Mickey Kitty.

Our sweet little Mickey Kitty spent the entire day outside today. It wasn't something that I really wanted to do, but his behavior lately has left us very few choices.

Mickey is only five years old, but in that time, he's been accustomed to living his little kitty-life a certain way and he isn't at all comfortable with change. (Is any cat?) Between the move from the old house (with a screen porch) to this new house (without a screen porch)....... and then the "disappearance" of AngelBoy and then ShadowBaby...... and then the addition of the two found cats (Gatsby and Sweet Pea)....... I guess it was all just too much for Mickey Kitty-- especially after we took ShadowBaby to the vet for the last time a few weeks ago.

Mickey, who was the poster-kitty for a good cat, started "thinking outside the litter box." Had I not seen him with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it. But he did. More than once. In more than one room. Our solution was to confine him in the cats' bathroom which is connected to our TV room. Mickey wasn't happy, but at least I didn't have to keep cleaning up his accidents. (Accidents-on-purpose would be the more appropriate term.) When he used his litter box in there, I let him out into the TV room only if I had the time to keep an eye on him.

As always with me, I can take and take and take things..... and then one thing will happen and I just can't take one thing more. And that's what happened with Mickey Kitty, when he had one of his "accidents" right in front of me. Being that my husband was the one who found Mickey in the park five years ago and carried him home, I asked him what he wanted me to do with his cat. My husband's solution was to put him outside with Gatsby.

What? He's an inside cat! He has no front claws! My husband didn't think there would be a problem. He said that Mickey would stay close to the house, we didn't have to worry about the road, and we could bring him back in before dark and let him sleep in the bathroom. He made it sound like the perfect solution, but just the thought made me cringe. However, the thought of carpet-cleaning made me cringe even more.

So this morning after breakfast, I opened the door and let Mickey Kitty go outside. We even let Sweet Pea go outside with him. And Gatsby was already outside, so that made a cat-party of three. And if anyone had a party out there, it was indeed Mickey. He was all around the porch, the deck, the garage, the yards. He didn't go out into the pastures, he didn't go into the chicken coop, he didn't go anywhere near the road. He jumped up on the railings, he chased the chickens till they squawked at him, he watched us digging the weeds out of the garden patch, he sat in the shade, he stretched out in the sun, and when he needed a nap he jumped up into a chair on the side porch and fell asleep.

On the other paw, Sweet Pea wasn't too thrilled with being outside. At the first chance we gave him, he came back in the house, ate some dry cat food, ran upstairs and slept on the little pink sofa in my sitting room. He stayed away from the doors after he woke up so I didn't make him go out again.

Before it got dark, I made sure to bring Mickey back into the house. How would I have found an all-black cat out there in the pitch-black of night? Mickey was not happy. He meowed, he circled the TV room at least 37 times, he tried to open the back door with his paws. He wanted out. Period. I asked my husband what he wanted me to do. He didn't think it was a good idea for Mickey to be out there after dark. Too many wildlife possibilities-- huge raccoons, bobcats, coyotes. And Mickey is not street-smart (pasture-smart?) like Gatsby is. Gatsby has been an outside cat all along (except for the weeks of cold weather that we had). So we just let Mickey be unhappy inside the house, and we will let him outside when we get up in the morning.

It breaks my heart to let him outside at all, but the other alternatives aren't much better. In fact, they're worse. Cats. I am so done, done, done, done, done with cats. No matter how many changes there have been in Mickey's life, I still can hardly believe that he has been misbehaving.

Gatsby is a very good outside cat who was a perfect gentleman-cat inside when the cold weather started. Sweet Pea is a very content and well-behaved inside cat and he seems more than happy to look out of the windows instead of walking out of the doors. Mickey has missed the screen porch since Day One in this house, and he seemed to just love being outside today. So I guess he's going to be an inside/outside cat... but when he's inside now, his world will consist just of that bathroom where his litter box is. And it's a huge bathroom, filled with comfy cat-sized furniture, so it isn't like he's in jail. (Time-out, maybe, but not jail.)

Cats. We are done, done, done, done, done, done, done taking in new cats.