Tag Archives: cat

Chris’s Door

After moving into our townhome, the cats were very happy to be able to go out on the patio again.This patio was even better because it was on the ground floor where they could better see the ducks, squirrels, lizards, dogs, people and whatever else walked, crawled, slithered or flew by.

There was a couple of problems however. First, there is a saying that “no matter what side of a door a cat is on, he will always want to be on the other side.” This is true for our cats and it was somewhat annoying having to let them out and back in all the time. Chris was especially annoying because he was very vocal about wanting to change sides.

The other problem was that we had to keep them inside at night because there was no food, water or a litter box outside. This meant that Chris was upstairs annoying us for half the night while we were trying to sleep. Then one day the solution just appeared.

: Our new cat door

We ran across someone selling a cat door that attaches to a sliding glass door, so we decided to buy it. We had one in South Carolina but it would not fit the tracks. It did fit the track for the screen however so we put it on that track. This worked but did not allow us to lock the door so the cats had to stay in at night and when we were not home.

Now we actually had a cat door that worked the way it was supposed to. Chris, of course, had no problem zipping in and out through the door. Abbey and Tigger were a few weeks behind getting the hang of it.

: Chris and Tigger enjoying the patio.

The best part about the cat door was that it cut down on the amount of time that Chris was upstairs keeping us awake. After a short time I decided to try closing the bedroom door again. As usual I put the plastic runner under the door and put an object on each side in hopes of preventing Chris from digging up the carpet. This did not work before but now it seemed worth another shot.

Miraculously, we were finally able to get a good night’s sleep. Sure, Chris would come up at 4:30 in the morning and cry and scratch at the door, but we would just ignore him and eventually he would quit and go away. I think this worked because he had somewhere better he could be.

But alas, he would not truly earn his name Bad Cat Chris if this was the end of the story. When it comes to Chris, any solution is only temporary until he can find a new way to cause trouble. I’ll save that story for another time.

On another note, Bad Cat Chris now has his own Facebook page. There is a button on the side bar if you would like to “Like” him or you can check out the page at facebook.com/badcatchris.

Chris’s Heart

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When we first got Chris he would lie across my neck or on top of my head. Rose used to joke that, “You can wear him as a hat, you can wear him as a scarf…” Because we could hear his heartbeat when he did that, we noticed early on that his heartbeat was incredibly fast. It seemed as though he just finished a marathon, and since Chris was such a busy kitten, we concluded that he was exhausting himself.

Besides the fast heartbeat, Chris would also breathe very quickly, taking in many breaths of air in a short time. My concern led me to do some research where I found this to be somewhat normal for kittens.

Fast forward about a year where Chris and Tigger were napping on the bed. I noticed Chris was breathing very quickly while he was napping. I decided to count the breaths. Chris took in 88 breaths in one minute while Tigger only took in 11. That was an incredible 8 to 1 ratio.

I thought about taking him to the vet but we couldn’t justify spending hundreds of dollars on endless tests for a cat that had more energy than an atomic bomb.

I was reminded about this problem this morning when he woke me up and I could hear his heart racing. The good news is, Chris and Tigger are napping here now and I counted 23 breaths for Chris and 32 for Tigger. I hope I don’t have to worry about Tigger now.

Chris and Tigger, just took this picture as I was writing. To the left was Abbey’s bed.

Chris Takes the High Ground

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Chris on kitchen cabinet

Cats, by nature, seem to like being up high. I suppose it is the predator instinct and it is no more obvious than in a cat like Chris. I mentioned before that he likes getting on top of things and our new apartment seemed like it was built with him in mind.

For starters, our kitchen cabinets do not go to the ceiling so there is a gap above them that Chris loves to get into. he usually jumps on the counter, then to the refrigerator and from there it is an easy step up. Sometimes he will leap from the fridge to the cabinets on the opposite side. I worry that he will miss and hurt himself but so far, so good.

