Often on my walk with Frankie, we see many squirrels and birds. Sometimes they are close enough to prompt an attempted attack, which is thwarted by the leash or by me running alongside Frankie and making too much noise. More often than not, the birds or squirrels are far enough away to warrant only a curious look.
Here, Frankie is probably hoping the bird will wander into the danger zone.
Our cats are mostly inside only cats but I try to take out Chris and Frankie at least once a week. This usually happens on the weekend because I am too busy with work during the week. By then they are more than ready to get outside. Floki does not go out because I would never get a harness on him and he would probably freak out once outside.
Usually, I put a harness on Frankie and bring him for a walk first. Chris doesn’t need a harness because he is happy to hang around the house, eat grass, and then lie in the sunbeam, or in this case, a partial sunbeam.
I took Frankie for a walk on Saturday. Sometimes he gets very vocal and won’t shut up until I take him out, then he is as quiet as a church mouse.
We started at our next-door neighbor’s house where Frankie had to do a thorough inspection of her bushes. I didn’t want to be standing right in front of her house, so I picked up Frankie and moved him to our side. Just then I heard her car door shut and then watched her drive away. “Okay, Frankie. Smell away.”
From there we walked across the street where we encountered a woman walking a small Yorkie. Surprisingly, the dog wasn’t barking. The woman thought Frankie was very cute and was amazed that he let me put a harness on him. While we were talking, Frankie walked up to the dog, the two of them smelled each other for a few seconds, and then Frankie quickly lost interest and continued walking.
We walked through the grass toward the pool. When we got close to the pool we encountered several people and dogs. To our left was a woman walking a small, white dog who was barking at Frankie. To our right were four people and two dogs in a parked golf cart. The dogs were not small but not huge either. The woman in the driver’s seat was so impressed by a cat walking with a leash and harness that she got out and walked toward Frankie with her phone because she wanted to video him. While she was doing that, Frankie started toward the barking dog.
When Frankie get to within five feet of the dog he stopped and changed directions. I think it was the woman who distracted him because he walked up to her and let her pet him. He then continued toward the golf cart where everyone was ooohing and aaahing. I’m not sure if Frankie liked the attention but he sure was encouraging it. He walked up to the golf cart, stopped and looked at the dogs for a second or two, and then continued on.
After that, he spent a little time rolling on the ground.
He followed that up with some grass-eating.
Finally, it was time to rest and to see how long Dad could put up with standing around waiting.
It occurred to me that if I wasn’t already happily married, and if I didn’t live in an old people’s community, walking a cat would be a great way to meet girls.
Frankie really knows how to make the most of his walks and does not seem to care that I am there waiting for him.
I took Frankie for a walk the other day. As usual, Frankie goes out first because he is the biggest pain about going outside. When we get back, it is then Chris’s turn.
This walk went as it usually does. Frankie smelled some plants, marked a bush, and then settled down in the sun.
We were out for about thirty minutes. During that time Chris was eagerly awaiting our return. Rose said he lied in the dining room window the entire time. Rose sent me the photo below while I was out but I didn’t see it until I returned.
Floki joined Chris but I’m sure he was there to be with Chris and probably didn’t even realize Frankie and I were outside.
When it finally was Chris’s turn to go outside, he did his usual things, lie on the driveway, eat grass, etc. When it was time to go in he did something he has not done since teaching the move to Frankie, he went under my truck to avoid capture.
No matter how old Chris gets, he is still full of surprises.
I took Frankie out for a walk on Wednesday because it was a beautiful day and because he was bothering me to go outside. It’s hard to resist Frankie when he follows me around the house meowing at me.
Shortly after we got outside the community housing salesperson stopped his golf cart to talk to me. I tried to hold Frankie back but he wanted to go, and you can’t hold a cat back like you can a dog. At least not Frankie, anyway. The harness I have has a flaw in the design that allows a cat to escape if he pulls backwards hard enough. Since the harness is so easy to put on, I don’t want to get rid of it so I just try to avoid those situations.
