Right after I posted about Oliver loving his new house, I put his bed heater in it because temps were going to drop. Well, the cord coming out of the house scared him off, and then it started to rain Thursday night.
He didn’t get in his house at all while it was raining over the weekend and I just kept kicking myself for messing with his bed and scaring him–until I realized the bedding in there was getting soaked from the rain hitting the deck and splashing back up through the doorway. Then I was kicking myself for not figuring out a way to keep his only warm and dry place DRY. (There was a lot of pacing at the door and hand-wringing during the rain on Sunday.)
Getting things dried out meant I was messing with his house even MORE after the weekend, so he still didn’t get in there. He was sleeping in his tarp-covered chair Monday night, and as much as I wanted to put his bed warmer in there and hide the scary cord, I resisted. This morning as I type he’s finally back in his house, after nearly a week, and I’m tiptoeing around inside like he’s a very shy unicorn.
So after all that, we’re trying to figure out how to keep his house and food dry as we move into even worse weather. Do we cover the pergola top with a tarp? That will keep a big area dry but not do much about blowing snow. Do we buy him an extra large doghouse that will fit his cat house and have space for food and water in it? Do we do BOTH? Do we just capture him and force him to live in the basement all winter?
Sheesh. They don’t tell you about all this hand-wringing that comes with the cat lady merit badge.