Tag Archives: Cats

Who’s Afraid of the Vacuum?

I used to think that all cats were afraid of the vacuum, I even created a design related to that (see here). Sure, Chris was not afraid, but Chris has never been an ordinary cat. Last year I posted a video of Chris ignoring me while I vacuumed around him. At the time I thought it was impressive because cats run and hide when the see the vacuum cleaner. Don’t they? I’m not so sure anymore.

Recently I was vacuuming the patio and both Chris and Frankie seemed completely oblivious to the noisy vacuuming going on around them.

Where was Puck while this was going on? Under the bed. Maybe it’s a gold cat thing.

Photo Friday: That’s Close Enough

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These days it seems like Puck is attacking Frankie more than Chris is, but this is not really a bad thing. When Puck attacks there is no growling or hissing. Just good old fashioned cat play.

A Good Mouse, Spoiled

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Frankie was having a good time playing with a catnip mouse until Chris stepped in.

The Baddest Cat You’ll Ever Love… or Not

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I have always found Chris’s bad behavior to be annoying but at the same time loveable, like a toddler that is more adventurous than most. Lately though, that bad behavior has gone from cute to somewhat mean.

I’m talking about Chris’s treatment of our newest addition, Frankie. No longer, it seems, is he the cute, mischievous child but he now acts like the ruthless corporate executive that needs to stay on top at all costs. Okay, that last part is a bit exaggerated, but he has put himself in a position of being “less lovable.” Rose has even used harsher words than that when referring to Chris.

I don’t want to imply that there is a war going on in our house. It really isn’t that bad. Most of the time Chris and Frankie can be in the same room without a problem, although they are by no means friends.

The problems usually occur in the evening when Rose and I are home trying to relax. It starts with Chris wanting to get close to Frankie for a good smell. Frankie, not sure what Chris is up to, gets nervous and starts to hiss. This triggers the fight or flight response in Chris, only Chris doesn’t have a flight response.

At this point Frankie has hidden himself behind the chair or some other object and Chris in now in hunter mode, pursuing his prey, which happens to be Frankie. This ends any chance we have to relax and one of us has to deal with disciplining Chris. I will usually grab Chris by the scruff of the neck and hold him down until I think he is more concerned with what I am doing and will stop going after Frankie. I also want him to know that there is an alpha male in the house that is not named Chris.

This sometimes works but usually Chris just gets up, gives me a piece of his mind, and then starts looking for Frankie again. Now it is time for Rose to step in. She picks Chris up and puts him in “time out.” In other words, she puts him in our bedroom and closes the door. She did that last night and when she let him out we discovered he had broken a picture frame above Rose’s jewelry box, and he did it without even knocking it off the wall. Somehow Chris always finds a way to counter what we do to try to stop his bad behavior.

While I am concerned about Chris losing his lovable status, I did hear something that may keep it intact. We went to the other coast of Florida to Visit Rose’s dad on Friday and when we came back on Saturday our cat-sitter, who is also our neighbor, said her little boy loved coming with her to visit Chris. Apparently, Chris played with the boy and gave him attention while Puck and Frankie stayed away.

Copy Cats

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One again it seems that history is repeating itself. When we adopted Puck he quickly learned some of Chris’s bad behaviors. For example, Chris would jump on top of the cabinets. Puck watched him do this for several weeks, perhaps longer and eventually learned to get up there himself.

Chris also liked to hang out on top of the China Cabinet and soon Puck was up there too.

Puck eventually developed his own favorite places to hang out and now our new cat Frankie is following in his footsteps. First Frankie decided he liked lying on the couch where he could look out the window. That happens to be a favorite spot of Puck’s but it probably doesn’t really qualify because it is a naturally good spot and Chris likes it too.

There is also what has become known as “Puck’s Perch.” It is the ledge between the kitchen and living room that Puck loves to hang out on.

Now we have to start calling it “Puck and Frankie’s Perch.” It just doesn’t sound as cool.

A few months ago Rose bought a basket that she put on top of the china cabinet as a decoration. Right away Puck decided to get inside of it, which he did with great difficulty because the ceiling was too close. I put the basket on its side to make it easier for him and it soon became Puck’s second favorite napping spot (Just behind the back of the couch).

Chris would also lie in the basket sometimes but I think he did it just to take it away from Puck.

Now Frankie has discovered it and he is in that basket quite often. So much so that I am worried that Puck will soon lose interest in it.

As I was in the middle of writing this post, Rose called me into the living room to help her with something. While I was helping her, Puck started pawing my back, indicating that he wanted to get on my shoulders (something he copied from Chris) so I picked him up and eventually walked over to the China cabinet thinking he might want to hop into his basket. It was then that I noticed it was occupied. I stood there for a minute to see if Puck would try to take back his spot but he was not interested in ousting Frankie. Perhaps I should start a new blog called “Good Cat Puck.”

I’m sure a lot of readers have pets that learn behaviors from other pets. If you would like to share I would love to hear about it.

The Return of Our Feathered Friend

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Our Egret returned last weekend looking for food. I tried giving him a little ham and Puck managed to slip past me and ran outside. He just ignored the big bird and ran off to do his own thing. I decided to let Chris out too but Frankie had to stay in after what he did on his first foray outside. Both cats seemed to not be interested in the egret and the egret seemed to not be afraid that two cats were running around the yard.

