Wednesday, September 20, 2006

10,000 Steps, in a Cat Carrier

Another cool, rainy day. It's warm inside, with the heater on, but this is the first day we've kept it on once the morning chill had been chased away by the day. Today the sun must be elsewhere chasing chill, because at 2:00 pm we're still only 11 degrees.

It was sunny and beautiful yesterday. We had a busy day. We went to town and did the weekly shopping. Tony took the cat out for walkies three times, and I took him out once. It wore us out but didn't seem to dampen the cat's ardor for naughtiness. As soon as the lights went out he was pulling at the cupboard doors. We did what we did the night before. We stuck him in his carrier.

The carrier is a big plastic box, with ventilation slots on the top and sides, and coated wire doors on each end. He begins by scratching at the latch. When he can't jiggle the latch free he rolls over on his back, puts his feet against the ceiling of the carrier and runs in place, essentially turning the carrier into an upside-down treadmill. He runs till he's tired, rests a while then runs a while longer.

We wait until he's expended a fair amount of energy, then, during a quiet period we take him out of the carrier. He has a snack and then curls up to go to sleep. Well, it's one way to exercise him. He doesn't even seem to mind! He still goes right into the carrier when we open the door and last night he didn't even waste time trying to get out, he just made sure the door was closed and set off to get his 10,000 steps in.

Cats are weird.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I must say that Salvador is an interesting ...creature. Our new set of visitors arrived today. They have just gone to bed. We are wondering if Tater will sing a rousing chorus of "You Have Been a Very Bad Cat Toy" when all the lights go out.

We just hope they are tired enough from their plane trip that they will hear nothing.