Frankie and Puck used to quit eating their food early to steal Chris’s food. Now, Floki is giving them a taste of their own medicine. Check out the video to see what an ordeal feeding time is around here. Frankie was sick when this was recorded so it is even worse now that he is better.
Since we hadn’t spent enough money on Frankie at the vet, we decided to bring Floki there on Friday. He had an 8 a.m. appointment, which gave me enough time to go there with Rose before I had to leave for work.
He needed to get the second in a three-part series of core vaccinations (tune in again in three weeks for the exciting conclusion). I’m not a big fan of vaccinations for indoor cats because of all the bad side effects that I have read about, but I will accept these. However, after the third set, that’s it. No more.
I saw in interesting video this morning that talked about vaccination being good for life in most cases (although I only made it through the first twenty minutes). Essentially, annual booster shots are not only unnecessary, they add to your pet’s toxic load. The vet being interviewed, Dr. Ronald Schultz, said you should wait a minimum of 3-4 years, if ever, to get a booster shot, unless, of course, you worry about local antiquated regulations (those are my words).
When we got to the vet Rose noticed a sign that said, “Dogs will accept you as boss, cats want to see your resume.” How true is that?
I felt bad that Floki was shut in the carrier, so I let him out in the waiting room. Once out, he climbed on my shoulders, which is something he has never done before. When they called us into the examination room, I just carried him in there on my shoulders.
He stuck with me for a long time. I assumed he would be ready to go exploring. He is a kitten after all. If that was Chris, he would be exploring every nook and cranny of that room.
The vet tech came in and looked Floki over, which he was not happy about, before taking him in the back where they have their secret laboratory. When she brought him back, he was up on my shoulders again.
Rose and I were both away at work the rest of the day and as soon as I got home, we had to leave again to meet Rose’s sister and her family for dinner. It was her last day here before returning to Massachusetts.
When we finally got home around 9 p.m., Rose wanted to sit down with Floki on her lap, but Floki wasn’t interested. In fact, he didn’t look well. I have heard that vaccines could cause some problems so we hoped that he would be better after a good night’s sleep, but this morning he still seemed lethargic.
Normally, I feed the cats in the morning, but Rose couldn’t sleep and got up early and fed them. I didn’t know it until later, but she opened up another can of food because Floki was eating like a pig.
About 9:30 this morning, Floki’s vet’s office called, and I said he has been a bit lethargic. She asked if he ate, and I told her he had. She then put me on hold and came back and said the vet would like to see him to check his temperature. I didn’t want to spend another $100 to have his temperature checked so I said I would talk to my wife. She then told me about how much Floki ate this morning, so I called the vet back and said that he was eating fine, and I was going to keep him home unless he got worse.
Now all I can do is hope he doesn’t get worse.
I couldn’t decide which one of these photos of Floki and Chris I like better. I like the first one because Floki has his tongue sticking out and it clearly looks like something is about to happen.
I also like the second one because of the apparent smile on Floki’s face.
What do you think?
Here’s Flokie yesterday morning after he took over my chair. Rose keeps it covered because this is common.
It took me a while to process the pictures and videos I took the day we adopted our kitten, Floki. This was his first evening at our house. He decided that this pillow was something interesting to play with. Wait until he’s a teenager. Then he will expect expensive toys.
When we first adopted Floki, the first thing he did was find this rope toy to play with. Kittens are just so fun to watch. Who needs television?
This picture was taken the day we adopted our kitten, Floki. I think they were discussing how to take him down when they fell asleep.
At this point I think I could write a book about adopting our latest kitten. Instead, I just posted the related links at the bottom of this post so if you have missed what is going on, and if you have a bunch of free time, you can catch up.
Our last episode ended up with our heroes trying to rescue a kitten from the dreaded carrier. By “rescue” I mean they hissed and whacked at him, especially Frankie, but the kitten endured and seemed to be having a good time exploring the house. Whenever Frankie would approach him in a threatening manner, the kitten would hide under the sofa or wherever he would fit and Frankie would not. Once the danger passed, he was out running around again.
Once things settled down a little, I opened a can of cat food and split it in fourths. Chris never eats much of his wet food and this time Frankie didn’t eat much either. The kitten, however, ate like a pig. I had to keep adding food to his plate.
Later that evening we sat down and watched a little television. The kitten was pretty busy since we brought him home and we wanted him to take a nap so Rose held him on her lap for a while.
That calmed him down but sleeping was not on the agenda.
He then found his way to my lap where he dosed off at 9:30. At 9:31 he was awake and ready for the day. That lasted until 10:00 when he fell asleep again… for five full minutes.
We went to bed sometime after 11:00. At this point the kitten had been awake for at least 12 hours straight, minus six minutes. We didn’t want to close our bedroom door and “throw him to the wolves.” so to speak, so he slept on the bed with us. Rose was worried about squishing him in the night but he survived.
The following evening we had to think of a name for him. Rose and I were both reading through seperate lists of cat names but nothing sounded right. Finally I said “Rollo” from the show Vikings. I had a new appreciation for the character when I discovered that he was an ancestor of mine (I also learned he probably never even met Ragnar). Rollo seemed like a great name for a cat but another character from the show, Floki, seemed even better. So Floki it is.
