Doorman

Pretty

It seems all I do some days is open and close doors for kitties. They must think I am their own personal doorman/servant/slave. Ugly will come to the door pathetically looking in until I open the door for her, then sniff at the door before walking away. Normally with in 5 minutes of having gone outside. Most of the time when she goes out she will just lay down off to the side of the door. She does the same thing at the window in the computer room, jumps up onto the sill but will not come in when I open the window.

I can go to the door, open it to let one cat in take a look in the back yard and 2 or 3 more are on their way. They seem to just be waiting for their opportunity, then they all come running in (chows on). Worse yet Pretty (Ugly's twin sister) will come in take a few bites of food. Then she will want right back out. Five to ten minutes later she will want in again, for another bite or two. Grazing through out the day.



TJ watching the others eat.



Other times I will let one of them in, look around, I will not see or hear any others so I will close the door. As soon as it is closed and I walk out of the kitchen someone else is at the door wanting in. TJ is the worst for bothering me when I am busy (he always seems to know when I am in the middle of something, sometimes I think he does it just to bug me). He will go out for 3-5 minutes then back in for 15-20 and out again, over and over and over etc. He can be insistent at wanting in too. If it is at night and I am watching TV in the front room he will “knock”. I have a large picture window about 6 foot high going from the floor up. It opens at the bottom so there is a screen on it he can reach. TJ will come up and pick at the screen (like when sharpening his claws), just a couple of pop, pop, pops to let me know he is there. He will keep doing it every couple of minutes until I let him in.

Most of the time the cats are just coming in to eat (I guess that also makes me a waiter), but sometimes they will come in for a while. Pretty will come in and play with the toys for an hour or so one toy she played with so much she broke it. It was a fuzz ball hanging from an elastic string attached to the top of the closet door. She hanged on it so much finally the plastic broke off at the top. Blackie will come in to sleep, especially if it is a hot day out. After a couple of hours cat napping she will be ready to go back out.

Usually when I am in the kitchen cooking it gets to be like Grand Central Station, what with cats coming and going. Open the door to let one out another one comes in. The same thing happens when I sit down at the computer to write. They will either pick at the screen door in the kitchen or jump up into the window and stare at me until I get up and let them in.

Not every day is like this, in fact most days are not so busy. Just yesterday and today it got to be really bad, so it was on my mind tonight when I sat down to write. I don't mind though, I know that just like kids they need a little extra love and attention. Also because of the rain I stopped feeding them outside, so now they have to come in to eat.



The Martian



Take the Martian for example, he was pretty wild when he first started showing up. I have been spending a lot of time with him and have gotten him to the point where I can pet him. Even pick him up if I need to move him, he won't let me hold him though. I have got him to the point where he spends 80% of the day inside now. When I let him out he will just lay down against the door after I close it. He is a lot calmer now after I have given him the care and attention he needed.



Tom (Thomas Cattacus)



I am a firm believer of keeping cats inside for their health and safety, all my cats are indoors only (That’s why I do not have a pet door). But besides my five my neighbor out back has 5 that they let run around unsupervised. Then there is Tom who may show up every day sometimes twice in a day. I do not know if he has another home or not but suspect that he does. That is because he may not even stop by for a week or more at a time, and he does not appear to be starving. Finally there is the Martian, who I know does not have a home. That is why I started trying to tame him. That makes 12 in all, seven of which are out door cats. So as you can see some times it can get really busy at the door.