I felt bad that Frankie did not get to participate. We talked about letting him out today. I said it would probably be okay if Rose stayed and helped watch him but she was skeptical so only Chris got to spend some time outside, and that was only because he escaped twice while I was coming through the door.

Photo Friday: Frankie’s First Foray Outside

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The weather was so beautiful last weekend that I decided to let Chris and Puck outside for a little exercise. I felt bad about leaving Frankie inside but I was not sure about what he would do once outside. I also did not feel comfortable trying to watch three cats at once.

C’mon Puck. What are you waiting for?

I see you having fun out there!

Okay! Enough pictures already!

Looks like this isn’t a good time to ask for hot dogs.

Our cat Frankie watching Chris and Puck from inside

What about me?

Chris: Puck. I think I found a way in. Puck: What do you want to get in for? Chris: Oh yeah, you got a point.

C’mon guys, let me out.

After a few minutes, Rose came out and said I should let Frankie out too. I told her I would be happy to but I needed her help to watch them. So Rose agreed to stay outside and help babysit.

We opened the door to let Frankie out but he was hesitant at first.

Okay Frankie. You can play with us if you want to,

Come on Frankie. It’s great out here.

Are you sure it is safe?

Okay, here I go.

I’m outside! This is great!

There’s so much to do. Where do I start?

I think this is where work is done. I don’t want to go in there.

Oh Frankie! You need to do a better job cleaning your ears.

No, this isn’t catnip.

After doing a little exploring close to home, Frankie decided to venture further away. This is when I had to stop taking pictures and pay attention. I put myself between him and the far side of the yard, hoping to encourage him to turn around. It didn’t work. He slipped past me and started heading for the other side of the property.

Our building has six units. We live on the side closest to the marina and that is the side I am familiar with. There is a fence and a gate on each side but I only ever use the one side so I don’t really know what is on the other side. On our side there is a wall that separates the Marina from our property. My only concern there is that Chris will crawl under the gate (which he has done), but even then he has a long way to go to get out of my sight. We also have a padlock on the gate that can be a bit of a hassle because the numbers are hard to read for an old guy like me.

The other side borders a large condo building and, until Frankie started heading toward it, I never noticed the fence had gaps big enough for a cat to walk through. I yelled to Rose that I needed her help but she was not there. She went inside the house.

Frankie did just what I thought he was going to do. He ran straight to the fence and walked right through. I thought about running back into the house to tell Rose I needed help but instead I headed for the gate to walk around the fence. I forgot about the lock so I had to fumble with the combination. that is when I learned that the numbers were different on that padlock.

I quickly ran back to the house, told Rose I needed help and headed out the front door. I hurried back over to the condo property to look for Frankie. When I got there I saw him between cars and when I approached he walked through the fence to our side. This is exactly what Chris would do to me at our last Condo (see here – coincidently, if you follow this link and click on the second photo and enlarge it, you can see our current home).

I walked all the way back around to our side only to see him walk through the fence again. To casual observer, this must have seemed funny, but I was not amused. So back around I went only to have him disappear through the fence again. This time Rose scooped him up and put an end to the games. I have a feeling that outside time just got more difficult.

Photo Friday: For The Birds

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When we moved into our current home in June, there was an egret that would come by every day and hang out by our back door waiting for us to feed him. We assumed the woman that lived there before us would feed him everyday and he came to expect it. I did not really want to continue the tradition but I felt like we should wean him off the handouts. Unfortunately we had no meat to give him other than cat food so I put some out for him but he was not very interested. Eventually he went away but then suddenly showed up at our door the other evening.

All the cats were on the patio, interested in what this bird was doing so close to their space. We only had sliced ham for him so I tore a piece into smaller pieces and threw them to him. He gobbled those up quickly and stuck around begging for more.

Rose gave me another piece so I did the same thing. This time Puck ran out the door and chased the bird back but he didn’t leave the yard. I then had to spend the next ten minutes chasing Puck back and forth until Rose finally opened the door and I was able to corral him back onto the patio.

Frankie’s Favorite Place

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Last week Frankie discovered how to get from the house to the patio using the cat door. He has loved the patio since we first introduced him to it and suddenly he could go out there whenever he wanted to. The problem was, he apparently didn’t realize that the cat door worked in both directions.

We came home after work one evening to find Frankie at the door wanting to come in. I don’t know how long he was out there but I did know he needed to learn how to get into the house before we left for work the next day. I tried a couple of times to put him in front of the cat door and open it so he could see it worked both ways but he would not pay attention. He just walked away like he was bored. Finally I picked him up and gently shoved him through the door. I felt bad doing it but I did not want him to go on the patio and then not be able to get back inside where his food and litter is.

Since then he goes out and comes back in at will. He likes lying on the chair and watching the goings on of the outside world but he does not like Chris out there bothering him.

Fortunately, he discovered a place where he can be relatively free of other annoying cats (or should I say cat?) and still have a great view of outside.

Now, if we haven’t seen Frankie for a while, we have a good idea where to look first.

Bad Cat Chris

The Baddest Cat You'll Ever Love