Today the cats are still jealous of Floki but nobody is fighting with him except for the occasional hiss and whack. Rose worked from home the last two days but today they will be without supervision all day. Let’s hope the peace lasts.
Related Posts:
I felt a little bad Sunday after we went up to my sister-in-law’s vet’s office to look at kittens that needed a home and then left without one (If you didn’t read my last post you can find it here). Rose felt bad too and called her sister and asked about seeing the second male Siamese kitten.
The two cats were being fostered and Felice chose the one she thought was more friendly and brought that one in to be fixed. Rose wanted to see the other one so the foster parent agreed to meet us with the other kitten at the animal hospital, where the first kitten was still staying,
When she arrived, Felice put a ribbon around the neck of the fixed cat so we wouldn’t confuse them and then took both kittens out. The big gold cat was there to greet us again and was a little bit like Baby Huey.
After checking out both kittens, Rose came to realize that the first kitten we saw was the better choice and he was not sickly like she first thought. It was like she was seeing him for the first time and was convinced he was the one, so we put him in the carrier and headed home after briefly considering taking his brother too. Of course, we knew we were pushing the limit with four cats, especially since we are only allowed two.
On the way out we had to pass by this scene, which was very hard to do.
We were happy to hear that this girl’s potential adopter is not as bad as we thought. While she will be an outside cat, we were told that she will be living on a farm with other outside cats that are well taken care of. Apparently, there is a part of the barn that is set up for them. I sometimes think Frankie might be happier living in a place like that where he can come and go as he pleases. I then see him lying upside-down on our bed and I think maybe not.
The kitten cried almost all the way home, and it was a long trip. I heard Siamese cats are very vocal and this confirms it.
I thought introducing a kitten would be less stressful for our cats because kittens are not a threat. I noticed when we introduced Puck, a kitten, Chris was happy to have him but when we got Frankie, an adult cat, Chris was not happy about that.
This time Chris and Puck did a little growling at the kitten but were mostly tolerant. Frankie, however, wanted the kitten gone. He spent his time hissing at him and trying to whack him. Fortunately, the kitten was small enough to get into places where Frankie couldn’t reach him.
Floki and Chris
I wanted to tell the story in one post but preparing the pictures and videos is time-consuming, and I have very little spare time these days. I will finish this tomorrow, hopefully. I will say that as I write this, Frankie is mostly over being mean to the kitten but he is still jealous and needs attention.
Yesterday, we went to visit my sister-in-law and her husband, Felice and Jeff, for the fourth of July, even though it was the third. After we settled in for a bit and met the little gold kitten that they decided to adopt, we took a short ride to the vet’s office where Felice works. That is where the two cats were that needed a home.
We first went to an examination room that held the female kitten that needed a home. Her two brothers were in there also and all three of them were very cute and playful. The female had unique markings. She had sprinkles of gold but she wasn’t technically a Calico or Tortie. I don’t know exactly how that works but Felice says in both cases they have black patches, which this kitten doesn’t have. Wikipedia does mention a “Tortie-Tabby” or “Torbie” which is what this kitten might be.
Is she a “Torbie?”
Next we visited the Siamese kitten. This one was a bit shy at first but warmed up very quickly and had a nice loud purr. Rose was a bit disappointed in him for some reason. She said he looked sickly and she noticed he wasn’t the same kitten that she saw in the photograph. I didn’t think he was sickly. In fact, he seemed somewhat energetic.
I didn’t know this then but there were actually two Siamese kittens that needed a home. They were brothers that were left in a carrier at Wal-Mart on Memorial Day when they were about six weeks old. Also in the carrier were three other kittens from a different litter that were about eight weeks old. Felice picked the one that seemed the friendliest and brought it to her work to have him fixed, just in case we decided to take him home.
After I shot the above video, we put the kitten on a table where a very overweight gold cat with bent whiskers was hanging out looking for attention.
This cat was extremely friendly and we considered adopting him but Felice said he likes kittens but he does not get along with adult cats. We joked that he eats them, which was not very nice (even though we laughed).
We decided to think about it and we went back to Felice’s house and talked while her husband, Jeff, made his famous chicken barbecue.
While we were waiting, the gold kitten was out playing and he really seemed to take to me. I was petting his belly and he was “fighting” my hand. He then lied on my lap and purred and purred and purred. I was thinking about what a couple of commentators said on my last post. They said “let the kitten choose you,” or something similar. It seemed this kitten was choosing us but Felice and Jeff already chose to adopt him and wouldn’t give him up. In truth, I couldn’t blame them.
Rose decided she didn’t want to settle for a kitten she wasn’t sure about and I suggested that we go back and look at them both one more time. It was agreed that we would do that but when it was time to go, Rose’s mom was not feeling good and wanted to go home right away so she could “take a pill.” So that was the end of that, but we did pay the $60 for the kitten’s vet bill. it was the least we could do for leaving without a kitten.
If you have made it this far, I will tell you there is more to this story, so check back again soon.
Bad Cat Chris 