Rose packed a little for her business trip and then left the suitcase in the hands of two very capable guard cats until she could finish the job.
Photo Friday: The Suitcase Guardians
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Tag Archives: Cats
The Explorers
Even though Chris is older and more “mature” he still looks for trouble wherever he can find it. Sometimes he is a bad influence on the other cats.
Photo Friday: The Detailing
In our house, when one cat washes another cat, we say he is getting a detailing.
Rose left for a business trip to San Diego on Monday and Chris and Puck settled in on her suitcase, perhaps thinking she would take them with.
Chia Cat Grass Planter Review
For Christmas, the cats’ Aunt Felice got them a Chia Cat Grass Planter. A great present because they all like grass and Chris loves it. Whenever Chris gets outside, the first thing he does is eat some grass.
It comes with everything you need: a bowl with a cat on it, potting soil, seeds and instructions.
I followed the instructions and put most of the “growing mix” in the bowl, leaving two tablespoons out for later.
I then added the grass seeds.
Next I covered the seeds with the remaining dirt. By then I had the attention of all the cats.
The instructions said to cover it loosely with plastic wrap so I did that and put it on the counter for a few days. I then put a little water in it and placed it outside where it could get some sun without someone eating it.
I think I watered it once more while it was outside but I pretty much forgot about it until the other day when I brought it inside. I also discovered that I was wrong about someone not eating it. It looks like one of the many rabbits in our neighborhood had a taste.
I barely had time to photograph it before Chris discovered it.
That sparked Frankie’s interest and soon they were both munching on the grass. Puck, unfortunately, was napping somewhere and missed everything.
It wasn’t very long before they mowed the grass down and moved on.
The next day, I brought it back outside to let it grow again.
I started this post with the intention of reviewing this product but I think the cats did that for me. I will say that this is a little more expensive than the ones in the cheap plastic containers but I found it as low as $9.76 on Amazon. I like it because it is heavier and doesn’t move around too much when the cats try to eat the grass. I may decide to buy one or two more so I can rotate them in and out of the house.
What do you think? Are your cats grass eaters?
Photo Friday: Truce
Like many cats, Chris and Frankie fight everyday but they also do this everyday.
Of course, Chris always goes to Frankie, never the other way around.
The Horrible Result of Puck’s Self-Imposed Exile.
Recently I wrote about Puck’s Self-Imposed Exile when my stepson came for a week at Christmas. He was so fearful that he stayed in our bedroom whenever Nick was in the house.
Puck had no problem coming out to visit Rose’s Dad and his wife when they came at Thanksgiving or my best Friend, Rick, when he came here on New Year’s Eve, but for some strange reason, he decided he was afraid of Rick when he came to visit on Friday. Rick spent the night on our sofa and Puck spent the night in our room, afraid to leave.
I woke up early Saturday morning while Rick was still sleeping. I worried that Puck needed to use the litter box by then so I carried him to the patio and put him in the box. I tried that when Nick was here and got scratched up from Puck trying to escape my grasp out of fear. This time I made it all the way to the box and Puck just seemed slightly nervous. He stayed in the box for a couple of seconds and then jumped out and ran back into the bedroom. I assumed he didn’t have to go so I didn’t worry about it after that.
A little while later Rose was awake and complained that Puck either farted or he pooped somewhere in the bedroom. Normally, Rose’s nose is about twenty times more sensitive than mine and I usually smell nothing while she is acting like the world is about to end, but this time I smelled it too.
I looked around the room and as I was doing that, Rose told me she didn’t want me to use the bed sheets again because they keep popping off. “Okay'” I said, concentrating more on finding where Puck might have pooped. I checked the entire floor, including all the nooks and crannies. “I don’t see anything,” I said.
“Oh my God! It’s on the bed!” Rose suddenly yelled.
I looked and there was a big pile of mashed up poop. “oh, yuck!” I said. “That is gross!”
“It’s on me!” Rose yelled. “I rolled on top of it. Get a wet towel, Quick!”
I hurried into the kitchen and pulled a few paper towels off the roll and wet them.
“Hurry up! What are you doing in there?”
“Here,” I said, handing her the towels.
“No, it’s on the back of my leg. You need to wipe it off!”
As I was wiping it off I had visions of thirty years in the future. “There, it’s off,” I said as I threw the paper towels into the trash bag I brought with me. That is when she noticed another big spot of poop on her leg and the process started again.
The next priority was to pick up the poop off the bed. I had brought a roll of paper towels into the bedroom along with a small bag for garbage but the task was just too gross. Luckily, I remembered Rose didn’t want to use those sheets anymore so I just rolled them up and stuffed them into a garbage bag and took them out to the garbage can.
Puck got over his fear of Rick shortly after that, thankfully, and we now have something to look back on and laugh at but Saturday morning there was no laughing going on in this house.
