Outdoor Cat House

Alto is not too sure about this outdoor house.

When we moved to our home in April we assembled an outside cat house for Alto. She has been in it twice and I am not sure she is a fan. In Woodland, California she had an entire fenced backyard to explore. The fence gave her a space safe from other critters.

Our Saint Michael yard does not have a fence. We were concerned Alto would start exploring and not be able to find her way home. I also had this idea that a coyote, bald eagle, or an owl might make a meal of our Alto. The National Audubon Society website reports that Bald Eagles eat mainly fish and other birds like gulls and geese. This was as of 2016. Then I looked into it further and saw this post on Facebook:

Which still leaves owls and coyotes that could possibly come around and grab her for a meal. The thought is repulsive.

Back to the cat house. Today I was sitting on the patio, and Alto was scratching at the sliding glass door to be let outside. Joe picked her up and put her in the outdoor cat house. She sat hunched in one spot meowing for about the longest pathetic two minutes of her life. I told her she would be simply fine, and I sat with her for a bit to keep her company.

After about ten minutes of looking around, Alto went to the door of the cathouse and looked longingly at the open patio door to the house. She would look at me and then look at the house. I told her five more minutes. She then went to the back of the cathouse and sat in a ball looking at me. We know who won that staring contest.

I opened the cat house door, and she sped past my feet and into the house where she has half a dozen favorite places to enjoy her day. A new spot she has been enjoying is a dining room chair that is next to a south facing window. She usually lies on the chair curled into a ball. The chair happens to face the stairway to the upstairs bedrooms. As I was coming down the stairs yesterday morning, she was sitting in the chair looking at me. It looked as if she was waiting for her breakfast to be served. I happened to know Joe had already fed her. Now that I think about it, the grandkids were still in bed so she may have been waiting and watching for them to get up. Alto loves Caleb and is good about staying away from Charlotte who is allergic to cats. I get the impression Alto likes to watch them more than anything else. They are bigger than bugs but smaller than Joe and me (for now).