Tag Archives: cat

We Can Now Sleep Through the Night… Almost

As most of you know, one of our biggest problems with having a bad cat is that he keeps us from getting a good night’s sleep. In our last three homes, there was always some impediment that kept us from locking him out of the bedroom at night, but since we have lived in our new home, we are finally able to close the door and get some sleep.

What’s different this time? Tile floors. Yep… Sweet, glorious tile, made in Heaven and placed on our floors by divine intervention, or by a flooring contractor, I’m not sure. The point is, it is the answer to our prayers. Well, technically, I didn’t pray for tile floors, but I would have if I would have thought it would work.

I didn’t notice until I saw this picture that Chris pulled a paint chip off the bottom of the door.

Now we can close our bedroom door and Chris can’t dig a hole in the tile like he could in the carpet. Of course, nothing is ever that easy with Chris. Our door has the lever type door knob that I described in my post, The Annoyance Strategy. This allowed Chris to pull the handle down and release it, making a loud noise. He would do this over and over until someone got up and opened the door.

Last time we had to change the door knob because locking it still allowed the handle to move up and down. This time the handle will not move when it is locked so as long as we remember to lock it, sleep is almost assured.

The amount of sleep we get is still not enough but I will take almost enough over what we were getting. Chris now stands outside the door at 5 a.m. and cries and scratches at the door until someone opens it. In another post I called him “Four O’clock Chris” because that is what time he would wake us up every morning. Now it is five o’clock. I’m not sure if he has improved or if he just does not recognize daylight savings time. In any case, I just wish I was home every day so I could wake him up promptly at 3:00 p.m.

My Surrogate Botheries

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I hadn’t fully noticed it before but I tend to be the main point of interest when Chris is in the mood for attention. This does not include the morning ritual of bothering Rose while she puts her make-up on.

Rose worked only a few hours on Friday morning and then met her father and his wife who drove here from the east coast. Because they are over three hours away, they only make the trip here once or twice a year. We see them a few more times when we drive there but for Chris and Puck, they are virtual strangers.

Chris, as regular readers know, has no concept of stranger danger. As soon as her father came in the house, Chris was all over him. He was even on his shoulders like he found a replacement for me after only five hours. Rose told me about it on the phone and I wanted to get a picture when I got home so I could show you all but it was not to be. As soon as I got home he forgot about my father-in-law and jumped on my shoulders.

This afternoon I left for an hour and a half bike ride. While I was gone, Rose tried to get some work done for her job but Chris wouldn’t let her. He kept lying on her papers and knocking things off the desk. She would then get frustrated with him and put him down. Chris would respond to that with some curt meows and then proceed to bite her legs.

When I returned from my ride, Rose said he was in much distress after I left and then he wouldn’t stop bothering her. Again, I wanted a picture of that but by then he was no longer interested in Rose. In my absence, she was a surrogate receptor for his bad behavior.

Now that I am home and trying to write a blog post, Chris is here with me treading, biting and stepping on the keyboard. It is his way of saying, “Welcome home, I missed you.”

More Needy Behavior.

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Chris was being extra needy this morning and since I had my camera nearby, I thought I would video him for you. Enjoy.

I Shoulder a Great Burden

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Chris is making it hard for me to brush my teeth.

Lately, it seems like everywhere I go, there is a cat wanting to get on my shoulders. If I go into the kitchen or bathroom, Chris is right there on the counter next to me. Sometimes he just jumps up and sometimes he stands on his hind legs with his paws on my shoulders and cries for me to help him up. I then have to crouch down, put my arm around his legs and stand back up again.

For some reason, he especially likes to be up there while I am brushing my teeth. That is not good for him because as soon as I am done and have to rinse, he is S.O.L.

He also has developed a certain pattern where he will climb on my shoulders from my right and then have to turn around because he likes to lie with his head on my right. At first I thought he had OCD but then I realized that my wife and I sleep on the same side of the bed every night so I guess it’s common.

Chris has climbed on my shoulders since the day we met but lately it seems more like he has a special need to do it. I suppose it is only temporary though. Next month, I am sure, he will have a new, weird thing that he will be doing.

If anyone has a cat that does this, please leave a comment. I’d love to hear about it.

Needy Cat Chris

Chris’s Springboard

Early Morning Folly

Goodbye Tigger – Rest in Peace

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I am very saddened to say that Tigger is no longer with us. He was a good, loving cat who died too young. He will be missed.

I woke up Saturday morning around 4 a.m., as usual, because Chris was bothering me. I think I managed to get him to stop a couple of times, just long enough for me to go back to sleep before he would start biting my nose again or treading on my neck. I finally dragged myself out of bed a little before 5 a.m.

