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....like how to use power tools.
see, i live in coyote country - or i guess more properly, coyote suburbia, where cats are a featured item on the coyote's menu. so the free and easy lifestyle of the cats i grew up with, in and out and staying out all night whenever they please is not one i can really permit.
now, i had two cats before the kittens. the first cat, jennie baldrin, adopted me, and i wasn't sure for a while whether she was just visiting, or needed a home, or what, so i was reluctant to keep her shut up in the house (plus, she was clearly used to being out at night, so i figured she was experienced in dealing with coyotes). but she started insisting on staying in when i went to work, so i decided, in case she really did belong to someone else, that i should put in a cat door. so i got a simple flap-type door that fit into a panel that fit into my sliding glass door (nifty system, actually). it did have a panel you could slide over the flap, in the event you needed to keep the cat on one side of the door or the other, but for 5 years, that was all i had.
i left it in place when i adopted the second cat, munchkin, except for using the panel at night, so munch couldn't go out without my knowing it (this was for the first month or so, until i was sure she knew the neighborhood). in the meantime, jennie had decided that she preferred a single-cat household, and since i was apparently determined to keep that _other_ cat, well, _she_ would find someone else who appreciated her. (as it turns out, she had belonged to someone else, a lovely couple - with three young boys and a husky dog. so she had rather a history of deciding on her own living arrangements. she has moved in with another neighbor, and apparently decided to become an indoor cat.)
ANYWAY - poor munch was lonely by herself, so i adopted angelina kitten. i didn't want to limit munch, since she had been used to going out, but i didn't want angelina running around unsupervised. so i got a magnetic cat door, gave munch a magnet, and set the door up so any cat could come in (in case angelina managed to get out), but only munch could go out. i figured i might give angelina a magnet when she got older...and then one night munch went out and never came back. so i decided that i was no longer going to let cats out at night. (and got fred to keep angelina company...it's a slippery slope)
the magnetic door continued to be a good solution, however. i could let them stay out when i went to work in the morning (they tended to disappear completely when i tried to get them in) - and once they came in they couldn't go out. so all was good...until december.
so i now have _another_ new cat door - not quite as neat a mounting as the last one (plus i realized afterward that there were all kinds of places for air to get through, so now there is foam insulation sort of stuffed all around it)...but hopefully, it will be foolproof. right now the kittens are pretending that it is simply too weird for them to deal with, so i have the door propped open, but they each have gotten through it, so i am about to unprop the door, set the lock, and see how it goes. in the event that this works, i have 3 catdoors available, if anyone wants one.
if it doesn't work, i will have 4 catdoors and two cats up for grabs.
see, i live in coyote country - or i guess more properly, coyote suburbia, where cats are a featured item on the coyote's menu. so the free and easy lifestyle of the cats i grew up with, in and out and staying out all night whenever they please is not one i can really permit.
now, i had two cats before the kittens. the first cat, jennie baldrin, adopted me, and i wasn't sure for a while whether she was just visiting, or needed a home, or what, so i was reluctant to keep her shut up in the house (plus, she was clearly used to being out at night, so i figured she was experienced in dealing with coyotes). but she started insisting on staying in when i went to work, so i decided, in case she really did belong to someone else, that i should put in a cat door. so i got a simple flap-type door that fit into a panel that fit into my sliding glass door (nifty system, actually). it did have a panel you could slide over the flap, in the event you needed to keep the cat on one side of the door or the other, but for 5 years, that was all i had.
i left it in place when i adopted the second cat, munchkin, except for using the panel at night, so munch couldn't go out without my knowing it (this was for the first month or so, until i was sure she knew the neighborhood). in the meantime, jennie had decided that she preferred a single-cat household, and since i was apparently determined to keep that _other_ cat, well, _she_ would find someone else who appreciated her. (as it turns out, she had belonged to someone else, a lovely couple - with three young boys and a husky dog. so she had rather a history of deciding on her own living arrangements. she has moved in with another neighbor, and apparently decided to become an indoor cat.)
ANYWAY - poor munch was lonely by herself, so i adopted angelina kitten. i didn't want to limit munch, since she had been used to going out, but i didn't want angelina running around unsupervised. so i got a magnetic cat door, gave munch a magnet, and set the door up so any cat could come in (in case angelina managed to get out), but only munch could go out. i figured i might give angelina a magnet when she got older...and then one night munch went out and never came back. so i decided that i was no longer going to let cats out at night. (and got fred to keep angelina company...it's a slippery slope)
the magnetic door continued to be a good solution, however. i could let them stay out when i went to work in the morning (they tended to disappear completely when i tried to get them in) - and once they came in they couldn't go out. so all was good...until december.
so i now have _another_ new cat door - not quite as neat a mounting as the last one (plus i realized afterward that there were all kinds of places for air to get through, so now there is foam insulation sort of stuffed all around it)...but hopefully, it will be foolproof. right now the kittens are pretending that it is simply too weird for them to deal with, so i have the door propped open, but they each have gotten through it, so i am about to unprop the door, set the lock, and see how it goes. in the event that this works, i have 3 catdoors available, if anyone wants one.
if it doesn't work, i will have 4 catdoors and two cats up for grabs.
