Conniving Kitty

2 years ago we decided to lock all the downstairs windows at night – thus keeping out the bully neighbourhood cats that came in to the house to steal Bracken’s food and beat her up if she happened to be having a midnight snack. At that time she was 16 years old and no match for some of the local thugs. She was in fact quite terrified and becoming a bit withdrawn.

The one problem we faced was with battening down the windows, was that she refuses to use a litter box – flower beds are the only things she will use for her toilet. But, within about 4 days she had trained us to respond to her standing with her front paws on the bedside table as a sign that she wants to go outside. If the response is not fast enough, a gentle tap on the head usually does the trick and gets us moving. Whoever has been chosen as the toilet maid for the night has to get up and go out into the garden with the little cat whilst she has a drink out the birdbath and then heads for the bushes. Then, with much ado about ‘what a clever girl’ and little pats, it is back to bed for the 2 of us. (NB: whilst writing this I realise that I am the toilet maid 99% of time – hmm)

In case you think this happens every night – it doesn't  If we get the timing right pre-bed time when we take Bracken out for a last pee, she can usually last until I get up at about 5.00….but now that she is 18, the night can sometimes be a bit long.

She also has me trained, when it is raining, to stand in the middle of the lawn with a large golf umbrella. She dashes out, stands on my feet and we shuffle to the edge of the flower bed where she does her business; then we do the shuffle back to the front door…thus achieving the least amount of rain splatter on the kitty back.

Now for the conniving kitty part:

Lately, when we take her out pre-bedtime, she just might not want to do a pee. But because she doesn't want us to know this, she dashes into the bushes and almost immediately exits about a metre from where she went in, hangs around for a little pat and praise, and then bolts inside. Because we cottoned on to this little trick, she is quite happy when we give her a little nudge towards the bushes again – she repeats the performance and comes out looking all pleased with herself and bolts inside and upstairs.

And we think they are just animals.