Monday 4 April 2011

Over the fence she goes

Seagull figured out how to unlock our glass sliding doors right about the time when he was tall enough to be able to slide them open. We normally get around it by key locking the doors, but sometimes I forget or I don't realise that Thunder Maker has unlocked a door. This morning was one of those times.

After getting out of the shower this morning, I was greeted by the dog running around the dining room. "That's odd", I thought to myself, as the dog should have been in the yard. Then I realised that the sliding door in the dining room was wide open. Shit, Seagull had opened it, which meant that one of our cats would be in the yard. We have two cats and they are both indoor cats. It doesn't stop one of them from escaping if the door is left open though, which is why we key lock the doors. Seagull is an absolute champ at opening the doors, but isn't so good at closing them afterward.

I went into the yard to look for the cat. I checked all of her usual hiding places to no avail. I asked the dog if she could find the cat. Normally she is really good at locating and rounding up cats (she's a kelpie x some unknown breed of terrier and at 5 years old is about the size and appearance of a 3 month old kelpie pup). She kept bouncing around the yard and indicating at various places, but there wasn't a fluffy gray and white cat to be found under any of them. I figured that she had probably jumped the fence, but just to be sure, I took the bag of cat food outside and shook it around, hoping that she'd come running for a feed. No such luck.

I went back inside to feed Wombat and ponder my next move. Just as Wombat finished his feed and fell asleep, the dog started barking. I figured that she had located the cat, so I shot outside to see a fluffy gray and white bum on top of the wood shed as it disappeared over the back neighbour's fence. Crap.

I tried to climb over the fence from my side, but there was nothing to get a foot hold on. The horizontal supports were on the other side of the fence. I dug out the ladder from the shed and propped it up on the fence. By this stage, I could hear the cat meowing to me. Over the fence I went. Once on the other side, the cat actually came towards me. I think she was a bit disoriented and confused. I moved toward her and she moved away a bit, but there was no real effort to it. She was done exploring for the day. I moved over, picked her up, moved back to the fence and turfed her over. There was a locquat tree conveniently placed near the fence to help me climb back over.

Back on home soil, I looked around to see where the cat was. Poor thing was by the sliding door. The dog had her rounded up and was making sure that the cat stayed put. I went over, scooped the cat up and went to open the door. It was locked. Seagull had locked me out. Here I was with no glasses, no key and no phone. I called out to Seagull to come open the door, but he wasn't having a bar of it. Fortunately, I remembered what Seagull's most recent favourite game is. I started calling out "Where's Seagull*? I can't see Seagull anywhere". It worked, he came running and I was able to say "There's Seagull! Now, could you please open the door for Mummy?" Seagull happily obliged and I was able to take the cat back inside.

*Obviously, we use Seagull's real name when we play this game. He particularly loves playing it when he gets out of the shower. We have to put a towel over his head and ask "Where's Seagull?" He gets very upset if he doesn't get to play the game after a shower. It conveniently works at other times too, when he won't come to where he is needed. We pretend we can't see him until he runs up and goes "Here's Seagull!"

2 comments:

Glow said...

So glad you found the cat! What a clever Seagull :)

Mel said...

I'm really glad I found the cat too. I'm actually more impressed by the clever dog for barking to let me know the cat was on top of the wood shed, otherwise I wouldn't have known where she was. I still don't know where she was hiding prior to getting up there.

Seagull was not my favourite child this morning when I couldn't find the cat. He did give me a cuddle around my knees and say "I sorry" when I had the cat back inside though, so I suppose I can't stay angry at him. Besides, it was my bad for not checking the door was key locked before I got in the shower.