I'm currently in Carmel for New Years and to try to have a few more vacation days until I head back home, although my grouchy parents aren't making it very easy. I wanted to stay an extra day, more than I had originally planned, because I just love it down here and this year the owners of the house aren't returning until end of January. So when I got back from my trip to Oregon, I stopped off at home for the evening, slept on the couch with my kitty, since being in my room would have been way too depressing anyway. I have been trying to teach my cat how to open doors for himself and it never occured to me that this would pose any issues down the road. Another bad thing about temporarily living with the folks, is that they are very insistent that my kitty stay in the laundry room/garage if I'm going to be gone overnight. Of course, when they are not home at all, I don't do this because it's not really fair. And I would have just given him the run of the house this time except I did not know until yesterday that my parents are going to be staying in Carmel a week longer than usual. So all of last night, I thought, damn, wish I could have known that earlier. My cat really needs room to run around and act all psycho and crazy when he is in that particular mood. So as painful as it was, I left him in the laundry room and garage, with blankets on the hood of my car in the garage and his bed up on the washer - to give him more options as to where to sleep, off the cold floor. I left plenty of food + his automatic waterer too and asked a neighbor to come by and check on him a couple of times.
So I just a few minutes ago called to check in. Turns out she went over yesterday, to find the door to the laundry room open - she said I must have left it open, but I didn't. Turns out Kitty opened it himself. My dad beginning of last year installed all new door handles all over the house, the kind that are like a lever, so a cat could potentially reach up and pull on the handle to open the door. I don't know how he did it, because the door swings into the laundry room, not the opposite but he must have known to do that. Smart kitty! Now I'm a bit more happy, not so much worried about him being stuck in the garage area. I asked her to make sure to leave that door open as all of his food, water and litter box are currently in the garage too and I don't want to come home to find any accidents. But I'm just kinda laughing inside at the moment. I am so proud of my kitty. What a smart cat!!!
