The boys are getting the house ready on this Fourth of July and wanted me to wish all our American friends a Happy Independence Day.
Independence Day
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Tag Archives: Cats
The Food Bowl Delema
Several years ago I bought a set of cat bowls with a wooden riser. I found that the cats seem to like their bowls up off the floor a little bit. Unfortunately, while we were cleaning today, my wife accidentally dropped one of the bowls and broke it.
So I went out after we cleaned the house to look for another bowl set with the riser. I checked PetSmart and TJ Maxx. Both stores have them but all of them were either too big or the bowls were too narrow and deep. Cats like bowls that are wide and shallow. I did find a couple of bowls like that at TJ Maxx so I bought them, assuming they would fit in the riser that I already have. They didn’t.
It was close though. The bowl that I tried stayed put for about five seconds before dropping through the hole. It was that close. My wife said I should just put the bowls on the ground but I didn’t want to do that. I’m sure I spoil our cats but why have cats if you don’t want to spoil them?
I tried to think of things I could do to make the hole smaller or the bowls wider. After a little bit of thought the solution came to me. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it first. I just turned the riser upside down.
I will still keep an eye out for another bowl set, but until then, I will use what I have. If anyone knows where I can get a good bowl set made for cats, please let me know.
I Missed Our Tenth Blogiversary
It is hard to believe that I have been writing Bad Cat Chris for over ten years now. My first blog post was posted on June 3, 2012. For some reason, I thought it was June 12. I was getting ready to write a post about it today when I discovered my error. Now I feel like the thunder has gone out of the celebration.
I looked back over the life of the blog and found my most popular posts. Here are the top three.
The top commentors are:
I have 845 followers through WordPress, 28 through email, and I have no idea how many through other sources. I also have 3129 followers on Facebook (even though I still can’t share blog posts there because Facebook thinks my blog is spam). In addition, I have 1033 followers on Twitter, 886 on YouTube, and 220 on Intagram.
I believe that one of these two photos is the first picture that I took of Chris. They were taken at the shelter on October 3, 2009 when I brought my wife with me to see him.
We did not adopt Chris then. We had a vacation coming up and my wife had a business trip after that, or vis versa. I believe Chris was adopted and returned because of his bad behavior after this photo was taken and before we adopted him on November 14.
Here is the last photo I have of Chris. It’s not great but it is the most recent. I took this last Sunday after I took Frankie for a walk. I always take Frankie out first and then Chris goes out after Frankie comes home. I mean after I pick up Frankie and carry him home.
Well, that’s all I have for today. I hope you have enjoyed reading this blog as much as I have enjoyed writing it. I also hope to continue for many more years. Thank you so much. I appreciate all of you.
Under Cover Cats
I think Chris was the first to discover that getting under the blanket was fun. I don’t know how long he has been doing it but almost every day now, while my wife and I are sitting in bed winding down for the day, Chris insist on getting under the cover. I sit up in bed and put my legs under the sheet and blanket. I then lift up the blanket for Chris but not the sheet. This gives me a layer of protection from him scratching my legs. It also means he will have an easier time breathing because he is only under the blanket and not the sheet too. Even so, I try to hold the blanket up somewhat on my end to allow airflow.
Recently, Floki has taken to getting under the cover with Chris. He gets me to pick up the cover and then he goes to Chris for a little bit of attention. After he gets a few minutes of attention from Chris he then comes out from under the blanket.
Upon seeing what was going on under the blanket, Frankie decided that he wanted to now get under the blanket. So the last couple of weeks I have been helping Frankie to get under the blanket as well. Usually he wants to be under there by himself but the other day he got under there with Chris.
As I write this, Chris has been lying under the blanket for about 20 minutes. Floki got under there for a short time and then left. He just now came back and is again interested in what Chris is doing.
I suppose this is similar to children making a tent in their bedroom. Does anybody else have a cat or a dog that likes to get under the covers?
Squirrel/Bird Feeder Update
I ordered a ground feeder last week in an attempt to distract the squirrels away from our new window bird feeder. While I was waiting for it, a Bluejay found our feeder. The curtain was partially closed and I didn’t want to get too close and scare him away, but I took a photo anyway.
The ground feeder I ordered doubles as a birdbath but I put corn in it, which I read is a favorite of squirrels, and placed it under the bird feeder yesterday.
Later that day I saw a squirrel in the bird feeder and looked down to see the corn had not been touched. I watched for a while and saw the squirrel come close to the corn but he never looked at it. I don’t know if he was ignoring it or just had not found it yet.
This morning the squirrel was back in the bird feeder while Frankie and Floki were there. This time he was not as nervous around them as in the past. Both cats even attacked the window to no avail. Eventually, they just settled down to watch.
