I've had Milly for about 2 months now. It's been a fascinating journey so far—mostly documented on Facebook updates—and I've learned a lot about cat behaviour along the way! Briefly, the boys are more or less used to her now, although we till have the odd skirmish. Louis has been insanely jealous, but is a lot better now, but still quite easily made cranky, and I miss his sunny, happy nature. Cooper was better, but as time has gone on, has seemed compelled to assert himself. She's very cautious of the boys, and will still hiss at them even if they are behaving themselves. Understandable, really.
I'll try and do a proper catch-up post soon, just to fill in how it's all gone in more detail, but for now, here's a post about today's adventure. Briefly, Milly started going outside a couple of weeks ago. First of all, we had some excursions with her in the harness, which generally ended with her being distressed by her lack of autonomy (she'd try and run farther than the leash would allow and it freaked her out). She got stuck up a tree once, and then I started letting her out off the harness, bur supervised, while I was on leave.
As she got more confident, I was able to leave her outside for long stretches while I was in the house and, eventually, would pop out for a short time while she was outside. I have a cat door at the back of the house, which Cooper and Louis use to come and go as they please. I can shut Milly in the main part of the house, but today, back at work for the first time after the Christmas break, she had her first day as an independent Miss, unsupervised and without me there if anything went wrong.
Here's today's adventure, originally posted on Facebook:
First day back at work today, and I debated whether or not to leave Milly shut in the house, or allow her to make the choice herself. She wasn’t showing any particular interest in going out this morning, and apart from her disappearing trick the other night, she’s been very good about sticking close to home and coming when I called her, so I decided to leave it up to her.
I couldn’t see her when I got home. Lou came running from across the lane when I pulled up, and flopped in the grass for a wash—his usual routine, or one of them. Cooper was also lying in the grass in the shade down the side of the house. No sign of Milly, and she didn’t appear when I called as I locked up the gate etc.
She wasn’t in the house, so I went looking for her again outside. By this stage, Louis and Cooper had both vanished. I called for ten minutes or so, and had a look under the house, which is where Cooper turned out to be. But still no sign of Milly.
Then I found a tuft of her fur, and oh, reader, I feared the worst—even though logically I knew it was probably just from a skirmish with one of the boys. (I have silly fears about birds of prey, which we do see from time to time in this neck of the woods, and she is such a LITTLE cat.) So, with that nasty feeling you get when you have a bit of fear adrenaline run through you, I grabbed the torch for another look under the house.
There’s a gap of about a foot along either side of my house, going about three quarters of the way back, and the space continues under the front verandah, but not at the sides of the verandah.
Way over on the other side, I could see a tabby but from that distance couldn’t tell which tabby it was. Turned out it was Louis. Cooper was also underneath, sitting staring intently into the very corner of the under-the-verandah, where it’s darkest and most inaccessible. And that’s when I realised he was guarding something, and whatever, or whoever it was, Louis had come to check it out too.
Now, as you may know, I do not have the slightest of girlish frames, and while I could, it turns out, fit under the gap by lying flat and wriggling (of which, more later), there are also regular brick piers spaced along the gaps on both sides, and pipes of some sort coming from within the house to the ground (probably carrying useless things like electricity cables), which limits access ESPECIALLY, as it turns out, if you need to be able to see around a corner in this very tight space.
But motherly duty called, and so I managed to squeeze in and angle around the enclosed side of the verandah all while handling a torch, and there she was, backed into the corner and blinking at me as I waved the pathetic excuse for a Dolphin torch about. (Note to self: stock up on torch batteries. And buy a better torch.)
My first thought was, is she hurt? She didn’t respond when I called her, just kept blinking at me, so I began to plan how I would get her out, given it was quite clear there was no way that at that very point of the architecture that I could get in. I began to have fantasies of size 8 SES rescue workers, or maybe borrowing a neighbour’s child and praying there were no funnel webs under there. It only occurred to me later that the easiest thing to do would be to lift a couple of boards on the verandah—no biggie, as I’m planning to have the whole thing re-timbered soon.
But then I thought, well, maybe she’s not hurt. Maybe she’s just bailed up.
So I got the hose and turned the nozzle to ‘spray’.
She wasn’t hurt.
Louis came belting out, so I grabbed him and threw him in the house. Cooper and Milly had both taken off at the rate of, well, a cat being sprayed by a hose, and disappeared into the depths of the house on the OTHER side. But at least I knew she was OK.
Rather than continuing to try and coax them out, I decided to give us all a break and go and water the garden. By the time I’d done that, Cooper was sitting conveniently close to the side of the house, so I grabbed him in a fairly undignified fashion (by the, ahem, hindquarters) and threw him in the house after Lou. Got the little tin of nommy liver treats that Milly adores, and wriggled back under the house—this time on the side with a bit more space, rattling them and calling Madam. No sign of movement, no reply.
Well, I thought, given I’m already filthy, and I know I can wriggle along the ground under here, maybe I’ll just wriggle a bit further in and get that collar. Both Milly and Louis have lost collars recently and I thought I could see one of them glinting in the torch light. (Seems it’s hard to buy a cat collar without a bit of bling these days.) To do that I actually went back out and got the garden rake—in for a penny and all that!—and I managed to get a fair way in before I realised it wasn’t a collar at all, but the remains of the tinsel fishing toy that Louis ran off with a few weeks ago. Bugger that, I thought, and bugger you, Mill—you’re obviously OK and you can come in when you’re good and ready.
And she did. I’d not long been inside, sans tinsel toy, stripped off my filthy clothes and put something clean on, than she was at the back door, covered in cobwebs, but otherwise right as rain and demanding to come in as if the whole thing had been her idea all along.
Actually, I think she just wanted a liver treat. I gave her four.
Tuckered out. You and me both, Mill.
Thanks to my friend Jenni for the title of this post.
