Adjusting to the Death of Pet Cat

 We lost Noah three days ago. I recorded my feelings in this Memoriam blog post earlier. The humans in

Molly (L) and Augie (R)

the house are subdued with tears leaking out when something reminds us of Noah or, like right now for me, when composing a blog post.

But we aren't the only ones in the house, two other cats live with us. Molly and Augie. We adopted Noah and Molly at the same time and Augie came later as a kitten. His full name is Augustus Quigley Lewis, Esq. Their lives have changed drastically. They had been indoor-outdoor cats and Augie was a roamer, like Noah while Molly stuck close to home. At right is a rare photo of Molly and Augie together. 

free roaming Augie

With our sense that our neighborhood was safe shattered, Molly and Augie haven't been allowed out since Noah died. The dread that they could suffer a similar fate is too much to bear so we are working out how to turn them into indoor cats after years of free roaming. To give you an idea of what his means for Augie, here's one of the readouts from the tracker we attached to his collar. The cat icon in the middle of the purple is the house where the tracker base unit was located. The purple mass is actually individual overlapping tracks as Augie prowled around. The white dots are where he rested for a while. You can see he was pretty active so the problem now is how to keep him from going crazy with being limited to the house.

The Catio

Marilyn came up with a good idea that we implemented today. Part of the deck has been turned into a screened in porch that includes a window into the dining room. I secured the door to the screened porch then opened the window. Molly figured it out pretty quickly but Augie had to be convinced. Now they both bop in and out of the house through the window. We have designated the room The Catio. We'll see how this works out, particularly in spring when we might want to sit outside. Some negotiation will be required unless Marilyn and I decide to go through the window ourselves. One benefit of making them house cats will be the elimination of headless bunnies and shrews.

Now we are on to making the indoors more attractive. A Google search for "how to change outdoor cats to indoor cats" pulls up some interesting hits. At least one site recommends a catio so we're on our way there. I think a cat door window insert will be needed when it starts getting colder. We've already started a hard search for automated cat toys to supplement the hand-held laser pointer, aluminum foil balls,  twist ties (Augie's fascination), scratching posts, and the catnip sardines we already have.

If anyone has made it this far and has experience making an indoor/outdoor cat an indoor one, please comment below.

Here are some photos of Augie and Molly for those who like to see other peoples' cats. I just learned that Molly's coloration makes her a harlequin while Augie is a ginger tabby.

Mollie and Augie eying each other. Augie wasn't having it, us trying to introduce him to the others slowly. We gave up after two days. He came bouncing out of "his" room with a "high, I'm here" attitude.

Does the dryer represent a cave or somewhere safe? Augie quickly figurde it out.

Molly can't resist an open dryer door

Augie really wanted to be up high with Molly

Molly is such a pretty girl. Here she is outside on a bench in front yard.

All of Molly on the bench. I like the contrast with the yellow black-eyed Susans

Our cats haven't been serious climbers but Augie would go up if there was something taunting him,

Molly liked to climb trees and fences but stopped after a while. Probably thought it was for kittens and not some mature like her.

Augie was still a kitten her and really wanted to get to know her new sister. Molly is largely indifferent.

We were renovating the bathroom and Molly discovered the hole where the new toilet was going. I managed to grab this shot as she disappeared down the hole and into the crawl space. I had to go into the crawl space to get her.

Keywords: harlequin cats, ginger cats, changing a cat to indoors only, cat photos, improvised catio, adjustment after death of pet, cat behavior