Tag Archives: Cats

Tickets for the Final Four Cat Fight Tournament are Still Available

Sometimes it seems like all our cats are involved in a fighting competition. I feel like I want to sell tickets to the events but I can’t seem to get them to give me a schedule of events and I often can’t tell if they are just sparring or if a real fight event is happening. Chris and Frankie had a real fight event this morning but I didn’t know it was scheduled or I would have had a film crew ready. I did have to ring the bell and send them to their respective corners.

This fight was from last week. I didn’t realize it, but our cats have developed a modified tag team event.

Chris and Floki are fighting now. Get your tickets before it’s too late and the tournament is over.

Photo Friday: Best Friends

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In spite of the fact that Chris dominates Puck as the self-appointed alpha male, he really cares for him. You saw it in the last post and here is another example of the two of them hanging out as best buddies. I took this picture last night in low light with no flash so please forgive the less than perfect quality. I’m actually surprised it came out as good as it did.

Adventures in Cat-Sitting

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My wife and I went away over the weekend for our seventeenth anniversary and our wonderful friend and cat-sitter, Lynn, stopped by twice a day to take care of our cats. She is good because she spends a little time playing with them and she also sends us pictures as well.

Our two gold cats, Chris and Frankie, are never shy around strangers. Even though Lynn is not a stranger, she is also not a common person in our house.

Chris loves everyone. Darth Vader could walk through the door and Chris would want to greet him.

Frankie is almost like Chris. He had no problem rolling on his back to show Lynn his belly.

Puck is our shyest cat but he knows Lynn pretty good and had no problem leaving poop on the floor for her to clean up… twice. Puck also cannot get on the china cabinet without first jumping on my shoulders or Rose’s. He has us trained to know when he wants to get up there. He does not have lynn trained so it came as a surprise to her when she bent over to pick up the water bowl and Puck used her as a springboard. I would guess he is comfortable with her.

Floki has met Lynn but he is less familiar with her and hid in the bedroom on her first visit. He did eventually come out because, after all, there are no food bowls in the bedroom.

Your turn. I’d love to hear about your pet-sitter.

Cat’s Guide to Getting Outside

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If any cats out there want to know how to get outside, just do what Frankie does and relentlessly annoy the hell out of anyone with opposable thumbs until they can’t take it anymore and take you for a walk. Here is an example of what I am talking about.

This video was taken yesterday. My wife had to hold Chris to keep him from running out the door because it is too difficult to watch Chris while I am walking Frankie.

Here in Florida we have a type of wild grass, that is essentially a weed, that produces seeds, called sandspurs, in the fall that are round and covered with sharp spikes. They are especially bad in my neighborhood. We were outside for about ten minutes before Frankie stepped on one of these sandspurs.

This has happened a few times before but this was the worst. We were actually on the sidewalk when he got one of these nasty things in his paw. He cried and immediately tried to remove it using his mouth. That worked but now it was stuck in his mouth. I tried to help but he was freaking out at that point so I decided to pick him up and take him home in hopes that Rose could get it out while I held him. Fortunately, it was out by the time I reached home and, of course, Chris ran out when we came in.

I was planning on letting him out next so I went outside to watch him. He was so happy to be outside but, unlike Frankie, he was content to eat grass and roll around on the driveway.

Cats are Clumsy

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Cats have a reputation for being very graceful but in reality, they can be quite clumsy. They are graceful under certain circumstances. For example, they can walk across a display full of porcelain collectibles and leave them all undisturbed. Yes, they are graceful walkers, but what about running and jumping?

Running, and especially jumping, is where they all turn into a cat version of Inspector Clouseau. I don’t know why, maybe nature didn’t prepare them for indoor living, but every time one of our cats jumps on something I hold my breath while I wait to see if something, or someone, falls over. All of our cats have fallen, knocked something over or slid into something but our most clumsy cat has to be Puck.

Who? Me?