I don’t know how he does this

Then there is the handrail at the upstairs landing, it overlooks the living room and is about 12 to 15 feet above the floor. It is only about an inch and a half wide and I often see him jumping up on the railing.

There is also the china cabinet. He would get up there when we were in the living room watching television. I think he may do that to show us how bad he can be. To get up there he jumps on Rose’s chair, then to the fire-place mantle and then up on top of the cabinet.

Bad Cat Chris on China Cabinet

Rose tried putting decorations on the mantle and the top of the cabinet to discourage him from jumping up there but he did anyway. Some of the items were breakable and I was worried he was going to break something but somehow he was able to make three jumps in quick succession without disturbing anything. It seemed impossible from my perspective but yet, there he was on the cabinet with nothing out-of-place.

Finally there was the mystery of Rose’s curio cabinet. It is at the end of the hallway with seemingly nothing close enough to use as a springboard, yet Chris still managed to get on top of it. Usually I would hear a loud noise and I would look to see the curio cabinet rocking slightly and Chris sitting on top of it. I was concerned that he might send it crashing down, possibly on top of him.

Curio Cabinet – Bathroom door is on left

Fortunately he did not get up there often but each time he did I was baffled by how he did it. It is a jump of well over six feet straight up. Rose concluded he jumped on the dining room table, then to the top of the blinds over the sliding glass door. From there, she thought, he walked to the edge and made the five foot jump to the cabinet. I was not convinced. The ceiling was too close to allow him the arc that he needed.

I finally saw him make the jump out of the corner of my eye one day. He stood on the end of the counter in the bathroom and made the long jump through the doorway to the top of the cabinet. It was just within the range of possibility and Chris had figured it out long before me. I may never have thought of that if I had not seen it. Makes me wonder who the smarter species is.

Did I mention the closet?

Another Big Move

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Late in 2011 we decided to move out of our waterfront condo and live where Rose works. Part of the reason for doing that was to save about $400 a month. The other reason was for convenience. Since Rose managed the property that we were moving to, she would not have to drive to work and she could better keep an eye on the property. It also cut in half my drive to work and eventually led to me being able to ride my bicycle there. (See newlybent.wordpress.com)

It was also better for the cats. I don’t think they appreciated the waterfront view as much as we did. What they wanted, especially Chris, was to go outside. Well, that wasn’t an option, but the new place had a screened in patio that the condo did not have.

We spent weeks packing, during which time our home was basically turned upside-down. The cats knew something was going on but they have been through moves before and did not seem too stressed about it. Abbey and Tigger had been through three moves with us and who knows how many more before we adopted them. Chris had moved once with us but he was also transferred from one shelter to another before we found him. In addition, he was adopted and then returned.

When the movers came, we had to put the cats in the bathroom until they were finished. They were not happy about that. Abbey and Tigger stayed relatively quiet but Chris wanted out and was not shy about letting us know.

Our new apartment is one of the few townhomes that are on the property. It has two floors with the master bedroom upstairs and another bedroom downstairs. I had a plan to finally keep Chris out of the bedroom so we could sleep. I bought a plastic runner and cut it to fit just right under the bedroom door so he couldn’t dig up the carpet. I thought since he was not accustomed to being in the bedroom at night, he wouldn’t miss it.

That plan made perfect sense in theory but I didn’t anticipate Rose feeling bad for the cats after putting them through another move. This of course meant that we had to continue to put up with Chris in the bedroom at night. I tried using my plastic runner a few days later but since he knew what he was missing he sat outside the door crying and digging. He quickly realized he couldn’t did through the plastic so he did the next best thing, he started digging at carpet next to the plastic. I think he knows he can’t dig his way into the room; he just wants to annoy us enough to open the door.

I added the objects on the sides because he was digging next to the plastic.

Even with the brick in the way, Chris finds a way to ruin the carpet.

I thought we could put a litter box on the patio and put him out at night but Rose vetoed that idea. I think she was afraid a visitor would smell poop when they came to visit, or worse, she would smell it.

