is still hope. I started thinking that my cat would make a better president than these two… people, so I spoke with Chris and he has agreed to run as a write-in candidate.

bad-cat-chris-for-president

I know what you are thinking. Why should I vote for Chris? where does he stand on the issues. Well, I’ve compiled a list of all the important issues and where Chris stands on each of those issues:

  • bad cat chris for president ballotCapital Punishment: Chris is against it except for mice and lizards and only if he can play with them first.
  • Abortion: Chris, being an adopted child, feels everyone should have a chance to find a loving family.
  • Foreign Affairs: Chris is a natural Alpha. In our home, he took over the leadership position as soon as he entered our house as a kitten and he is certain that he can be the world’s Alpha. Any country that doesn’t fall in line will get two whacks and a hiss.
  • The Environment: Chris would like everyone to be able to go outside and eat grass without fear of toxic poisoning.
  • Race Relations: Chris thinks everyone should be treated like gold, no matter what color their fur is.
  • Taxes: Chris doesn’t know what taxes are, but he is against them.

Well, I think Chris has a good platform, and I already filled out my mail-in ballot. Since I have grown very cynical and believe all politicians are at least somewhat corrupt, I only voted for Chris and left the rest blank (except for the amendments). What about you? Can Chris count on your vote this November? If Chris wins, he promises catnip for everyone.

Love, Fight, Sleep: A Cat’s Life

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The other day, I saw Chris lying on the bed with Floki, and the two of them were washing each other. I got my camera and started recording before the affection turned to fighting. The fighting was short and, following a brief period of tension, they both fell asleep.

I’m trying to picture humans doing that. Imagine you are in bed with your spouse, being all lovey-dovey, when suddenly, a big fight erupts. Fifteen seconds later, the fight is over and, after a brief moment of tension, you fall asleep in each other’s arms. Can’t imagine it? Me either.

Here is the video I am talking about, but please forgive the quality. The camera’s auto focus was being a little crazy. Next time, I will have to use the manual setting, if I can find it.

The Couch Pooping Continues

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I recently wrote about Puck pooping on the sofa in the Florida room, and many of you wrote back with suggestions about putting things like plastic on it to discourage Puck from pooping there again. I didn’t have any plastic that I could spare, but I decided to put the cat’s Turbo Scratcher on the spot where Puck was pooping.

I was hoping it was that spot or nothing, but he just pooped on the other side of the couch. I then loaded up the couch with many of their toys.

Cats, sofa and toys

That worked, somewhat. The next day, I found a pile of poop on the floor in front of the litter box. That’s not ideal, but I prefer poop on our tile floor over poop on our couch.

Thursday was the day our cleaning woman comes, and I think my wife was embarrassed about our “messy” sofa and insisted I take all the toys off of it. I did, and it lasted until Friday before I found poop on it again, so back the toys went. Since then, I have cleaned poop off the floor about four times, including this morning.  As I was writing this post, I took a short break and noticed a pile of poop on the ground. Since I scooped twenty minutes before, two of the litter boxes were clean, but the one with poop in front of it had been used once.

Puck has never had an issue with the litter boxes before, and I have no clue what could have changed with him, but I hope I figure it out soon.

Related posts:

A New Level of Badness

Wrongly Accused?

Couch Pooper Puck

Couch Pooper Puck Strikes Again

Couch Pooper Puck Strikes Again

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Puck has been pooping on our sofa in the “cat’s” room. At first we blamed Chris because that is something Chris would do but we soon realized the the evidence started pointing to Puck.  We bought another litter box (see here) because we assumed the boxes were not always as clean as they should be after adopting Floki. That worked for a while but soon we found poop on the sofa again so I moved the new box next to it to see if that would help.

cats by litter box

A day or two after putting the box there, I think it was Saturday, Rose was at her desk when Puck decided to poop on the couch. Keep in mind that her desk is inches from the couch, but she felt compelled to call me in from another part of the house to stop what was going on. I arrived just in time to see the event unfold in real time. There wasn’t much I could do at that point. If I were there from the beginning, oh, like maybe sitting in a chair next to him, I could have picked him up and put him in the box. The funny thing is, we never knew for certain that Puck was the culprit, but he showed us he was guilty in a big way.

calming spray for catsAt this point, I don’t know what to do with him. I have a bottle of Nature’s Miracle Calming Spray that I bought for a problem long ago but I can’t remember what that problem was. In any case, I sprayed it on the sofa this morning and Frankie and Floki became very interested in the smell. I also have a bottle of “No Scratch” spray, which I think is like a repellent, but I don’t want to repel the cats away from the sofa. I hope the calming spray helps because I don’t know what else to do to get puck to poop where he is supposed to.

cats on sofa

Maybe next I can put the litter box on top of the sofa. My wife would love that.

The Story of Casper, The Friendly Cat

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I want to re-share this story of Casper on Remember Me Thursday.® This may not exactly qualify because Casper was not stuck in a shelter. He had a home, but it was not a loving home,

Charles Huss's avatarBad Cat Chris

“Some day soon, perhaps in forty years, there will be no one alive who has ever known me. That’s when I will be truly dead – when I exist in no one’s memory.” – Irvin D. Yalom

I think writing about my cats helps keep their memory alive, perhaps indefinitely, which makes me feel good, but there is another cat, one who belonged to someone else, who I feel deserves to be remembered. I thought about Casper while reading a post on Rumpydog called The Damage That Ignorance Can Do. Part of the story was about people moving and abandoning their cat. It reminded me of how Casper was abandoned, not physically but emotionally. He had no home where people cared about him. I suppose I should start from the beginning.

Casper the Friendly CatThe year was 2004, long before Chris was born. We had three cats at the time; Princess, Sneakers and…

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Chris’s First Vet Visit

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Since we adopted Chris in November of 2009, he has never been to the vet for a health related issue until yesterday. He did go to the vet for a mandatory vaccination late in 2010 when we moved back to Florida, and when he was a kitten he was fixed and vaccinated, but that was all. He has been a pretty healthy cat, despite his weight gain these last couple of years.

That changed when we adopted Floki a few months ago and illness spread through our house like wildfire. Everyone was sneezing but the eye infections were the worst. Frankie had to go to the vet because one of he eyes was very bad. We treated him with the medication they gave us but then noticed his eye became very dilated (see here).

Frankie’s eye got better after a few days but then we noticed Chris had the same problem in one of his eyes. We were giving him Frankie’s eye medication but he got worse so we decided it was time to bring him to the vet.

We have two vets. Vet number 1 is about a ten or twelve-minute drive and vet number 2 is about two minutes away. Vet 2 is where we brought Frankie. Vet 1, called The Animal and Bird Medical Center, is harder to get an appointment with but I like them better because they are less likely to shoot your pet up with steroids and antibiotics on the first visit. In other words, they usually try to take a natural approach, but not always.

Rose brought Chris to Vet 1 yesterday morning and was nice enough to take pictures for me.

bad cat Chris at vet

chris at vet
bad cat Chris at vet

bad cat Chris at vet

Rose said Chris did a lot of crying on the way to the vet, but once there, he was good.

The doc said that the dilation in his eyes was caused by the eye medication we were giving him. Imagine that. We were causing the problem by the very thing we were using to treat the problem.

The vet also said that Chris has some kind of growth in his ears. I don’t think those were his exact words, but that was the second-hand information that I received. He gave Rose some drops to put in Chris’s ears and a different eye medication. No shots or pills, and it only cost us about $115. Not cheap, but better than expected, and I am happy to know that Chris does not have a serious health condition.

Chris was also very quiet on the way home. I guess somehow he knew the worst was over and he was going home.