One example happened Friday morning. I was sitting at the computer when Puck jumped onto my lap, stepped onto the desk and then jumped to get on top of our laser printer. He missed, and grabbed onto whatever he could to keep from falling. That happened to be me. I supposed I could have backed away and saved myself but I hung in there to save my dear, little klutz.

I ended up with a large scratch on my arm, two scratches on my side and a puncture at the edge of my fingernail. In addition, he hurt an already sore shoulder and I spilled coffee on myself.

That was just one example. It seems whenever a wound from one clumsy cat incedent heals, I end up with another one.

We are not the only household with clumsy cats. Shortly after I started writing this post yesterday evening, I saved it to eat dinner and watch a movie with my wife. She did not know what I was writing about but relayed a story to me after the movie was over. She said her friend’s cat tried to jump on a cabinet and missed. He ended up breaking his femur and now she is faced with a $1500 vet bill.

Okay, it’s your turn. Tell me about your clumsy cats.

The New Computer… Box

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Hey Chris! Check out the new cat box.

Someone tell dad to take his new computer out of our box.
Cat and computer box

Look, there’s pillows too.

This is awesome!

Frankie, what about this weird thing.

Oh, that’s just Dad’s computer Floki. They can’t send empty boxes for some reason so they put worthless stuff in them to add weight.

Thanks for keeping the box warm for me, Frankie.

I love these pillows.

Dad! You can’t take my cool pillows and give me this lame pillow. Did you think I wouldn’t notice?

Frankie! Dad thinks I’m a baby and took my plastic pillows, like I’m gonna suffocate or something. Isn’t that crazy…? Are you up there Frankie? Frankie…?

Photo Friday: Enjoying the Outdoors

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Our cats are stuck inside most of the time so I can’t blame them for trying to get out every time someone opens the door. Lately Frankie has been relentless. He stands by the door and cries or he runs to the door every time someone in the house gets up.

I try to put a harness on him at least once each weekend. When I do, Chris is right there ready to run out the door. I try to stop him but I often fail and he is outside with Frankie. That is what happened Saturday. I tried watching Chris while I had Frankie on the harness. It was easy at first because Frankie and Chris were both content with staying close to home while eating grass.

The problem started when Chris wandered to the back to see what Frankie was doing and then kept going to the neighbor’s driveway behind us. I then had to put Frankie inside the house and retrieve Chris. I then brought Chris inside and let Frankie back out again. It was a pain but Frankie was happy in the end.

Rainbow Bridge Remembrance Day

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Today is Rainbow Bridge Remembrance Day so I thought I would remember the pets that have come before.

This is our St. Bernard, Bruno, and I believe that is me in the chair. My parents gave Bruno away when I was very young. I remember being very sad when the station wagon drove away with him. Years later I was told they worried about having him around small children but, what they didn’t know, was that my sister and I would get on his back like a horse and he didn’t seem to mind. Although, being 2 years old, perhaps I wasn’t seeing it correctly.

Our next dog was a Basset Hound named Caesar. He was a great dog but he would howl during the day when nobody was home. One day, shortly after moving to a new house, the police showed up at our door because of a complaint from a neighbor. So we had to say goodbye to another pet. Cesar went to live with my grandparents. We also had another Basset Hound named Samantha. Her and Cesar escaped one day while we were not home. Cesar came back but Samantha did not.

Around 1976, a friend of my dad’s had a stray Doberman hanging around his neighborhood. They captured her and Dad brought her home. I’m not sure who named her Natasha but we just called her Tasha. She took to me right away and was with me for ten years before she died. She was the best dog ever.

This is not a good picture of her but it is the oldest. Check out the ancient microwave.

Tasha was all about the food as this next picture (from around 1982) shows in more than one way.

When I met my wife, Rose, in 1999, her son, Nick, had a cat named Sneakers. He got his name because he was found behind a bar called Sneakers. He loved Nick but he could be “bipolar” when it came to other people.

