This is a rare photo of all three cats napping in one picture. It is even more rare because it is Frankie with his nose at Chris’s butt and not the other way around.
Photo Friday: Three Cats Napping
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Tag Archives: Cats
Lords of the Flies
I think we have the worst toilet in the Western Hemisphere. I seem to constantly need the plunger which Rose seems to think is best kept outside in the shed. Rather than argue the logic, I just go to the shed to get it, which is what I did Thursday morning, not long after we had a bad rain storm.
I was able to successfully plunge the toilet and everything went down except one thing that I hope wasn’t there the entire time; a frog. I assume it crawled into the plunger and then came into the house with me. I’m just amazed that it didn’t go down with the flush.
I grabbed a tissue and tried to grab it but it jumped out of the toilet and grabbed Frankie’s attention, who likes to hang out with me sometimes in the bathroom for some strange reason. Frankie lunged for it but missed. It hopped behind the toilet and I tried grabbing it as it came around to the other side but I missed too. Finally, Frankie was quicker than I and walked away with the frog in his mouth. I was a little concerned that he might eat it and get sick but I think the only poisonous frog in the Tampa Bay area is actually a very large, non-native toad, which I actually saw hopping away from the shed when I went to get the plunger.
It seems nothing attracts a crowd like a frog.
I managed to get the frog from Frankie before he ate it and put it outside. I thought it was dead but it was gone the next time I looked outside.
A little later I noticed a fly in the house. The cats noticed it too and were trying to catch it. I thought it was actually good that it was there to keep the cats from being bored. I would soon change my mind about that.
I took a lot of pictures but most came out blurry because of the action.
Chris finally had the fly cornered on the patio while Frankie and Puck were interested in something else a few windows down. Chris caught the fly, played with it a little, and then ate it. Yuck!
That is when I noticed there was another fly on the same window and a third fly was at the window where Puck and Frankie were. When I looked back, the fly by Chris had a buddy. The next several minutes were pretty exciting as our three cats chased the three flies around the house. They caught two of them and I had clean-up duty.
It seemed like every dead fly spawned into three more flies and I began to feel like I was in an Alfred Hitchcock movie and I thought a frog would be a big help but that was not to be.
I checked under the cabinets to see if I could find where they were entering the house. Nothing. I walked around the perimeter of the house but saw only one fly outside. Perhaps they were all inside. It was trash day and our next-door neighbor just moved out and left a big pile of trash outside. Maybe that is where they came from. By then the garbage men had picked it up leaving the flies with nowhere to go.
It seemed the mystery of how the flies got into the house would have to wait. I had to take over as fly killer because the cats got bored with it after fifteen minutes or so. Over the next hour, I counted twelve dead flies that the cats and I took care of and saw no more flying around. I was just starting to clean the house when I noticed the problem and so I went back to finishing that project. When I finished, I sat down to relax and noticed number thirteen flying around. Puck noticed it too and gave chase. I just let him take care of it.
I don’t know if he got him but later that evening I saw a fly and saw it again the next morning. When I came home from work Friday evening, there was a dead fly waiting for me to clean up. Rose later told me she picked up two more dead flies. All were apparent victims of cat attacks. There will be a memorial service for the victims at the end of Nevuary.
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Photo Friday: Afternoon Nap
You don’t see Chris and Frankie taking a cat nap this close together very often so I thought it was worth sharing.
Wrongly Accused?
When I first saw that a cat had pooped on our new sofa, naturally I knew it was Chris because that is the kind I thing that Chris would do. Then it happened again and again, perhaps six or eight times in all. The last three times , including this morning, I began to think Chris may not be the cat doing this.
About a week ago a poop appeared when Chris was napping on our bed. I didn’t know exactly when it happened, so I couldn’t rule Chris out, but it did make me wonder. Then, a few days ago, I saw Puck on the sofa through the kitchen window and a few minutes later I noticed the cover was moved. When I looked closer, I saw that it was folded over to cover a poop. It may have already been like that but if it was, I would think I would have seen Puck sniffing that area.
