I decided to do something different and post a photo from this day in history, or more appropriate, this day in Christory. I picked one photo from each year that I had photos taken on February 1st. The first one is from 2011.
I’m sure my wife had just finished ironing or was about to start when Chris took over the ironing board.
The next one I took in 2014.
Here Chris is doing what he always does when he goes outside, which is eating grass.
This one is from 2016.
It is Chris washing Puck. It is the only photo I took that day and it is a bit blurry because of movement but I wanted to include it because Puck is in it.
This is from 2018.
Here is Puck, Chris, and Frankie. I have seen three cats together on our bed quite often lately but, unfortunately, Puck is not one of them (Puck died 13 days later).
Regular readers know that no cat is allowed to sleep with us because of Chris’s bad behavior. Since we have no litter box in the bedroom, we can’t close Chris out while allowing Frankie and Floki to stay in the room with us. It also wouldn’t be nice to make Chris stay by himself all night.
That changed when Chris got sick. Chris had a cold for about a week and just when the sneezing died down the puking started. That was around the Friday before last. Because he wasn’t feeling well, we thought it would be nice to leave the door open for him. Plus we could keep an eye on him somewhat. Even though we would be sleeping, we would probably wake up if he started puking, which we hoped would not be on our bed. I also didn’t think he would be very annoying while he was sick, which he wasn’t (much).
He went to the vet that Monday and ended up getting eight teeth pulled two days later. He didn’t eat for a day or two and all the while he continued to sleep on our bed. As he improved, so did his annoyance level until I finally had to kick them all out at 4:00 a.m. a few mornings ago.
Tuesday evening I saw Chris puking again. It was the reason I brought Chris to the vet in the first place but the reason for his puking was never discovered. Because of that I became worried about his health and when we were getting ready for bed Tuesday night all three cats were on our bed looking too comfortable to kick out.
I decided to let them stay, which worked out fine until around midnight. That is when Chris decided to lie over my head and dig his nails into my neck and scalp. I put my hand up to hold his paws back and he responded by biting my shoulder. I then moved him to the foot of the bed where he took an interest in Frankie until I fell asleep. Then he started his annoying behavior all over again. I again moved him to the foot of the bed and went back to sleep but the bad behavior continued until 4:00 a.m. when he woke up my wife. She could not go back to sleep after that and got up and took the cats with her so I could sleep.
Needless to say they will not be sleeping with us tonight.
Frankie is attracted to our laundry basket like flies to shoot I lost my train of thought. Anyway, when I bring it in empty he has to get inside of it. Usually he tips it over but this time I had the cover open so he just jumped inside. Of course, Floki had to investigate what he was doing.
In other news, Chris had several teeth pulled on Wednesday and is doing okay. My main concern is that as of Thursday evening, he has not eaten anything for about three days. They did say that he would lose his appetite after anesthesia for 12 to 24 hours but it has been more than 24 hours as I write this. I will write more about it on my next post.
Chris and Frankie’s relationship is back to normal but I’m not sure how happy Frankie is about it. The look on his face here is a classic “help me” look.
In my mind he is saying, “Please save me from this annoying cat.”
We had a nice Christmas and I appreciate all the well wishes. My son and best friend came over and we had more food for lunch than anyone should be allowed to eat. Afterward, we all felt like taking a nap.
Meanwhile, our cats beat us to it.
How was your Christmas? Was there any napping going on?
Frankie, Chris, and Floki want to wish everyone a Very Merry Christmas.
As my gift to you, my Kindle book, Bad Cat Chris: The Baddest Cat You’ll Ever Love, will be free all day on Christmas. It is five years old now but if you haven’t read it and are interested in what we went through after adopting Chris, I encourage you to pick up a copy while it is free. The special is from midnight to midnight Pacific time.
Things are pretty much back to normal in our house since the big fight on Monday morning.
I brought Chris to the vet on Monday afternoon but the vet didn’t find anything wrong with him, other than his weight. We didn’t do blood tests because it didn’t seem necessary but Rose thought it would be a good idea since Chris seems more lethargic lately so we decided to bring him to Frankie’s appointment that Thursday.
Chris and Frankie were separated for a little over a day. After introducing them back on Tuesday morning, Frankie was trying to be nice but Chris didn’t trust him and growled at him for a while. I went to work so I didn’t see anything but Rose sent me this photo.
It was an uneasy truce but it was a truce.
By Thursday things were mostly back to normal.
By Friday everything was completely back to normal.
I don’t know any human who would be best friends with the guy who tried to beat the crap out of him four days earlier.
I took Chris to the vet for blood work and got the results on Friday. Everything is good except for a couple of things that are in a grey area. So for now, we will go on like nothing happened.
We had a major fight yesterday morning between Chris and Frankie. If you didn’t see the post you can find it here. Since Frankie was the aggressor we decided to bring him to the vet but after making the appointment we thought Chris should go instead. That decision came because Chris has seemed slightly more lethargic lately and because Frankie was getting along fine with Floki and with me so I doubted that a physical condition was making him irritable.