Vinny was a stray that came looking for food around Thanksgiving. It was unusually cold at that time so we decided to take him in. Except for Chris, Vinny was the friendlies cat ever. He was known for lying on the feet of strangers.

Princess was a feral kitten around 2002. Her mother disappeared, and a neighbor of my mother-in-law had all these kittens they were trying to home. My wife felt bad for for the kitten that was missing most of her tail, so we adopted her along with about a hundred fleas.

Abbey and Alex came to us in 2005. We adopted them from Petsmart. We chose Alex but couldn’t leave his sister Abbey behind. I’m glad we took both. Alex was very friendly and Abbey was shy but very affection to me.

Abbey

Alex

Tigger was adopted by my Mother-in-law in 2006 but the shelter wanted him back because his brother was too dependent on him. We tried to talk her into taking his brother but she was not ready for two cats at that time. We took them both instead.

Tigger was another very friendly cat. His brother, Flash, was the opposite. He wasn’t mean but he was very shy. He would come to me for attention, and surprisingly my mother too when she came to visit, but he was not very people friendly. When we first got them, Tigger would suck on Flash’s belly like he was nursing. After awhile, Flash put a stop to it.

Tigger and brother Flash

Princess, Tigger, Abbey and Flash, Jan 28, 2007

Clockwise from left: Abbey, Flash, Alex and Tigger

We miss all of them but at least we have happy memories.

Oh, I forgot to mention that this day was started by Deborah Barnes from The Chronicles of Zee and Zoey in memory her Mr. Jazz.

The Tolerant Kitty

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It seems Floki has found a playmate in Frankie. Sure, he will also play with Puck and Chris but Chris is easily annoyed by Floki and Puck… well, I’m not sure why Puck doesn’t play with him too much.

Frankie likes playing with Puck. I often see one chasing the other through the house and then the roles reverse until they are both down in a winner-take-all wrestling championship.

Recently I saw Floki playing with Frankie’s tail and Frankie did not seem annoyed by it at all. At least he wasn’t annoyed for a couple of minutes, but even the best of us have our limits.

Compare that to this video with Floki and Chris that you probably have seen already.

The Cycle of Sickness

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Our cats have been sick since we introduced Floki to the group. He didn’t show signs of being sick when we got him but I guess that is one lesson we learned the hard way.

I can’t blame Floki for everything though. There are two separate illnesses going around. One is an eye infection, which I think is Pink Eye. That is probably from Floki, but the other is sneezing, which Frankie had before we met Floki.

It started with Frankie getting an eye infection while Floki caught the sneezes. The eye trouble then spread to Puck who had it in both eyes but was spared the sneezing. Chris then had a slight case of the sniffles but he never got very sick.

Chris, dispute his weight, has never been very sick. In fact, unlike Puck and Frankie, he has never been given steroids or antibiotics, which all vets love to dish out like candy. I guess that is because Chris has never been to the vet for anything except vaccinations. Maybe that is why he doesn’t normally get sick.

Puck got better and is fine now. Frankie got a little better but then the eye infection and sneezing came back. Now it’s Chris turn. He is not only sneezing but he has the eye infection too.

Saturday, my wife was sitting on the bed with her laptop while Chris was lying next to her. Suddenly, Chris sneezed an abundance of snot her way. It got all over her and her laptop. All I heard was a lot of yelling and Rose running to the bathroom to take an “emergency” shower.

The most concerning thing happened Sunday morning. Frankie was on top of the refrigerator while I was in the kitchen doing chores. Rose came out and noticed one of Frankie’s eyes was very dilated. That was not normal and very concerning.

The first thought was to bring him to the vet but it was Sunday so that wasn’t an option. I did a little research and there are many different causes of that. We decided to give him a day to see if it got any better.

This morning it is slightly better, perhaps ten percent. Not much but it means there is hope. We will continue to monitor Frankie’s eye very closely and if it does not continue to improve, we will have to bring him to the vet.

Bad Cat Chris

The Baddest Cat You'll Ever Love