Sometimes choosing the right cat toy to play with can be a difficult decision, especially when your two favorites toys, the Turbo Scratcher and Play Tunnel, are next to each other. Floki solved this problem by not deciding and played with both of them at the same time.
Check out what Puck does halfway through the video.
In case you missed it, the toys are on the sofa to keep Puck from pooping there.
To discourage Puck from pooping on the sofa, I put the cat’s tunnel on it, but didn’t expect Floki to suddenly become interested in playing with it.
Naturally, he liked being inside of the tunnel, peeking out the little window…
But he also liked hanging out the end of it.
It is a great place to stare at the ceiling while contemplating life.
A few strings don’t hurt either.
Even tunnel cats can enjoy a little sunshine.
When the fun is all over, the tunnel is a great place to take a nap.
I recently posted about the Catit Senses Treat Maze for Cats but did not have time to edit the remaining video that I had, so here it is. Enjoy.
I am doing a little self promoting here and want to mention the cat calendars I have in my Zazzle store, since they are on sale today. Just look for the discount code near the top of the page. A new year is starting soon and most of you reading this are cat lovers, this would be a great Christmas gift for yourself or another cat lover that you care about.
First, of course, there is the Bad Cat Chris calendar.
This calendar has some of the best photos of Chris from the Bad Cat Chris blog.
Second, there is a calendar from another blog of mine called Just Fur Laughs.
This is filled with funny, captioned animal pictures (memes) that any animal lover would get a kick out of.
Then there is one called “Cats and Kittens.”
This one has some of the cutest pictures of my sister-in-laws cats (with some of our cats thrown in).
The best part is, these are completely customizeable, meaning you can replace some, or all, of the pictures with your own. I did that for my sister-in-law last year and gave her a calendar with 14 photos of just her cats. I thought it was a great way to personalize a gift. You can also check out my Zazzle store here to see all my products, many of them cat-related.
Okay, commercial is over, I now return you to my regular blog.
I started this post last night and saved it to finish this morning. Before I did I read Sammy’s post from One Spoiled Cat. In it, I got the feeling that Sammy would not be with us much longer. I was feeling bad about that when I found out that Easy from Easy Blog had suddenly died. It is a sad news day, and I hope that Easy’s parents, as well as Sammy’s parents, will be okay.
Chris has seemed to mellow out lately and has not been getting into as much trouble as usual. At first, I attributed that to his age and his weight, but I noticed he seemed to be more cautious when jumping down from the bed or whatever else he is on. He also sometimes sits while momentarily holding his paw off the ground. It got me thinking he might be developing arthritis, but at seven and a half years old, he seems too young for that.
It should go without saying that I am very concerned about Chris’s health, as well as the health of all of our cats. Between 2010 and 2013, we lost four cats: Flash, Abbey, Alex, and Tigger. Flash was less than five years old, and the other three were around eight or younger. It is terrible knowing that you have given your beloved pet only half the life that they were capable of.
Since Flash died in 2010, I have learned more and more about cat health. I learned that dry food is bad for them and started feeding them more wet food as well as raw cat food. I now make my own raw cat food that I mix with high-quality canned food, but I still give them some dry food because Chris will only eat a very small amount of wet food before giving it up to one of the other cats. I make sure to only put small amounts of dry food in the bowls so that they will long be empty when wet food time rolls around, but Chris never seems hungry enough to eat the wet food until five minutes after it’s gone, then he is “starving” in front of his empty dry food bowl, giving me that desperate look. I don’t want to starve him, so I give in and put a little dry food in his bowl.
Since Chris is now approaching the eight-year mark, it makes me nervous to see his lack of badness. While I am still worried about him, I am relieved to see him getting into trouble recently.
A few weeks ago, I pulled a box out of the closet to look for something when I heard a crash. I turned around and saw Chris on the top shelf in the closet. I then looked down and saw he had knocked a bunch of greeting cards and other stuff to the ground.
The commotion got the attention of Frankie, who soon joined him in the closet.
Not long after this, Chris was getting into cabinets again.
He started low, but the next time I saw him in there, he moved up a couple of shelves.
Then he was in the cabinet above the refrigerator.
I still worry about Chris, but at least I feel like I can worry just a little less.
Recently, I had to purchase something on Amazon and wanted to add something to my order so the total would be over $49 and qualify for free shipping. I decided to try the Catit Design Senses Treat Maze. It was relatively cheap, not much more than I would have paid for shipping. It is also part of a system of cat toys that all link together, but I just bought the one piece.
It is designed to stimulate your cats while slowing down their ability to eat treats too quickly. I had another toy that did the same thing, but through a different method. It was called Friskies Wobbert Cat Toy Pull and Play. Our cats liked it, and I wrote a post about it here, but it worked best with the Friskies Party Mix. After putting in a healthier treat, like Nature’s Variety Instinct Raw, they mostly ignored it, even though they love the freeze-dried treat by itself. I don’t know. Perhaps that treat has a more subtle smell.
When it arrived, everybody was interested in it before I even opened the box, especially Frankie.
It needed some assembly, but it was designed with men in mind. It was easy enough to figure out without reading the directions.
I had a bag of Instinct Raw Boost Mixers that I put in the top. Not surprisingly, our smartest cat, Chris, was the first one to figure out how it worked, but Floki, our resident kitten pig, was the one most determined to get the treats out. Below is the first video I took after putting it together and adding treats. think it was pretty successful, even though it didn’t capture the full attention of all our cats. In later videos, which I haven’t processed yet, Puck becomes interested in it. Frankie showed interest at first, but gave up after a minute or two. He has not shown much interest after that, but I ran out of treats before giving him a chance to figure it out, so maybe he will like it in the future.
What do you think? Does anybody have this or something like it? How do your cats like it?
Of our four cats, only Chris and Frankie, our two gold cats, go outside. They don’t go out very often, usually only for brief periods during the weekend. Of the two, only Frankie needs to wear a harness and that is because he won’t stay close to home where I can watch him.
Since we moved here a year and a half ago, I have been taking Frankie for a walk, partly to see if he will find his way home. The problem is, and always has been, he usually travels in one direction until we get far away and I have to pick him up and carry him home. The video below is an example of what I go through.
I will say that a week or so after I sot this video, Frankie did manage to circle around and end up back at our house. That was a big milestone.
Last weekend we bought a kitchen utility cart and now it is the favorite spot for all our cat’s. Once the novelty wears off the appeal of it will probably die down, but now, even after a week, it is still popular. I just peeked around the corner to see Frankie sleeping on it.
Ok Puck,we have to defend our newly acquired territory from would-be invaders.
Here’s one now. Just pretend you don’t see him.
And take up as much space as possible.
Puck! I meant space up here!
Sorry Floki. This spot is for adults only.
Ok, you can stay, but first you must go through an initiation.
Floki! Who did you tell about this?
If you want to be up here, Frankie, you have to go through an initiation too.
Whack! Now you are in the club.
Defending my space is exhausting.
One week later…
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.
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.
Bad Cat Chris 