This morning I saw Puck again from the kitchen. He was standing on the sofa looking suspicious. I watched him until he laid down and then I went about my business. About ten minutes later there was a poop on the sofa. Puck was standing under the table about five feet away while Chris was lying on the floor in the kitchen.
I have no hard evidence but I think that Puck is the culprit, not Chris. I have been worried about him lately because he seems to be excessively grooming himself to the point where the fur on his back and the inside of his thighs is very thin. He also has small patches of fur missing from his head from fighting with Frankie and from Chris trying to dominate him. Perhaps he is just over stressed. I think we need to bring him to the vet. There may be one solution that will help the pooping and the grooming.
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Chris’s Heart
Three years have passed since I wrote this and he still seems to burn the candle at both ends.
When we first got Chris he would lie across my neck or on top of my head. Rose used to joke that, “You can wear him as a hat, you can wear him as a scarf…” Because we could hear his heartbeat when he did that, we noticed early on that his heartbeat was incredibly fast. It seemed as though he just finished a marathon, and since Chris was such a busy kitten, we concluded that he was exhausting himself.
Besides the fast heartbeat, Chris would also breathe very quickly, taking in many breaths of air in a short time. My concern led me to do some research where I found this to be somewhat normal for kittens.
Fast forward about a year where Chris and Tigger were napping on the bed. I noticed Chris was breathing very quickly while he was napping. I decided to count the breaths. Chris took…
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The Dominant Cat
We have always joked that Chris has to be the alpha in the house. The truth is, cats are not like dogs, there is no “alpha” cat in the wild, at least not among African Wildcats, the species that evolved into the modern domestic house cat.
African Wildcats are loners, especially the males. Each male has a single territory that does not overlap another male’s territory but may overlap several females’ territories. This may cause competition for mating purposes but there is no group that requires a leader.
About 12,000 years ago in the Middle East, humans started to give up their hunter-gatherer lifestyle and became farmers. This, of course, was a very gradual process but eventually there were communities of people growing wheat and other grains. They stored these grains in large bins that attracted rodents. The increase in rodents, in turn, attracted cats.
The humans not only tolerated the cats, they welcomed them. Cats were an almost perfect solution to the rodent problem but having several cats in the same area was a bit unnatural. I don’t know how they got along back then but over time they evolved to tolerate each other as well as humans.
Our domestic cats today have never developed the hierarchy or cooperation found in a pack of wolves, but they can live together in large groups that are not related without killing each other. Some even develop friendships with each other. I have noticed that male cats seem to get along better than female cats but that is the opposite of what happens between wild cats. I have also noticed that a lot of fighting happens between periods of calm.
Understanding what drives social behavior in cats is a complicated issue that I don’t come close to understanding. Chris’s behavior is a good example. He is always trying to be the dominant, or alpha, cat in the house, but since cats don’t have alphas, I’m not sure what he is thinking. Frankie does not let Chris dominate him, which is sometimes a source of tension. Puck is the submissive one and I sometimes feel bad because Frankie is always chasing him around the house in what may, or may not, be play.
Chris is different. He will show Puck plenty of affection most of the time but occasionally he will grab the back of his neck and hold him down. I try to break it up but Chris won’t let go. I have to pry his mouth open. On several occasions, I have even seen him standing over Puck, with two legs on the left and two on the right, dragging him by the neck across the floor. A short time after that he will lie down next to Puck and wash his ears.
I have heard that pinching the scruff of a cat’s neck will produce a calming affect. Perhaps it is necessary as a kitten so the mother can carry her young without them struggling and it just remains through adulthood. I’m not sure why Chris would want to calm Puck down. He is already submissive to Chris. Perhaps it is just a friendly reminder that Chris is the boss.
What do you think? Do your cats do this?
Come Out of the Closet
Oh, the jealousy that follows when one finds a new place to investigate.