When the squirrel left, I looked down and saw that all three ears of corn were gone. Somehow the little squirrel managed to drag three ears of corn away. I think now I need to buy a bag of sunflower seeds. I’d like to see him drag all those away.
Photo Friday: Napping to a T
Here’s Chris and Frankie forming an upside-down T while they take their catnap.
Still Adjusting to New Work Routine
I just realized I did not post anything in over a week. I have my own part-time business and was supplementing my income with a part-time job. Recently that job turned into full-time and combined with the hours I spend on my business, my life has left me with little free time to do the things I enjoy, like blogging.
I will try to be better at posting in the future. While you wait to see if I live up to that, enjoy a picture of Abbey, Chris, and Tigger from April of 2010 when Chris was about eleven months old.
As a side note, another photo taken at the same time was used on my most popular greeting card on Zazzle. If you are curious, you can see it here.
Photo Friday: Sav-R-Cats
I don’t have many new photos this week so I found this photo from this day in 2010.
Sav-R-Cats is a shelter in Surfside, South Carolina (near Myrtle Beach) where we adopted Chris. I started volunteering at the Humane Society there where they had something like 200 cats all separated in individual cages. We were not allowed to take out more than one cat at a time and I just felt so bad every time I went in there. My neighbor told me about Sav-R_Cats and I decided to volunteer there instead. As you can see, they had no problem letting the cats mingle with one another.
To the right of the photo are several pens that are like small rooms. The cats are put in there at night and most are let out during the day. Some of the cats, particularly the long-term residents, are never put in cages. I understand that there is a greater risk of a sick cat infecting others but potentially sick cats are isolated so the risk is small. In my opinion, it is far more important for the cat’s well-being to make them as happy as possible while they are waiting for their forever home. What do you think?
Chris’s Little Helpers
About two weeks ago we were driving out of our neighborhood when we noticed an old couple outside with a couple of pet stairs that they labeled “free.” I stopped and mentioned that I had an older cat that might benefit from them. She said that she had them for her cat. I assumed the cat died but I didn’t pursue it.
I have been unsure about Chris’s capabilities lately. When I am sitting at my computer he scratches at my legs to get me to pick him up. He used to just jump on my lap but that ship sailed over a year ago. He also scratches at my legs or cries at me when I am sitting on the sofa, even though I know he can jump onto the sofa when I am not there.
In the bedroom, he jumps onto the footboard and then continues up from there. It is usually one fluid motion but lately, he seems to struggle to get onto the bed. He looks like someone who has slid off a cliff and is trying to pull himself back up.
I thought the stairs would be a big help so I put one in the bedroom and one in the living room next to the sofa. He didn’t use it at first and I had to put him on it a couple of times but he soon got the hang of it. I originally had it in front of my nightstand but my wife feared I would trip over it at night so she pushed the nightstand over and put it where it is now in the photo.
Having it this way does make more sense. It also means that Chris has to stop at the top and turn before getting on the bed but he quickly got the hang of that.
The stairs by the sofa are another story. Chris never used them and would either just jump onto the sofa or ask me to pick him up. I decided instead to put them next to my office chair. My hope was that he would climb the stairs to get on my lap.
So far he has never attempted to climb those stairs. He always just scratches my legs until I pick him up. They aren’t totally useless though. When I have to get up I sort of guide him to the stairs as I stand up. He then walks down the stairs and follows me, hoping this will be the time I will open the container of kibble.
I guess this is our reality now. Chris is not getting any younger or any lighter and I don’t expect that to change, although it would be helpful if I could get him to lose a few pounds.
My Solution For Peeing Over The Box
I noticed recently that someone was peeing over the side of one of the litter boxes. I would often find pee on the floor between the blue litter box and the cabinet.
When I found pee on the floor I would clean everything extra thoroughly because I know sometimes the smell of one cat’s pee can prompt another cat to “mark” that same spot. It didn’t work. Almost every day I had to clean up pee.
It occurred to me that cats are creatures of habit. Once a habit is created, something must be done to break the habit. For example, I always make coffee in the morning and I put heavy cream in my coffee and my wife’s coffee. For some reason that I don’t remember, I started giving the cats a very small amount of that heavy cream whenever I made coffee. They soon became little vultures waiting for it and I couldn’t make coffee until they ate their breakfast or they would abandon their food in hopes of getting cream. When we went up to our home in West Virginia, it was the change I needed to break the habit. I stopped giving them the heavy cream and they never thought to beg for it because the situation was so different. When we returned to Florida I continued to not give them the cream and they all forgot about it.
This time I needed to change things enough to disrupt the routine of whoever the culprit was. I’m betting it was Frankie but I have no proof. I decided to move the blue box to the far right and shift the other two boxes over.
To my surprise, this actually worked. I have not had to clean pee off the floor in over a week.
What do you think? Does anyone else have experience breaking a pet’s bad habit?
Bad Cat Chris 