Good morning, everyone. I hope your day is going as good as Frankie’s. He started out this morning rolling around on the dining room table. Actually, he started by knocking my coffee off the table, but the point is, he was a happy kitty.
That was followed by a nice walk where he got to see at least four dogs and a squirrel.
It doesn’t get much better than that.
Frankie sometimes likes to go far on his walks. I almost always pick him up and carry him home before we get too far away because I don’t want to have to carry him too far. Earlier this year I let him go to see how far he would walk. I did eventually encourage him to turn left after we reached the farthest point he has ever gone, but I did not pick him up or force him in that direction. Eventually, we walked a very large loop and ended up back home.
Saturday morning we went out for one of the earliest walks ever. I don’t remember the time exactly but I think it was around 6:45. It was about a half hour before sunrise.
You can see the artificial light from the street lamps.
Since it was not hot outside yet I let Frankie take me on another long walk. This time we did a large loop in the other direction. By the time the sun came up, he was ready to “stop.”
But we pressed on and made our way to one of the main streets where Frankie turned left toward home. When we got close, Frankie saw an old friend.
Frankie was interested but she ran off in the other direction. Probably because I was there.
After the first long walk, I checked Google Maps and it said we walked eight-tenths of a mile. I drew both walks on a map and found them to be similar distances.
The blue path was the first long walk and the green path was from Saturday. I looked up how far an average domestic cat travels and found one website that says a housecat will travel between a few dozen feet to a little over a half mile per day. A feral cat will travel farther. Since Frankie walked almost a mile, twice, in about forty-five minutes, I would say he is not an average housecat.
Our neighborhood is having a community yard sale today. We wanted to get rid of stuff and planned to participate but after a long, hard day of work yesterday I told Rose I just wanted to relax and skip the yard sale. I said we could just donate everything and Rose agreed.
Early this morning I was awakened by a loud noise. It sounded like someone was dragging something heavy across the floor. A few minutes later Rose woke me up and said, “I changed my mind, we have too much (stuff) that we need to get rid of. We need to move our cars before all the spots are gone.” I looked at the clock. It was 5 a.m. Ugh!
I hurt my back a few days ago so moving everything outside was a bit of a struggle. Once everything was outside and my chores were done I decided to take Frankie for a walk. We left the house at 6:40, which is probably the earliest we ever went for a walk.
We were out for almost a half hour and ended up about a block from home. I didn’t want to go further because I almost always have to carry him home. So I picked him up and headed home. It was a struggle because not only was my back hurting, I developed a pain in my leg because of the way I was walking with my back pain. It was a struggle getting home and it didn’t help that Frankie was struggling and hissing for half the walk.
We are now sitting outside and Frankie is keeping watch at the window.
Sunday afternoon I was bringing a handful of laundry outside to the washing machine in our shed. I had just fed the cats and saw Frankie in the kitchen with his head in the food bowl. I figured it was safe to open the door, which I did quickly, and turned around to walk out backward so I could catch Frankie if he tried to get out. I obviously did it wrong because there was a second between when I cracked the door open and when I was turned around enough to see Frankie’s tail wiz past me.
He immediately went under a vehicle so I couldn’t catch him.
I talked to him nicely and managed to coax him out a bit.
I should have tried to grab him then but I worried if I missed I would never catch him. Instead, I had an idea. I went back into the house and grabbed his harness. When I got close, I pulled it apart. He knows that the sound of the velcro means he is going for a walk so he came out and let me put it on. Unfortunately, I was rushed and put it on upside down. In the process of trying to reverse it, I nearly freaked him out a little. Before he got too nervous I turned it around and soon we were walking.
We did some sitting too.
We made our way to the clubhouse where I think a bingo game just ended. There was an old lady in a car with the window down marveling at a cat on a leash. I talked to her for a minute but Frankie was interested in the door that was propped open. He stuck his head inside to the delight of another two older ladies.
Eventually, we made it back relatively close to home, perhaps half a block. Frankie decided to take a rest in someone’s yard.
I let him stay for a short time but since he was literally against someone’s house I decided to pick him up and bring him home before we got yelled at.
Here is Frankie and I last week. I took him for a walk as the weather started getting cold. If I waited any longer it would have been too cold for me.
Here is Frankie taking a break on a recent walk.
“Walk” is probably the wrong word to use when taking a cat out because they spend much more time investigating smells or just resting while enjoying the great outdoors.
I want to first thank everyone who wished me well during my Covid adventure. My wife and I are fine now and I went back to work yesterday.
While I was out sick, Frankie hounded me to take him outside. I finally gave in and took him out on Sunday. It is amazing how loud he is until that door opens and then not a peep.
Once we got outside, he first had to inspect Rose’s car.
We then walked around the neighborhood, stopping at every plant that smelled interesting.
When it was Chris’s turn to go outside he did his usual happy roll.
It didn’t take him long after that to find the catnip plant that I am growing.
Now that he knows it is there he will probably make a beeline for it next time he goes outside.
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.
Frankie was being quite the pest yesterday and Rose asked me to put some food down for the cats, but I knew it wasn’t food he was looking for. I put my shoes on and announced that I was going to take Frankie for a walk. As I was heading into the bedroom, Rose was hyping Frankie up by loudly saying, “Are you gonna go outside, Frankie? Are you gonna go outside?” This, of course, got Frankie all excited and he followed me into the bedroom, meowing up a storm. When I pulled the harness out of my drawer, he really got excited.
As soon as Frankie gets outside the excitement goes away and he becomes very focused. After taking time to smell the air we walked across the street and stopped to eat some grass, or whatever this is.
We then found a nice patch of ground to stretch out and get some sun.
Then a little shade was in order.
I stood there for a long time waiting for Frankie to decide what he wanted to do. To my surprise, he fell asleep.
I hated to wake him up but I couldn’t just stand there in the sun and wait for his nap to be over. I knelt down and very gently petted him. That woke him up and he hissed at me and scratched my hand, making it bleed in three places.
I then picked him up and brought him home. He had been out for about forty-five minutes and Chris was home waiting for his turn. Surprisingly, Frankie let me carry him home without giving me a hard time.
When we got home, I let Chris out and stayed with him. He decided to eat some grass as soon as he got outside.
He then spent some time in the sun.
After fifteen minutes I decided that I should go in and wash the cut on my hand. I picked Chris up and he decided to turn around as I was lifting him up. I think he planned on climbing onto my shoulders but he just ended up putting a gash in my stomach. Well, at least I was going in to clean one wound so what’s one more?
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.
Bad Cat Chris 