After the commotion, I put a sheet on the bed to protect it while I washed the mattress cover. That is when Chris and Frankie came in to see what all the trouble was about.
Happy New Year and Year in Review
I hope everyone had a happy and safe New Year’s Eve celebration. Here is a link to my 2015 WordPress Annual Report. It was a fun year and I look forward to 2016.
Source: See the #fireworks I created by blogging on #WordPressDotCom. My 2015 annual report.
Adjusting to a Limited Ingredient Diet
A couple weeks ago Puck visited a new vet for his over-grooming problem. The vet said it was probably partly due to stress but he was also having an allergic reaction to something. The vet recommended a Feliway Diffuser for the stress and he recommended switching Puck’s food for three months to see if the problem went away. The vet had food that I could buy but they didn’t push it on me. The dry food was $64 for an eight pound bag. I decided to try my luck at a local natural pet food store where I buy the cat’s current wet food, Earthborn Holistic Chicken Catcciatori.
The Feliway was expensive, over $50 at the pet food store, but I did find it on Amazon for Under $30 so I ordered it. The food was also expensive but getting it at the pet food store was cheaper than getting it at the vet.Limited IngredientLimited Ingredient
I needed to buy a food with a single protein that was unlikely to be in our cat’s current food. The vet suggested rabbit or bison but he did not limit it to those two. He said duck was okay but sometimes an allergy to chicken can cross over to duck since they are both fowl. The woman at the pet food store helped me and we found a dry food with rabbit as the main protein from Nature’s Valley called Instinct Limited Ingredient Diet Rabbit Meal Formula. I shared an Amazon link to the food so you can see what it is but in this case it was cheaper to get it at the pet food store.
While the dry food was more money than normal (I don’t remember what I paid), it was not unreasonable. The Instinct wet rabbit food, however, was too much to justify buying, especially considering that I have to buy it for three cats since I don’t want the trouble of trying to separate them for meals. I don’t know the exact price but it was around $3.50 per can.
The pet food woman found another brand of rabbit food called Wild Calling: Rabbit Burrow, for $1.89 a can. That was just a little more than I was already spending on wet food so we added a few days worth of that food (about 6 or eight cans) to my order. I didn’t want to buy too much in case they didn’t like it.
Finally I picked out a cat treat that was also rabbit. This was yet another brand called Vita Essentials Freeze Dried Rabbit. The one I bought was labeled “for dogs.” It was a larger package then the one for cats but had the same ingredients. The entire order was just under $64.
They loved the dry food and the treats, but unfortunately, they were not crazy about the wet food. When I would open a can they would all get so excited and then Frankie would give me this “What are you trying to push on us?” look.
After a couple of days of that I went back to the pet food store and we decided that I didn’t need to feed them just rabbit. The goal was to avoid the proteins that Puck was eating such as chicken, beef and salmon. With that in mind I bought food from a company called Mauri. They use a single protein, New Zealand sourced meat that is unlikely to be in American pet food. Their website even says it is great for pets with allergies. I bought New Zealand Unagi, Wild Brushtail, New Zealand Venison, New Zealand Hoki, and Australian Wild Kangaroo.
These are mostly pâté type foods that our cats are not crazy about but they seem to be okay with this food. Chris does not generally care about wet food, he is more of a dry food junkie (hence the girth) but yesterday he would not give up his Venison to Frankie. Usually Puck or Frankie scarf their food down and then take what is left of Chris’s food. Chris usually takes a couple of bites and is done by then anyway or he walks away when he sees another cat coming his way, but this time Frankie had to force his head into the bowl because Chris would not walk away.
The Feliway showed up about a week later and I plugged it into the bedroom where Puck was spending much of his day. He was in a self-imposed exile until Rose’s son left the day after Christmas. I then moved it out into the living room near the door to the patio.
It’s been a couple of weeks now and Rose seems to think Puck’s fur is looking a little better. I am not sure I can see a difference yet. The vet did say it could take eight to twelve weeks because certain allergens can remain in their system for that long. If it doesn’t work, I don’t know what else we can do.
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Christmas Nail Trimmings
Chris and Frankie got what amounts to a lump of coal in their stocking on Christmas day. They got their nails trimmed. Felice, my sister-in-law who happens to be an expert on cats, was here and Rose couldn’t resist asking her to trim our cats’ nails.
Chris, as usual, put up a big fuss. Frankie was better, and Puck was hiding under the bed so he still has long nails.
They did get presants too. We are not total Scrooges.
Merry Christmas to All
Chris, Puck, Frankie, Rose and I want to wish all of you a Very Merry Christmas and hope your holidays are filled with precious memories that will last a lifetime.
Bad Cat Chris 
