Tag Archives: cat

I Forgot Chris’s Fourteenth Gotcha Day

28 Replies

Yes, I did it again. Chris’s fourteenth gotcha day was Tuesday and I missed it. I remembered the previous Friday, but I was busy at the time and didn’t think about it again until late last night.

We adopted Chris on November 14, 2009. He was about six months old at the time. I first met Chris over a month before while cleaning cages at PetSmart. He jumped from the floor to my back and climbed me like Mount Everest. When he reached my shoulders, he started biting my ear and then my nose.

Can you imagine a kitten like that not getting adopted? Actually, he did get adopted but he was far too annoying and was returned the next day. A week or two after I first met Chris, I brought my wife to the Sav-R-Cats adoption center in Surfside Beach South Carolina to see him. That was on the third of October.

Chris meets Rose
Bad Cat Chris at adoption center with Rose.
Chris at adoption center with Rose.

Alas, we didn’t adopt him that day. We already had too many cats. We also had a cruise coming up as well as a business trip for my wife.

On the twelfth of November Rose was away on her business trip and I was at the shelter. I was a volunteer, and my job was to photograph cats and post them on Petfinder, but I never photographed Chris for some unknown reason. Chris got on my shoulders again and another volunteer photographed me with my phone. In 2009, I did not have a good camera on my phone.


I texted Rose with the photo and said, “Can we keep him?”

When she returned from her trip we went to the shelter and brought him home. He took over from the moment we let him out of the carrier. We didn’t do what you are supposed to do. We just unleashed the kraken on the rest of our cats.

Chris’s New Bad Behaviors

16 Replies

As most of you know, we keep the cats out of our bedroom at night because Chris is far too annoying. Lately, Floki has been crying outside of our bedroom door every morning starting at around 4:15. Chris decided that what Floki was doing was not annoying us enough, so he took over. Now, every morning starting at 4 a.m. Chris is out there scratching on the door. He is relentless, too. Sunday morning I thought I could wait him out. I thought he would give up after fifteen minutes. Instead, fourty-five minutes later, I was the one who gave up.

I gave them all wet food and went back to bed. My wife asked, “Did you give them dry food, too?”

“No,” I said. “If I put dry food down, Chris won’t eat the wet food.”

“Maybe not,” she said, “but he will surely be back scratching on the door in five minutes.”

I don’t know how many minutes passed, but he was scratching on the door a short time later so I had to get up and put dry food in his bowls.

That day I went to Target and bought a child gate and put it so Chris could not get down the hallway to our bedroom door. It worked but I returned it today because my wife often gets up in the middle of the night and I feared she would trip over it in the dark.

The other bad thing he has started doing is dragging his water bowl across the floor, spilling its contents along the way.

The bowl belongs against the wall, left of the coo coo clock cables.

This one is a head scratcher. I had a tall bowl there before but he started tipping it over. Now that I have a shorter bowl, dragging it across the floor is his alternative. He has done this several times now, including ten minutes ago, which reminded me to write about it.

I am at a loss for what to do about both of these new issues.

Photo Friday: Floki the Hockey Fan

18 Replies

Recently I posted that Floki was very interested in watching the movie “Strays.” Some people commented about how their cats liked sports and I mentioned that football or hockey would probably be intriguing for cats. Sure enough, my wife and I were watching a Hallmark movie about a past his prime hockey player still trying to make it to the NHL. As soon as they showed him playing in a game, Flokie suddenly became interested.

He didn’t care about any of the romance stuff but as soon as the game started, he was glued to the set.

Floki Likes Strays

22 Replies

Saturday evening my wife and I sat down to watch a movie. We decided to stream a movie called “Strays.” After about twenty minutes it became apparent that the movie tried too hard to get laughs from crude humor and it just didn’t work so I suggested changing the channel. By then Floki was very interested in the movie and Rose didn’t want to deprive him of the entertainment.

He moved from the television stand to the coffee table to the floor and back again.

All the while he stayed interested in the movie. We watched half the movie before going to bed. Sunday, I made dinner, and we sat in the living room to eat. I didn’t want to look for a new movie because I wanted to eat so I put the same movie back on. Again, Floki became very interested. He sat on the floor watching the movie until it was over, probably forty-five minutes or so.

Is Floki weird or is watching television normal for some cats?

Now it’s the Water Bowl

14 Replies

It’s not bad enough that Chris has to tip over his food bowls because he is too lazy to stand up and eat, now he started tipping over his water bowl.

The cats have three water bowls. The one that is used most often is a raised water bowl that is in the living room. There is also a bowl in the cat’s room and another bowl in our bedroom. Those are not raised bowls. Friday I noticed water in the living room next to the bowl. It was not tipped over but there was a significant amount of water on the floor. The next day Rose told me that Chris had tipped the water bowl over twice.

I decided to put the tall bowl in the cat’s room and put the regular bowl in the living room. I thought this might solve the problem. Not long after I did that, I saw Chris walk over to the water bowl, lie down, and start drinking while lying down.

A little while later I saw what he did with the raised bowl in the cat’s room.

The raised bowl is now out of service.

Frankie Up a Tree

30 Replies

I am writing this post from a cruise ship. My wife and I started our vacation yesterday.

Before we drove to the cruise terminal yesterday, I took Frankie for a walk. During the walk Frankie took me to the far side of our community’s laundry room. He walked between a fence and a bush, where I couldn’t follow, so I let go of his leash and went around to collect him on the other side.

Just then he heard or saw something that scared him and he took off running, dragging his leash behind him. I ran after him. He stopped momentarily but heard me running. That must have scared him more so he ran up a palm tree.

He then had to figure out how to get down so he turned around and came down like a squirrel.

It’s always an adventure with Frankie.