Eventually we found something that changed everything, but that is a story for another time, so I hope you keep reading.

Chris the Exterminator

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Even though Chris is a bad cat he has a few good qualities. Besides being the entertainer in the house, he also keeps our home relatively bug free. To be honest, Tigger deserves partial credit for that but Tigger is more of a spotter, Chris is a take action kind of cat. Weather Chris spots an invader first or Tigger, it doesn’t matter, Chris is on it like a fly on…well, lets just say he is extremely focused.

: Chris with lizzard

It is funny to watch him too because he doesn’t just catch insects, spiders, lizards or whatever other small creature enters our house, he has to play them. He keeps them alive for a while and watches them, when they try to escape, he corrals them with his paw.

More than once I saw him catch a fly and play with it like that. Somehow he knows how to disable the fly’s ability to fly away. I have even seen him play with it in one room, pick it up with his mouth and move it to another room and continue to play with it then move it to a third room before eating it. I used the term “play” but I am sure the fly didn’t see it that way.

Flies, at least, have a chance, not so with cockroaches, at least not for the ones he sees. Fortunately he doesn’t eat those or I would really be grossed out, but he does leave them as a present. That’s okay. I would rather pick up a dead roach than know there is a live one lurking around.

Inside Cat Wants Out

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Chris enjoyed a year of patio privileges while we were in Myrtle Beach but after moving back to Dunedin, that was no longer an option. Our condo did not have an enclosed patio so he was stuck inside.

Tigger and Abbey didn’t mind but Chris would often cry to be let out or he would try to race out the door when someone opened it. If he got out the front door (technically, the parking lot was the back of the building, but I consider the main door the front) he would just plop down to the ground and stretch. For Chris, it was not about exploring, it was more about celebrating the victory. Anyway, since we were on the second floor, there was not much for him to explore.

After awhile I started to let him out and I would stand there and watch him roll around. Sometimes he would investigate the area around the front door but he would stay within a few feet. Eventually he started venturing farther and farther away until he was at the stairs.

Notice how close the carport roof is to the staircase.

Once he reached the stairs he was amazingly cautious for a cat that showed no fear inside the house. When he started to get up enough courage to go down the stairs, that is when I stopped letting him out. My biggest fear was that he would get up on the roof of the carport, which was alongside the staircase, and then I would have to get up there and chase him down.

That is almost what happened one day when he unexpectedly bolted out the door as I was leaving. He ran to the stairs and took a few steps down, hesitated for a moment, then stepped through the slats and onto the carport roof. I got there just in time to reach over the railing and grab him. We were much more diligent about guarding the door after that.

I don’t have many pictures of the patio but here you can see the slats are wide enough for a cat to get through.

Our other door was a slider that led out to the patio. It was not screened like our last patio so we could not let Chris out there. This, of course, did not stop him from running out the door anyway. At first he would just roll around like he did at the front door, but then he discovered he could get through the slats to the neighbor’s patio. Before long, every time he would get out he would immediately cross over to the neighbor’s side and then roll around just out of reach. I would then have to go down my stairs and walk across to the neighbor’s side to retrieve Chris. He would then sometimes run back over to our side as if it was a game.

Our condo was just right of far left. I usually had to walk around with no shoes, which is risky because of the sand spurs.

Keep in mind that Chris is a very smart cat and would hang back, away from the door, and pretend he was not interested. He would then race out the door as soon as it was opened. He once ran across to the neighbors patio and discovered her door was cracked open. To Chris, this was an invitation to go inside, so he did.

I knew Chris had an outside cat in him and I didn’t want to suppress that so I bought a harness and leash for him so I could take him out without worrying about the trouble he could get into. This was difficult because he would not let me put the harness on him. When I finally did get it on him, the first thing he did when we got outside was lay down and kick at it with his back feet until he was able to slip out of part of it. I brought him back in and tried several times over the next few weeks.

