Saturday night Chris whinned and cryed and scratched at the bedroom door until finally I opened the door and let him in. He was surprisingly good. He did bother me a little but it was not untill almost 6 a.m. before he became unbearable and by then the goal of lasting an entire night in the bedroom had been accomplished.
The above photo is from 2019 but I think it illustrates how difficult Chris can be. The next photo is poor quality but it too shows what a pain Chris can be, literally.
I do not know if Chris sleeping with us will become a habit but I hope he can learn to behave himself.
Sunday night, shortly after we went to bed, Chris started his usual crying and scratching at the bedroom door. This time was worse than usual and he would not stop. After about a half hour I gave up and, over the protests of my wife, let him in.
He actually did pretty well. He bothered me a little but I put him down at my side, away from my face, and he stayed there for a long time. I think he bothered me one more time but I again put him down and he again stayed.
Some time between 3 and 4 a.m. my wife got up and said she couldn’t sleep because of Chris. “He’s behaving,” I said. “How is he keeping you awake?”
“You guys are hogging the sheets and taking up the entire bed,” she said before getting up and going downstairs.
My mind went back to the time before Chris when four to five cats would sleep on the bed next to me and that didn’t cause a problem for Rose. On top of that, I’m pretty sure we had a queen bed back then instead of the king we have now.
Rose came back to bed around 4:45 and about five minutes later Chris started bothering me but this time I could not get him to stop. If it was 5 a.m. I would have considered it too late to go back to sleep and got up. That would have meant that Chris made it through an entire night in our room. Instead, I put him out and closed the door ten minutes shy of the goal.
I managed to sleep almost an additional hour before Chris started scratching and howling at the door. Some day I will get eight hours of sleep. Perhaps when we take our vacation a year from now.
Since moving here to West Virginia, Chris has become quite the pain at night. Not that he wasn’t before but now he is worse. Chris is too annoying to allow in our room at night so we close all the cats out of our bedroom when we go to bed. At our Florida home, Chris learned to accept this and was usually quiet until around 4 a.m. or so. Here, he is quite different.
I have water and food bowls upstairs and downstairs for the cats. The food is usually empty except for a small amount a few times a day. I save one of those times for bedtime and I draw Chris out of the room with kibble and then close the bedroom door and go to bed.
The quiet lasts until Chris is done eating and then there is a constant scratching at the door and crying. The cry is almost a howl and it sound so sad and pathetic, as well as annoying, that I feel like I need to let him in, if only for a little while.
So lately I look at it like sleep training. When he starts his nails in the face routine I move him down to my feet. Sometimes that works for an hour or two and sometimes he is back in fifteen seconds. Never had I made it through the night with Chris. Sometime between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. I have to get up and put him out the door along with any other cat in the room.
I think what irks me the most is once Rose and I are awake and up for the day, that is when Chris decides to go to sleep on our bed.
I feel like sleep training will never work so I should probably give up and just ignore him, but it is equally difficult to sleep with him out there making all that noise. Plus, he is ruining the door.
Our cats are finally starting to enjoy our catio after the interruption of our dog visitors. It took Floki until Wednesday but once out, he loved it.
Frankie greets Floki
Frankie goes out more often than Chris or Floki, not because he likes it more but because he is the one most likely to be hanging out near the back door when somebody goes outside.
The weather is starting to cool down here and I expect we will be outside more often which means the cats will be outside more often too. Its a win win.
As a side note, we had people over for dinner yesterday and later that evening we were sitting on the catio and a very cut grey kitten came up on the step and peeked in through the screen door. I believe I saw another cat walk by before I saw that kitten but it was dark. I put my hand against the screen and he smelled me and then walked over to the edge of the catio. I wanted to go get treats for him but considering our limited time here it is not wise to get them dependent on us. Fortunately, our cats were not on the catio at the time.
I was at our local riverfront park taking photos yesterday morning. As I was downloading them into the computer, I noticed Frankie next to me soaking up the sun and decided to photograph him with my Canon, which I have not used much since moving.
There was so much contrast between Frankie’s bright fur and the black background that I thought it was different enough to be good. What do you think?
I mentioned yesterday that Floki has been napping with Frankie lately. I noticed him back with Chris yesterday afternoon so I think things are starting to get back to normal.
Later, while we were all downstairs watching TV, I noticed this:
I guess hanging out with both Chris and Frankie might become the new normal for Floki. There is nothing wrong with that.
As long as we have had Floki the rule of thumb has been Chris for napping and Frankie for playing but the rules have changed. Lately I have been seeing Floki napping with Frankie.
Perhaps moving to a new home turned everything upside down. I guess we will see if this continues.
I got out of the shower yesterday and saw Chris on the floor waiting for me. As I dried myself Chris jumped on the toilet and then on the sink. He looked like he wanted to jump on my shoulders, just like the old days, so I put my towel over my shoulders and let him.
There is something else Chris did in the old days. He would use me as a springboard to get to a higher place. That thought didn’t occur to me until two seconds after he jumped on my shoulders and then jumped up to the top of the linen closet.
By then Floki was in the bathroom. Upon seeing where Chris was he jumped on the sink and started crying at me.
I let him up on my shoulders too.
I thought he would jump up there with Chris but I think he was afraid to try. He stood on his hind legs and had a short conversation with Chris but decided not to join him.
That left me with the problem of getting Chris down. When he was young he could jump down but now he is old and heavy so I didn’t want to risk him getting hurt.
I finished getting dressed and went downstairs and got the stepladder. I then pulled Chris off the shelf, which he was not happy about.
I am glad Chris still has some of that adventurous spirit in him, despite his age and weight. It gives me hope for my future.
Bad Cat Chris 