Countdown to Spring: The Cats of Winter

Brad and Diva

Beebles

Anyone who knows me, or has been following this blog for a while, knows that I mention my cats on rare occasion.  I try to keep it to a minimum because it’s bad enough to be looked upon as the crazy cat lady locally, worse that it extend out beyond my town’s radius.

Jay

However, I mention them now because, as anyone with a pet that has indoor/outdoor status – cat, dog, pot-bellied pig, etc. – knows that, while they appreciate the food, warmth, attention and love the great indoors offers during the colder months, they still yearn to wander beyond the confines of the house.  A lot like ourselves, actually.

I haven’t had a dog as a pet in many years.  I love them, but cats are just easier, especially in terms of going out.  Give them a cat door, shove them through it a few times, and they’ve got the letting themselves in and out thing down.  Dogs can do this, too, but there’s the whole leash law thing.

Dogs, especially the medium to large-sized ones, tend to love a good romp in the snow.  Cats, who don’t generally glide gracefully across the top of snow and kind of fall in and get lost, tend to wait until you’ve shoveled a path and then only go out as necessary.  I did have one cat many years ago who adored snow and would go outside and run in it with happy cat abandon, plow  through any drift and chase any size snowball that came her way.  Yeah, she was nuts, but it was a good kind of nuts.

Now, I have cats of regular winter mentality.  As in every other season, they sleep most of the time, demanding food at regular intervals.  But, there are also long sessions of staring out windows longingly and more frequent changing of sleeping locations.  It’s not that there’s anything wrong with where they were parked, they just needed a change of snoozing scenery.  There are the exercise sessions as well.  I’ve  initiated some of them with little cat toys and a little catnip.  But mostly, there’s spontaneous running and impromptu climbing of things that will hold them (and sometimes won’t).  These sessions become more frequent and sometimes more frenzied, no catnip influence required, as the winter months go by.  Kitty cabin fever. They’re bored.  They want to be outside, but can’t because snow is flying or it’s simply too cold to tolerate it for more than a short outing.  Like us, they’re waiting for warmer and greener days to reappear, when they begin to explore a wall-less world once more.

And I can’t wait to kick them back outside ‘cause they’re driving me crazy.

Only 41 days until spring.

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