Rose couldn’t sleep so she got up at 2 a.m. yesterday morning and found Frankie sleeping in Chris’s bed. She texted me this photo.
It was taken with an iPhone so the quality is not great but I don’t recall ever seeing Frankie in this bed so I thought it was worth sharing.
During my last volunteer shift at the shelter, one of the kittens fell asleep on my lap.
I had other cats to visit so I couldn’t stay there all day but I was also hesitant to move and wake him up. Since I had already been in that pod for quite some time before he fell asleep, I decided to let him sleep for five more minutes but then I had to move on.
Since my wife is away and since I just clipped Chris’s claws, I decided to let the cats sleep with me Monday night. Of course, that was a mistake. I should have known.
Chris started bothering me sometime before 3 AM. I suppose I should have been grateful that he lasted that long. If I was smart, I would have picked him up and put him out of the bedroom but I was just too tired to get up. He continued bothering me, on and off, (mostly on) until sometime after 5 a.m. when I decided that I had enough and I got out of bed.
I fed them breakfast, made coffee, and did a couple of other things and then went back in the bedroom and saw this.
I guess it was mission accomplished so no longer need to stay awake.
My wife left for Virgina on Tuesday Morning for a work trip. I thought it would be a good time to set up my security camera so that you can better understand why we have been closing Chris out of the bedroom all these years. The camera only records when it detects movement. Even so, it recorded over 25 minutes of video. I was able to cut it down a little but it is still long. I should have quadrupled the speed during processing but I just now thought of that. I think after a few minutes you will get the idea.
There is a time stamp on the video so you can see what time it was for each disturbance. Chris was actually pretty good and didn’t start with his shenanigans until almost 1:00 a.m. It’s hard to see but he likes digging his claws into my skin which is what is most disturbing.
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.
Saturday night, after arriving at our West Virginia home, we decided to leave our bedroom door open even though we knew that was a bad idea. We did it because we wanted the cats to feel comfortable before locking them out of the bedroom. Of course, Chris disturbed my sleep all night long.
Sunday we decided that we needed our sleep so we closed our bedroom door and went to bed. At about 11:00 we were awakened by Chris making an awful howling sound. It sounded so awful I had to get up to see what was wrong with him.
The sound came from the bedroom across and down the hall that I use for my office. My wife left the light on in the bathroom across the hall from my office and closed the door most of the way. She feels the cats need light even though they can practically see in the dark.
Nevertheless, it provided barely enough light for me to see what was going on. Frankie was on the floor looking at Chris and Chris was on the middle part of the cat perch. I thought the two were fighting but then I realized Chris was looking out the window. I walked into the room to see what Chris was looking at. I was surprised to see a cat on the roof looking back at me. No wonder Chris was howling. I tapped on the window and the cat ran away and I went back to bed.
At 4:00 a.m. Chris jumped on the bed and lied on top my head. Not above my head, on top of it. I moved him and saw he had somehow figured out how to open the door. Maybe someday I will get a full night’s sleep. Maybe.
This is Frankie who sometimes likes to sleep curled up like a millipede.
Who else has a cat that sleeps like this?
I have a shelf on my bookcase near where I work reserved for cats. For the most part, it is reserved for Floki because he is the only cat I ever see on it.
Regular readers know that no cat is allowed to sleep with us because of Chris’s bad behavior. Since we have no litter box in the bedroom, we can’t close Chris out while allowing Frankie and Floki to stay in the room with us. It also wouldn’t be nice to make Chris stay by himself all night.
That changed when Chris got sick. Chris had a cold for about a week and just when the sneezing died down the puking started. That was around the Friday before last. Because he wasn’t feeling well, we thought it would be nice to leave the door open for him. Plus we could keep an eye on him somewhat. Even though we would be sleeping, we would probably wake up if he started puking, which we hoped would not be on our bed. I also didn’t think he would be very annoying while he was sick, which he wasn’t (much).
He went to the vet that Monday and ended up getting eight teeth pulled two days later. He didn’t eat for a day or two and all the while he continued to sleep on our bed. As he improved, so did his annoyance level until I finally had to kick them all out at 4:00 a.m. a few mornings ago.
Tuesday evening I saw Chris puking again. It was the reason I brought Chris to the vet in the first place but the reason for his puking was never discovered. Because of that I became worried about his health and when we were getting ready for bed Tuesday night all three cats were on our bed looking too comfortable to kick out.
I decided to let them stay, which worked out fine until around midnight. That is when Chris decided to lie over my head and dig his nails into my neck and scalp. I put my hand up to hold his paws back and he responded by biting my shoulder. I then moved him to the foot of the bed where he took an interest in Frankie until I fell asleep. Then he started his annoying behavior all over again. I again moved him to the foot of the bed and went back to sleep but the bad behavior continued until 4:00 a.m. when he woke up my wife. She could not go back to sleep after that and got up and took the cats with her so I could sleep.
Needless to say they will not be sleeping with us tonight.
Bad Cat Chris 