Does Koki have Competition in the Daredevil Department?

Snuggles



That is a question I ask myself when I sit for the neighbors cat, Snuggles, from time to time.  This cat is a two-year-old so of course I expected it to be quite playful.

My neighbor is an avid hiker so is often away on hiking/backpacking trips.  I’ve watched this cat many times, because I live across the street, I’m always around usually with no commitments except my own writing, and freelance work, other than my cats and husband.  Who has the money to travel?

Getting back to the cat, not being forewarned about its antics, it came as a bit of a surprise when I went over one day to find drawers opened all over the house.  My first thought was my neighbor forgot to close them, being in a hurry to get started on her trip, yet I had to wonder about that many drawers.

I just closed them and got about feeding Snuggles, putting out fresh water, scooping her litter box and playing a bit with her.  She’ll go and jump in the sink trying to engage me by twirling around to show how cute she is.

When I went over the next day, there were more drawers open and I began to wonder if anyone else was also checking on the cat, or had keys to the house.  When I talked to Sherry later, she assured me, the cat does this all the time.  I wonder if it’s just because she can or if she does it out of boredom.  Sherry told me she has locked her out of the house a few times by opening drawers in the laundry room, thus blocking the door to the garage.

The cat acted normal, bouncing off the walls, grabbing my ankles, and engaging me to play with her.  Of course, I felt guilty because I had a couple of assignments I was working on and could only stay about 45minutes per trip, so on my next trip I decided to take Koki over.

 This didn’t go over too well, as Koki was on another gal’s turf.  The cats ended up sneaking about to check each other out and never did get to the point of playing.  Of course, given time I’m sure they would have.  As mentioned above, time was not a great option right then, so I decided to bring her something I knew she would really enjoy.  This is what I took over to keep her occupied for hours.

This is actually a kid’s play tunnel that I got at Target years ago.  Our cats love it, spending many hours in it over the years; I knew this cat would have a blast.  My thought wasn’t wrong.  She about tore it up, but I had patched it anyway in the past so that wasn’t a big deal.  I ended up leaving this over there for a week.

However, that did not stop the other antics in the house.  When I went over on one occasion I found the lights and ceiling fan on, so not only did I have a cat that could open drawers but also flip light switches.  I wish I had pictures of all these things but I’ve never caught her in the act.  She does run and bounce off the walls all the time, so I’m sure her foot hit the light switch to turn it on.  She loves being chased and will wear you out running after her.

We’ve had a few funny moments over there.  My neighbor keeps the cat box in the shower of one bathroom, which works out fine because she has two bathrooms and lives there alone.  One time, as I went to scoop the box, I discovered the spray showerhead had fallen into the cat litter, another cat antic I’m sure, when Snuggles was climbing the walls and saw a cord to play with.  I put the showerhead back in place, but in the process, a few drops of water fell out and into the littler box.  Now this cat watches every move I make, so as soon as she discovered the water there, she jumped in the box to do her housekeeping.  I’m sure she thought she forgot to.  I had to lean back against the counter and laugh while I said, “Good girl.” as I praised her.

The only thing to top that was when I went over to find Sherry’s underwear strewn about the bedroom.  Her dresser drawers were open and an Indian-painted pot she had on top of the dresser had slid off and luckily didn’t break.  I was shocked and of course was glad she didn’t have a guy watching the cat who would have to walk in to see all the “unmentionables” all over the place.  I think Sherry was too when I told her about it.

That is my cat story for today.  It came to mind because I’m watching this cat again until Aug 5.