I didn’t turn the light on because Rose was still sleeping so I walked downstairs in the dark. When I reached the bottom of the stairs and turned the corner I stepped in something wet. I turned the kitchen light on and saw there were two or three small spots of poop on the floor. I thought Chris had a problem with runny poop again and it all didn’t come out in the box.

I cleaned my foot, cleaned the poop off the carpet and then made coffee. While it was brewing, I went into the bathroom to clean the box and noticed several more spots of poop next to the litter box and in front of the bathroom. It was looking like a real problem so I decided to check the rest of the first floor. There were several spots in the living room but under the stairs and behind the television, where the other litter box is, was the biggest problem.

There were several more spots of poop but there was three large areas of vomit. I spent quite awhile cleaning the mess quietly, and while I did that, I saw Tigger climb into the litter box and vomit again. I suspected it was Tigger but I knew for sure then.

When I heard Rose was awake I brought up coffee and noticed more poop in our bedroom. That started a cleaning frenzy that lasted almost four hours. Rose notice vomit on the bed downstairs and washed the comforter, only to have him puke on it again as soon as it was replaced.

She made an appointment at the vet for 11:00 but wouldn’t let me come with her. She suspected Tigger would not be coming back and thought I couldn’t handle it. I knew she was wrong and I insisted that I come with her but she said she wouldn’t go if I went. Eventually I just gave up and let her go. She was right, he did not come back.

Tigger has been somewhat unhealthy for a while. When he was young we had to rush him to the emergency clinic late at night because he was having trouble breathing. It turned out that he had eaten too fast and had a clump of food stuck in his esophagus. They took x-rays during their diagnostics and noticed, in addition to his current problem, that half of his heart was enlarged.

A couple of years ago he developed a problem with his gums and had a problem eating. The vet said it is something that cats sometimes get and did not have a real solution to the problem except to give him steroids or antibiotics, either treatment was only a temporary fix. He said that removing all his teeth might stop the problem from coming back but he couldn’t guarantee that, so every couple of months the problem would come back and we had to get more antibiotics. We picked up the last prescription last Saturday and had not finished giving it to him yet.

He also seemed more Grumpy lately. I wrote in a recent post how he had been attacking Chris lately, which was not his character. We thought Abbey’s death had affected him, since they were close, but it could have been that he was just not feeling well.

Now it is just Chris and Puck, and Rose does not want to get any more pets because it is too hard to lose them. I totally understand. We have lost too many pets during the last three years.

In memory of Tigger I have created (on Flickr) a set of photos here. I also created one for Abbey here.

Tigger and brother Flash

Tigger and Alex

Tigger and Abbey

Tigger playing Monopoly

Tigger in Flowers

Young Chris and Tigger

Tigger, Chris and Puck

The Wrath of Tigger (badcatchris.com)

The Bird Tormentor

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The following was meant to be published last August so it is out of sequence. I just happened to notice today that it was marked as a draft. Oops

Chris enjoying sunshine while looking out window

Considering that cats tend to nap most of the day away, Chris is no ordinary cat. He is usually looking for trouble to get into while Abbey and Tigger are snoozing. That being said, there are times when he will relax. When we lived in the condo, he would often lay on the spare bed and look out the window. This was a favorite spot for all the cats.

Mocking bird finds Bad Cat Chris

One day a mockingbird spotted Chris in the window and started hovering just outside, trying to intimidate him to leave. This of course just caused him to become more interested in the bird.

Chris tries to catch bird – notice wings on left

This went on for a couple of weeks, sometimes several times a day. A few times I had the window open a few inches and Chris would slide his body between the glass and the screen in a vain attempt to get the bird. I had to keep the window shut because I was afraid he would push the screen out and fall from the third floor.

The funniest part of all that was the bird only picked on Chris. When Tigger and Abbey were laying there, the bird was nowhere in sight. I suppose this might have been a mother bird protecting a nearby nest and to her, Chris just looked like trouble. Only Chris could cause problems by looking out the window.

Mockingbird Tormentor returns

I do know that mocking birds can be pretty mean for their size. I have regularly seen them chasing larger crows and even an Osprey. Rose said when she was young she had an outside cat that lived in fear because a mockingbird would attack it every chance it could. She thought it was payback for something bad that the cat did but I think the cat’s territory just overlapped with the bird’s.

Eventually the bird stopped bothering Chris. It was around June so I suppose it was nesting season and once the young birds were out of the nest, there was no reason to protect it.

