Cat Commotion

Sorry for not posting the Easter & Bluebonnet pics yet - I've been temporarily unplugged. Had to send the computer to an IT guru for a little tlc and defragmenting. I'm currently on Mr. C's work laptop, and I must say it's nice to be laying in bed in my jammies while on the computer. I think we may have to look into this laptop thing a little more closely. Too bad we just got a nice computer desk for our flex room!

Anyway, a little back story on the cat drama. We have two cats, and one is a problem child. I didn't ever anticipate letting either of our cats out on a regular basis because I didn't want them tracking in dirt, but after a few choice 'accidents' he left us by the back door, I finally caved in (see: threw him out and didn't care what happened to him at that point I was so ticked off). We even installed a locking cat door to allow him to go in and out at his leisure in hopes we might be able to do away with a little box (no such luck....just the other morning he came in to use the potty to turn around and run right back outside. sigh.).

The cat door is heavy duty and has a nice locking feature on it with four setting...open in and out, closed in and out, only open out, and only open in. We usually just leave it open at all times....in fact, when we were out of town for Easter, we left it open the whole weekend we were gone. Until now...

A few nights ago we woke up to a the horrific sounds of a cat fight IN OUR BEDROOM! I can not even begin to tell you how terrifying this is to wake up to. Freaking out, I screamed and pulled the covers over my head. Mr. C was a bit more useful. He immediately flipped on the lights and started looking for what happened. Our initial thought was a stray cat had gotten in because we had both heard a cat fight in the back yard about a month ago and run outside to see a dark cat taking off over the fence. Well, after searching high and low for almost an hour, we decided the cats must have been fighting with themselves and separated them, but locked the cat door 'just in case'.

Our problem child had an appointment with the vet the next day for his bi-annual haircut (fluffy cat goes in, a rat comes out). At the vet they noticed a cut on his back paw that was infected and gave him a shot of antibiotics and suggested we keep him in doors for a week or so until it healed. So we ruled to keep the cat door shut for a few more days.

Last night we woke up AGAIN to the horrible sounds of cat fighting, this time coming from the living room. I didn't even get up when Mr. C rolled out of bed to investigate. About five minutes later, though, I was up in a panic when i heard him yell out and then our house alarm go off. I bolted out of bed to find him in our laundry room white as a ghost wiping poo from his foot.

Apparently a stray tom cat had MUSCLED his way past our LOCKED cat door to get at our cat food, left a calling card in our laundry room before getting into an altercation with one of our cats and spraying his face! Mr. C had scared him off when he came in to break up the fight, and when he saw him muscle his way BACK out the (still locked) cat door, he took off after him (not sure why, but it must be a guy thing). Anyway, I guess that's when he set off the alarm, and when he came back in to turn it off, well, that's when he stepped in the poo, and that's when I found him.

Once our heart rates came down out of the 200 range, we spent the next two hours cleaning up disgusting messes, calming the baby back down after all the commotion and boarding up the cat door which now looks beautifully ghettofied just in time for Little C's first birthday party next month. Yippee.

The kicker, the stray cat apparently lives in the storm drain in front of our house (disgusting) and, if you've been following along, was IN OUR ROOM the other night when I had convinced myself it was just our cats fighting. Needless to say, once I got the image in my head of a disgusting storm-drain stinky cat slinking around our room, sleep did not come easy. ::SHIVER:: Even in broad daylight, it still gives me the creeps to think about.

This morning when we were talking about it, we both remarked that as stressed as we were from having a cat break in, can you imagine how those families that have been burglarized feel?? I mean, we did A LOT of research before buying our home and chose a very safe area, but we've had a lot of break-ins lately. Mr. C assures me it is just a sign of the economic times, but it's still incredibly disconcerting. And to all those families that have had their sense of safety and security ripped out from underneath them along with their personal belongings, my heart goes out to you.