Countdown to Fall – The Re-Domestication of Diva

It’s happened every year for the six years she’s been with me.  This beautiful and quite social long hair, Diva by name and attitude, becomes an exclusively outdoor cat from May until October.  Mind you, I don’t insist she or any of the other cats stay outside during this time.  There are cat doors and they can come and go as they please.  This one not only doesn’t want to use the cat doors, but seems to forget how to use them.  Feeding her just means doing it outdoors, which wasn’t an issue until this year.

Now usually, she stays close to the house.  This year, she’s taken to perching in trees in my neighbors’ yards.  The reason why she doesn’t do that here is because I have tall trees which branch out too high for her comfort.  The trees she’s been calling her summer residence have cat-friendly limbs starting at six feet.  Easy to get up to, easy to pop down from.  Both gave her vistas of the neighborhood, but kept her hidden from view. 

About a month ago, I noticed that she wasn’t coming up to the house for meals on any kind of regular basis.  Turns out a fellow cat lover saw her in the trees and felt sorry for her and started to bring her food.  Make no mistake, this cat has the sad cat face and meow act down to a science.  This woman, a fellow exercise walker who normally walks up and back down the hill once a day was now doing it twice a day even when she wasn’t feeling up to it.  I finally saw her doing this kindness for Diva last Sunday morning.  I explained that she was my cat, not a sweet feral feline.  We had a good laugh about it and she stopped bringing her food.

So now, Diva was cut off and had to start coming home again for he meals.  I still have to call her, but now she comes to to the house and eats and drinks heartily, heading back down to her favorite spot after being fed, petted and scratched.  She still prefers being outside and that will likely continue until the night temperatures start dipping down into the 30s.  Then, all of a sudden, she’ll run in the front door and stay in until the weather turns warm enough for overnight outside habitation again.  She has to figure out the cat doors once more, but once she does, she’s completely self-service.  She locates the cat litters and uses them appropriately.  She’s always gotten along with the other cats except for her first year when she was establishing herself.  While she does like to glue herself to my bed (they all do), she also varies her in-house location periodically.  She likes a change of scenery, after all.

Only 7 days until Fall.