Puck: What’s going on Frankie? Frankie: Chris got the door open to the towel closet and is inside.
You guys go find your own closet.
How much longer are you going to be in there, Chris?
Wait your turn, Puck. I’m next.
Ok, that’s long enough. Get out of the closet, Chris. It’s my turn.
I think maybe this is a good place for a nap.
Weekend Update
I just wanted to catch you up on some of the stories I wrote about recently.
The feral cat I have been feeding at work is doing okay (see Feral Cats at Work and Feral Cat Update). I worried because he didn’t show up on Tuesday and the food went uneaten all day. I had Wednesday off and Thursday the cat was back like nothing happened. This time he left a fair amount of food behind. That tells me there is a good chance that he is either a good hunter or someone is feeding him elsewhere too. Of course, he may have also been scared off before he finished but I doubt it. In that situation, he would have backed off and waited for the person to leave but there were no people in sight when I came outside, nor was the cat anywhere in sight.
Chris has pooped on our new sofa twice more since I first mentioned it (See A New Level of Badness). I stopped using the Dr. Elsey’s Litter Attractant a couple of years ago when Chris’s pooping problem stopped but I bought some again in hopes that he would leave the sofa alone. I bought it at Petco for $20 and then noticed it was on Amazon for $7.63. It has worked for me in the past but this time It made no difference.
Chris is very finicky about his litter boxes and when we brought the sofa in we changed things around a little. Perhaps the space between the sofa and litter boxes was too small. It was plenty big enough for a cat to get through but who knows what goes through his mind.
I decided to pull out the boxes a bit so that they were more easily accessible. It is better now but one box is still too close to the couch. So far, so good but we will see what happens.
The kitten we helped rescue ( see Newborn Kitten Rescue and Kitten Update) had been doing well until recently. Rose wanted to name the cat Luis, after her maintenance supervisor who started the rescue process, but the cat turned out to be female so now she is named Lulu. Felice has worked hard to keep Lulu healthy but she has recently developed diarrhea, which can be very bad in young kittens. Bottle feeding a kitten is not a good replacement for mother’s milk and we can only hope she will get better. I have every confidence in Felice’s ability so I am not too concerned. Unfortunately, I have no new pictures of the kitten to share but here is one from July 4th in case you missed it.
Photo Friday: The Good Side of Chris
Chris isn’t always bad, although he was very, very bad yesterday morning. Before I tell that story, let’s just look at him and Frankie, on our new sofa, actually getting along.
Early Morning Drama
Chris was being very annoying this morning, crying at the door to go outside. Rose asked me to let him out for a few minutes so she could have some peace while she got ready for work. I complied, since I had things to do outside anyway and then brought him back in after a few minutes of him eating grass.
While he was out, Frankie was very upset that Chris was out and he wasn’t, so when I got back inside Rose said I should put Frankie’s harness on and take him for a walk. I didn’t really feel like doing that but I got his harness and my camera (just in case there was something worth sharing) and opened the door to let him out.
Frankie was a little nervous at first, for some unknown reason, but he soon was on his way. Within two minutes of being outside, Frankie managed to slip out of his harness. Fortunately I caught him in time. I brought him back inside, Rose put his harness back on and then I tried again. Chris slipped out the door at the same time and Rose said not to worry, she could see him from the door. It soon became clear that, despite Rose’s assurances, she was not watching Chris. I tried to keep Frankie close so I could also watch Chris but it wasn’t easy. Eventually I had to bring Frankie in, a little earlier than Frankie wanted, so I could go get Chris.
That was more difficult than expected because Chris pulled Frankie’s old trick that Frankie learned from Chris. He hid under Rose’s car. My efforts to get him out resulted in only growling, hissing and biting. It didn’t help that the lady across the street chose that time to take her two dogs for a walk.
Rose needed to leave for work so my only recourse was to turn the hose on and squirt him out. That worked, but then he got under my truck. Eventually, I was able to get him close enough to the edge to pull him out. He was not happy about that.
Bad Cat Chris 