Hanging Out with the Girls

As fall settles in, there’s nothing much to report on in the…wait, what’s that in my garden?

 

 

It looks just like McKenna...

 

 

What in the world is she doing out here?  I thought she was an indoor cat??

 

Well, see, even before we got her, I already felt sorry for her, trapped inside watching the dog go gaily in and out of the door.  What kind of life would that be, never feeling a breeze or sniffing the tracks of the creatures that passed through in the night?  So among the other kitten equipment we bought, I picked up a kitten-sized harness, determined to acclimate her early to the idea of walking on a leash.

Her training has been spotty, but by now she’s more or less used to the pressure of harness restraining her.  In spite of her eagerness to run jauntily across the yard on her own, she’s still a bit hesitant about trotting out with a leash-wielding human by her side.  So, instead of taking her for head-turning walks down the street, I’ve done a lot of standing around in the back yard while she sniffs and stares and moves ahead at a glacial pace.

Frankly, that gets boring for both of us.  So the other day, I came up with the idea of re-purposing Rosie’s old dog run.

 

I noticed as I was stretching the line back across the yard that the sound of the trolley seemed to alarm the cat.  So I picked her up and walked back and forth with her in my arms, dragging the line with us until she seemed more used to the jingling noise.  I could feel my eccentricity score mounting with every step.  Then I put her back down and switched out the leash for the blue line I used to clip to the dog.

The clasp on the line is really heavy for a 7-pound cat—you can see how it drags her harness over to the side.

 

But that didn’t seem to bother her very much.  In fact, in spite of her initial suspicions, it took her a surprisingly short time to adapt.  At first she was a still a little alarmed by the trolley, then she decided she was being stalked by the line trailing her across the grass.  But once she decided those were mere distractions, she got a lot more exploring done than she ever had on a leash.  And I could tell that the time I had spent getting her used to that leash was paying off.  Check out how she handles hitting the end of the line here.

 

And so, now that I was free to sit back and relax with my book, it was very nice to have both girls outside with me on a lovely fall evening.  Hopefully this will become a regular routine.

 

“Did you hear that!?  We can hang out together outside too!”

Fortunately for Rosie, she’ll still have plenty of room to get some time away from her pestering little sister.

I don’t have a clever conclusion, so here’s a picture of some lovely fall flowers instead.

Happy weekend!