Outside

Bad news and good news.  Sagira is back.  She stayed with my friend for about two months I think.  She pooped once in the first day.  Then didn't do it again until two weeks later when she was really stressed out.  Besides that, she didn't go outside her litter box at all.  I thought it was the perfect solution.  My friend has a larger house, less people and animals and more litter boxes. 

Unfortunately, after two months she regressed and started going all over the place.  My friend couldn't handle it any longer (I can't blame her at all), so I took her back.  Travis and I immediately made her an indoor/outdoor cat.  I was always REALLY nervous about doing this because we had outdoor cats when I was little and two of them were involved in bad accidents.

The first was run over by a car on the highway in front of our house.  Oreo survived and ran under the front porch.  Sadly, all the skin was torn from his right, rear leg, which meant it could not be saved.  Instead, my parents paid to have the leg removed.

Some time later, our other cat, Suki, was missing for several days.  He usually came home at least once a day, so we worried about him.  We all went outside and called for him periodically, but he never came, until three days later that is.  He was not using his back left leg and it was grossly swollen.  We took him to the vet to find that his leg was broken almost at his hip.  They were unable to set it and put it in a cast because it was so close to the hip joint.  Instead, he had that leg removed. 

From that point on, all our cats remained indoor cats.  The three-legged cats had to remain inside because they could not get around very well in the beginning.  But it just seemed safer as a whole to keep them at home.

I did get a lot of flack from my friends growing up.  They joked that we were animal torturers.  Fortunately that was not the case.  I just had a mom that was more than willing to put herself out financially for her pets.  Others probably would have just had them put to sleep.

Because of this, and the fact that Sagira is a beautiful Bengal cat (meaning people would be more likely to invite her inside), I never had the guts to put her outside.  But at this point, it's either outside, or pay to leave her at the shelter.  We decided to give the outdoors thing a try first.

She's been indoor/outdoor since I got back from Illinois.  We put her outside during the day while we are gone, but let her inside when we're home.  At this point, she has started complaining to be let out periodically while we are home.  The weird thing, is that she spends most of her time either under the house, or somewhere in the front yard.  I'm not sure where she goes, but she occasionally comes running around the side of the house when I call for her. 

The annoying part is that we have to cover Aiden's sandbox now.  I've wanted to do it since Travis built it, but never got around to it.  I've never found poo in it, but I have seen an occasional stray cat in the neighborhood.  At the moment, we only have a tarp over it, but it's doing the job. 

Sagira has pooped in the house a couple times, but I think I've got it figured out.  Both times she went in the house, it was when I left her inside all day.  Hopefully this arrangement works out for us.