Since moving, I haven’t found a new vet. When I looked for one yesterday morning none stood out above the others so I just picked the one that was the closest to home. I made a 3:30 appointment at The Animal Care Clinic of Largo.
I put Chris in Floki’s carrier, which wasn’t easy, and made it there five minutes early. After a short wait someone put us in an exam room and an assistant, or vet tech, came in and asked a few questions and then took Chris away to weigh him. She came back with Chris in one arm and the carrier in the other. I guess she knew better than to try to shove him back in there. She told me he weighed 18 pounds, which was just over the 17.9 pounds on his last vet visit.
While we waited for the vet, Chris did some exploring.
He then settled down next to me.
The vet then came in with her assistant and we talked for a bit before she examined Chris. She did a lot of squeezing around his stomach, which Chris did not like. She also tried to look in his ears but Chris has always had a problem with some kind of black gunk that grows in his ears. Another vet gave us an ear cleaner for him which we don’t use as much as we should because he is such a pain to work with.
She did say that when cats lose a sense, such as hearing, they become more defensive. She offered to clean his ears and when I found out she would do it for only twelve dollars I said go ahead. It wasn’t easy. They had to wrap him in a towel and he kept breaking free so they had to keep rewrapping him.
After the exam, she thought Chris was okay. She didn’t think he had diabetes because of his weight. I said that I thought diabetes was associated with weight gain but she said that cats lose weight and then gain it again after they are put on medication. She offered to do blood tests to rule out certain illnesses but she also seemed to doubt they were necessary so didn’t push them. She said basic blood work was $88 plus more for additional tests. Since I didn’t know what my cost was up to already I thought it would be better to save the money and bring Frankie in.
The vet spent a lot of time with us, more than any other vet in recent memory. That is why I was shocked when I saw the bill was $54. It seemed we could never leave our last vet for less than $180. If I had known, I might have said to go ahead with the blood tests. I might still bring him back after Frankie goes there.
Many of you were concerned about my injuries and I appreciate that. I can tell you that all my wounds seem to be healing fine except for my left index finger which is swollen right now. I am keeping an eye on it.
When Chris got home Frankie seemed fine with him and almost five minutes passed before a fight started and we had to separate them. Chris slept in our room last night (which means I got very little sleep) and we tried to reintroduce them this morning. Frankie seems over it but Chris hasn’t forgotten and growled at Frankie so we decided to keep them separated for a while longer.
My wife and I were suddenly awakened this morning at 5 a.m. by the sound of the worst catfight I have ever heard. I sprang out of bed and opened the door to see Chris and Frankie going at it. I yelled for them to stop and tried to separate them to no avail. Chris then ran into the bedroom with Frankie on his tail. It was clear that Frankie was the aggressor so I picked him up to put him out of the bedroom but he scratched and dug his claws into me until I had to let him go.
Once he hit the ground he went after Chris again and I had no choice but to put my hands and arms in the line of fire again. I quickly picked him up and threw him out the door and quickly closed the door. When I say “threw” I mean “threw.” I was four feet from the door and didn’t want to risk further injury by walking him to another room.
I cleaned the blood off my hands and arms and put bandages on my fingers and then went out of the room. WhiIe I was making coffee I cleaned the water bowls so I could put one in the bedroom with Chris. I asked Rose to help since she was in the bedroom and Frankie was lurking outside the door. I thought I could quickly hand the water bowl to her while using my body as a shield to keep Frankie out, but I thought wrong. Frankie slipped past me and into the bedroom where he immediately attacked Chris again.
Rose tried to protect Chris with a pillow while I tried to get Frankie off him. I finally got Frankie out of the bedroom but my hands were torn up worse than ever.
As soon as things settled down I brought a litterbox inside and closed Frankie in the Florida room, better known as the cats’ room, and opened the bedroom door so Chris could come out. He eventually wandered to where he could see Frankie and he started growling at him.
Frankie was growling at Chris too but you can’t hear it on the video.
I made an appointment as soon as the vet opened for Frankie to come in but they didn’t have an opening until 3:30. We didn’t know which cat should go but we figured the aggressor was more likely to have a problem. The funny thing was, Frankie was not being mean to Flokie and he was very affectionate to me. I sat in there with him for a while and he snuggled on my lap.
By 11 a.m. I noticed Chris lying on the spare bed and decided to close him in the spare bedroom and let Frankie out for a while.
Before I knew it, Frankie and Flokie were lying together on our bed. The comforter is missing because I had to wash the blood off it.
Rose is convinced that Chris is acting more lethargic than usual so we decided to bring Chris in instead of Frankie. I don’t know what we are going to do about the fighting. Hopefully, Chris is okay and this will all blow over.
Bad Cat Chris 