Scat Cat

The sun shone today and it felt like spring! Where I have been snow-blowing all winter, the snow has melted, while the rest of the property is still covered in a foot of white. I'm feeling good about putting the snow blower away, but on the downside, the driveway is wet mucky mud in most places along with the lovely addition of cat poo.

Yes. The joy of melting snow reveals the loveliness of mushy cat scat, dispersed wherever our fur balls felt was a convenient place in the moment, considering their world had no boundaries in acres of whiteness... all... winter... long.

Now, we sought the necessity of getting cats due to the abundance of rodents living in the wilderness. They have done their part in keeping this less desirable species at bay. Last summer and fall they completed their "disposals," from their appreciated task, else where. THEN winter came.

Not only this, but our two cats decided to team up and start attacking our neighbors' beloved pet cat. As many statistics would show, two tend to be stronger than one, resulting in the suffering of our friends' feline. We had to come up with a solution: Lock the cats in their shed at night (as they would always attack in the wee hours of the morning).

Trying to locate two outdoor animals on your command and put them in a shed - where they DON'T want to be for 9 hours, is NO easy task. However, I succeeded most nights with the luring of cheese or chicken.

I've heard of mice Houdini's, but never cats; however, you have not met ours. After a successful week of locking them up, I would find them at the door staring at me in the morning. After 3 days of escapes, I finally figured out that they were climbing the walls and squeezing through the roof joists through the holes between the roof and walls. This I discovered at 2 in the morning in my nightgown and Sorel's. So, in my haste, I plugged the wholes with pieces of wood, to only find in the morning the cats grew hands and moved the wood enough to still get through.

So we got them neutered.

Now with hammer and nails in hand, I covered the holes and successfully got them in the shed all night for a hole week, before the cats figured out that staying out of sight and not coming when called, even for cheese, results in not being locked up. We're hoping that the neutering works and they stay away from the neighbors.

One benefit of locking them in the shed? They learned to use a litter box. Here's hoping they enjoy it more than snow, so next year we won't have a poo covered driveway and yard.

Pooper scooper anyone?