Sometimes he would not try to get it off. He would slowly make his way down the stairs, smelling everything along the way. Each time he would go a little further until he was on the ground. I don’t know if it was because of the leash but he was not as adventurous as I thought he would be.

Other times Chris would try to get the harness off and would almost always succeed. I don’t know if I should credit Chris’s intelligence for that or my stupidity but, in either case, the harness idea didn’t work out as I hoped.

Sometimes, during the cooler months, we could leave the front door open so Chris could look out the screen, but most of the time Chris just had to enjoy the outdoors like the other cats by looking out one of the upstairs’ bedroom windows.

Believe it or not, Chris is able to cause problems by just looking out the window. Stay tuned for that story.

Bad News About Abbey

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I want to break from telling Chris’s story and mention that we took Abbey to the vet on Saturday. She has lost a lot of weight in a short time and has gone from overweight to underweight.

When we first noticed it we weren’t sure if we should be concerned that she was not fat anymore. She acted perfectly healthy. She even seemed more active than she had before. We found her on the counters more often as if she was learning bad habits from Chris. But the weight loss continued and we knew something was wrong.

It took a couple of days but when the test results came back it showed that she has liver failure and the prognosis is not good.

Abbey is a very sweet cat that never causes any problems and losing her would be hard on everyone. Tigger and her lay together all the time and she treats Chris like a mother. There are times when Chris will chase her around the house, jump on her and bite her neck and then five minutes later he will lay down next to her and Abbey will wash his ears.

I bought milk thistle yesterday because I read that it is used to treat liver disease. I don’t know if it will help but I don’t want to give up on her without trying something. If anyone has any other ideas that may help please leave a comment. Thanks.

Abbey in group hug with Chris and Tigger.

Chris disturbing Abbey’s nap.

The Continuing Saga of Poop

When Three Equals Two

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As I mentioned earlier, we had to leave Princess and Alex with people we knew in Myrtle Beach because the condo we were moving into had a two pet limit. Normally, I don’t like to lie. I feel that honesty and good character are very important traits. That is why I felt guilty telling our landlord we had two cats instead of three.

When we owned a condo in the same development, I did not feel guilty having five cats. I guess it was because we knew the rule was really there to limit the number of dogs barking and pooping in the yard. We felt that the Condo Nazis had no business knowing what went on inside our condo.

Now that we were renting, it was not really our condo and the landlord did have the right to know. He was not a bad guy and if he knew we had three cats there was a chance he would not have cared, but I was not willing to risk telling him. He was also on the condo association board so technically, he was one of the Condo Nazis.

Abbey was our ace in the hole. She was just shy enough that she would hide when strangers came in the house. The problem was that she would quickly overcome her shyness once the stranger was in the house for a relatively long time or if they were frequent visitors.

One of the first things we noticed was that the closet light in our bedroom did not work. Neither did the wall outlet next to the closet. We told the landlord about it but when he did not make it a priority to fix it, we did not push the issue because we did not want him spending too much time upstairs, where Abbey would have been hiding. I ended up replacing the outlet myself, thinking that would solve both problems, but no such luck.

He did end up coming a few times to fix other problems, all downstairs. Whenever he would come, Chris would be right there investigating what he was doing. He even came to fix the toilet while we were not home and he told us Chris was on his shoulders while he was trying to work.

Tigger would come down too while he was here but he usually stayed about half-way up the stairs and watched from a distance. It was at those times that I wished Tigger was Abbey because at least Tigger could be confused for Chris from a distance.

Usually when the landlord was here I hung around with him and kept looking for Abbey to show her face. That did happen once, maybe twice, but I was able to run upstairs and shoo her back into the bedroom. I felt like such a criminal.

He did finally come one day to investigate the electrical problem and was there for about an hour without finding a solution. By some miracle, Abbey stayed in the other bedroom the entire time.

Hopefully I won’t have bad karma for what I did. I like to think that protecting the welfare of the cats was the greater good.

Abbey, Tigger and Chris at our condo.

Bad Cat Chris

The Baddest Cat You'll Ever Love