Ansel is our only male cat, and at about 15 years old, he's also our most senior cat. When our newest female cat, Princess Fairweather Daintypaws, came into the household about two years ago, Ansel took decided exception to her presence, and began "marking" things with his own special scent. Many things--furniture, rugs, walls, floors, doors, you name it, it was all HIS, and he wanted Princess, and the rest of the world to know it. Princess, not one to shrink from a challenge, began her own counter marking campaign to let Ansel, and the rest of the world, know it was really all HERS.
We did the best we could with the situation, instantly deploying paper towels and solutions designed to eliminate the stains and distinctive odors of cat pee throughout the house, but it certainly didn't make life any fun. We also made sure the Feliway Multicat dispenser was filled up and tried various other potions that were supposed to reduce tensions between competing felines, but those didn't seem to have much effect.
Several months ago Cindy proposed that we try taking them for walks outside and see if that would help. I was reluctant to do that because my prior experience with attempting to walk cats with harnesses and leashes was not good; usually the cat would just hunker down and refuse to budge at all. The best I could hope for was to drag the cat a couple of steps. The only time it seemed to succeed was once when I was stationed in Berlin and took my cat Bilbo out to try to walk him. Unlike the other times we had tried it, this time he took off running across the parking lot, practically dragging me behind him. I thought this was a good sign that he was finally getting the idea, until I realized that what he was actually doing was chasing a rabbit into the Grunewald forest . Whoa, Nellie, not going in there.
But this time, even if we had to drag them along, it seemed like just about the only thing that might make a difference to the situation, so we got a Come With Me Kitty harness and leash for each of them and started walking them twice a day for half an hour each time. That is, it's half an hour unless it's raining (Princess Fairweather does NOT like to get her dainty paws wet), or the big scary garbage truck is rampaging up and down the street, or the neighbor is mowing the lawn, or the human boredom limits have been exceeded.
On the whole, though, it's gone fairly well. Ansel loves to roll in the dirt and pretend he's a young macho dude again.
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| Love That Dirt Bath! |
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| The Warm Driveway Is Great, Too! |
Princess loves to hunt lizards and birds. Fortunately, the harness and leash prevent her from getting too close to them--mostly. She actually got her paws on one of the lizards the other day, but I managed to get it away from her before she did any real damage to it. We saw it several times after that, so it apparently survived its close encounter with the large furry predator.
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| Is There A Lizard In the Raised Bed? |
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| Or Behind The Trash Can? |
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| Or In The Hedge? |
Several good things have come from this: first, the indoor potty contest has calmed down considerably; second, the cats aren't fighting as much inside; and third, it gets us outside and into the garden twice a day, so Cindy can plan her future garden projects and I can gather fodder for the blog.
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| Perfect Location To Watch Birds |
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