The Wrath of Tigger

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Lately, every once in a while, I will hear the sound of a cat in distress. The first time I heard it I thought one of our cats was hurt or stuck somewhere. When I looked for the source, I found Tigger locked in a stare-down with Chris. He had Chris cornered on the top landing of the staircase and surprisingly, was the aggressor in this confrontation.

When I showed up, the distraction gave Chris an exit opportunity and he took it. He bounded down the stairs with Tigger hot on his tail (literally). When they reached the living room, Tigger jumped on Chris and attacked him. I tried to separate them but it was only temporary. Tigger chased him down and attacked him again. Usually once a cat retreats the fight is over but not this time.

It was shocking because Tigger has always been such a nice cat. I know the old saying is true; what goes around, comes around, and Chris definitely was due for something to “come around,” but this was not the play fighting that Chris had annoyed the other cats with for three years. This was an attack by a pissed off cat, and it has repeated several times over the past couple of weeks.

In between the attacks I see the two of them laying together and even washing each other, so I don’t think Tigger has developed a hatred for Chris. I can only assume that he has become grumpy in his old age and Chris is doing something to annoy him (big surprise there), but I have not seen what starts the fights yet so I will have to watch them more closely. Hopefully I won’t have to bring Tigger in for anger management.

Chris’s Stolen Routine

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I mentioned this briefly in my post, Jealousy but I wanted to expand on this issue. Chris used to have a routine in the morning of hanging out with Rose in the bathroom while she got ready to start her day. He would lie on the counter in front of her, occasionally grabbing her makeup or whatever else she happened to be using and pulling it up against his chest. Sometimes he would collect three or four things before Rose would be forced to retrieve them. This would go on until she turned on the hair dryer, which was Chris’s cue to make a quick exit.

When we got our kitten Puck, everything changed. Suddenly Puck would be the first one up on the counter and when Chris came up for his routine, he would take one look at Puck and go back downstairs. I felt bad for Chris but Rose found Puck to be a little easier to deal with.

At first Puck would steal a cotton swab, play with it for a while, then come back for another cotton swab. Much of this playing took place on the bathroom floor, so it was not really a problem. Along with the cotton swabs, he also had a particular mouse he liked to play with. Now, while he still plays with cotton swabs from time to time, his mouse has become the center of much annoyance for Rose.

I very much want to get a video of him and his mouse but Rose does not want to be recorded while getting ready for work. Too bad, because nobody would believe it otherwise. Puck jumps on the counter with his mouse and drops it in the basket that Rose has some of her stuff in. He then waits for Rose to throw the mouse in the bedroom. When she does that, Puck races to retrieve the mouse and then brings it back and drops it in the basket again.

This goes on until Rose gets tired of it and stops playing, but when she does that, Puck pushes on her hand and tries to get her to throw the mouse again. You can imagine how difficult it would be to get ready for work that way. The obvious solution would be to turn on the hair dryer and scare him off, but he is not bothered by it in the slightest. Now Rose is longing to have Chris back on the counter with her.

I would like to see that happen too, but dispute the loss of one routine, or perhaps because of it, he has developed another. He now lies on the back of my chair while I write blog posts.

Update: I did get a video of Puck playing fetch. Here it is.

Chris’s Springboard

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I mentioned before that Chris likes to get on my shoulders, although my profile picture probably makes that obvious. He does not always want to be there but there are certain times where he will climb up my leg and beg to be picked up. Other times he will jump on the counter and then onto my shoulders. Sometimes he jumps on me when I am not expecting it.

As much as he likes being on my shoulders, there are times when he just wants to use me as a springboard to reach a higher place. He can be like Ricochet Rabbit sometimes. From the floor to the counter to my shoulders and then to the top of the cabinets. Ping, ping, ping! It is these times where he not only surprises me but also digs his claws in me and leaves a mark like I was bitten by a vampire.

Sometime he just rides around on my shoulders while I walk around the house. Eventually he wants to do something else and gets down. Sometimes I walk by something that interests him and he decides to go up instead. This Christmas he was on my shoulders as I started to walk down the stairs from the bedroom. I paused for a second for some reason and Chris noticed the window that is above the stairs, almost to the ceiling. That peaked his interest and up he went.

Chris in Window

View from below

Chris jumping down from Window

I was a little worried that it was a bit high and tried to coax him down but he wouldn’t have it. I eventually decided he would be fine getting down on his own so I left him there. A few days later I had a repeat of Christmas Day and up to the window he went again. I guess now that he knows it’s there he will be doing that all the time. I don’t care. The more things he can find that interest him, the less trouble he will get into. That is assuming those things he finds are trouble-free.

View from outside

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