My plan was to pick up Frankie and hold him but that didn’t work so I thought if I put him on the golf cart seat he might stay for at least a minute or two but that made him even more nervous. It occurred to me later that maybe he thought I was giving him away. Since I couldn’t stand around and talk, I told him I would just talk to him later.
We continued on and when we got up near the pool Frankie decided to do some sunbathing. Perhaps he saw people at the pool doing this.
After a while I had to pick him up and bring him home. As usual, he was not happy about this, but it was Chris’s turn to go out.
Chris spent some time enjoying the sun and then, of course, he had to eat a little grass too. When it was time to go in, he got under my truck again but this time far enough to where I couldn’t reach him to pick him up.
This may seem like a Frankie trick but actually Chris invented this years ago.
Since returning from West Virginia, Frankie and Chris have enjoyed much more outside time, although not as much as they would like. Our trips outside usually start with Frankie who gets really excited when he knows, or thinks he knows, when I am getting ready to take him out. My wife has to get him even more excited by saying things like, “Are you going outside, Frankie? Oh boy, you’re going outside!”
Once outside, after the initial excitement wears off, we usually spend time smelling stuff, especially plants.
When the smelling is done it is time to lie in the dirt.
Sometimes he pulls a Harry Houdini on me and starts to slip out of his harness.
When that happens it is usually too risky to try to fix it “in the field” so I will pick him up and carry him home while he hisses at me the whole way there. Usually, by that time we already had a good walk and Chris is at home waiting for his turn.
The first thing Chris does when he gets outside is do the “happy roll.” This is something I never see him do inside.
He then does a little exploring but he usually stays close to home which is why he doesn’t need a harness, although I still need to watch him because he sometimes wanders away.
Eventually he finds some grass to munch on.
After that he sometimes lies down for a few minutes and is then ready to go inside. I don’t have to carry him home while being hissed at.
Anyone else have inside cats that go out?
Frankie and I went for a nice walk the other day. The first thing Frankie needed to do was get a good sniff on a nearby car.
The cat that he met on a previous walk may have left him a message there.
It was a warm day so we needed to stop in the shade for a while.
Then it was on to the traditional roll in the dirt.
And then more rolling in the dirt.
Finally we stopped to rest on some nice, comfortable concrete.
On a side note, I forgot to mention that Frankie’s paw improved on it’s own after he hurt it a couple of weeks ago. By the next day he was walking fine. I still see him holding it up in the air sometimes though. I don’t know if it bothers him or if that is just something he does. I will have to watch him more closely.
Frankie goes stir-crazy if he is stuck in the house too long. It was probably over a week since I took him for a walk and maybe almost that long since he last escaped so he was driving me crazy with his crying and scratching at the door. I couldn’t take it anymore so, even though I was busy, I got his harness and we went outside.
I hope everyone reading this is doing well and I hope if you are stuck at home you are not going stir-crazy like Frankie.
Frankie escaped yesterday again which has become highly annoying, especially since I just took him for a walk the day before. It happened as I was leaving to go to the store so I couldn’t leave until I got him back in the house.
The first thing he did when I tried to catch him was run across the street and under a vehicle that was parked there. I tried, unsuccessfully, to coax him out, or at least get him close enough to pull him out, but he is too smart for that.
After a while he became distracted with a lizard, which he caught and headed for home with it. I thought he wanted to bring it in the house but he went under my car with it instead.
Cats like to play with their prey so he let it go and recaptured it a couple of times before the lizard came out from under the car enough for me to catch it. I then moved it back a foot or two and let it go. I was hoping Frankie would come out to get it but both stayed motionless. That is when I gave the lizard a little push to get him moving which also got Frankie moving. He ran out from under the car into my waiting arms.
Now that, my friends, is how you catch a cat.
Bad Cat Chris 