[Post edited 8/21/08 to add mug shot of The Culprit....]
Wednesday night, sound asleep.
The cat door is right next to my bed. The only cat who uses it is Sarah. It's now permanently set to "can enter, cannot exit" courtesy of Astra's adventure.
(Astra, as we know, would love to, but she's not permitted. Morgan's too afraid of ending up homeless again to go out unless I'm less than a foot away, and Tondra won't use the cat door, although she loves to go out.)
I wake up enough to hear the thwack-thwack of the cat door being used, think "Sarah's in", go back to sleep.
I hear a crash, half open one eye, see shadowy form of cat in dark having knocked down the extended platform at the window. Think "Way to go, Sarah", go back to sleep.
I hear the sounds of a major cat fight in the hallway. There are still signs of less than perfect harmony in the household, with half the cats being resident less than two months, but it has always been hissy fits up until now. I think "Okay, somebody's having a major disagreement about the pecking order" and get up to go make sure nobody's taking unfair advantage of the kitten.
And realize that it was NOT Sarah who came in. It was a grey and white cat who lives somewhere in the neighborhood.
He/She had stuck his head in the cat door before, seen me reading, and vamoosed. Silly me, I thought that had taken care of its curiosity. In retrospect, knocking down the platform was probably related to "what do you mean, this door doesn't work to get back OUT? I gotta get OUT right now!"
Middle of the night, I'm chasing a cat who doesn't belong there all over the house. I have Astra behind closed doors, and the front door propped open, but this cat keeps going past it to try to insist on going out the living room window. Eventually, he figures it out and scoots out the door. I then spend the next hour cleaning up the disaster he's left in his path.
Hopefully, that's his last adventure with the cat door. We'll see.
