Living next to a bus and train-station has some disadvantages. The main being that its not safe for a little, whimsical cat.
This and the fact, that Sparta, our cat, was stolen (but luckily retrieved) after an afternoon stroll on his own, resulted in some restrictions on his out-time.
He still gets to go outside, but not alone. Mostly he only has to wear a collar. I say mostly because, when he discovered the amount attention he could get by clibing up a tree and staying there for 3-4 hours, he cho0se that as his favourite thing to do whenever we went outside.
So, when we take our walks outside our appartment these days, he's on a leash. He doesn't mind, so it's probably not as bad as I feel it is. At lest he gets to go ouside. Besides, in our hollydays, when we go back to Norway, he gets to stay out as much as he likes to.
Nuf about the leashes:P
As you might understand, kitty is somewhat of a semi-outdoorcat, or would you say semi- indoor?
This means that when he's down here, he has some restrictions on his outdoor-time, and should be using it wisely.
One of the things he enjoys when beeing idoors, is sitting in our various windows, hiting them with his front paws and "meeping" and "mraouing" out death threats to the different birds, just as in the video below.
When in Norway, this has quite funny consequences; kitty doesnt really understand that the birdies from the outside cannot hear him when he's standing on the inside in "killer-mode". So, when he can walk around freely, his hunts are not so successfull. Its kind of a give-away when he lies there, miaowing and telling them to die, instead of sneaking up, keeping quiet and catching them. My "mother in law" swears that the birds laugh at him, and i can't help but to agree. I don't know, maybe something in his upbringing go lost when he lost his free out-door-privileges? Maybe one of the things getting lost, was the ability to hunt birds? Cause he has no notion to keep quiet or to hide when he sees a bird, he just runs towards it and mrrs an miaows , joyfull that he can run after it.
In Slovakia, when indoors, his favourite window is one in our office, with a nice view to a lilac bush and a maple tree; the homes of many a thrush and sparrow. He can spend hours there, telling the birds how he'd love to eat them, poking his paws on the window: Although the birds cannot hear him, they certainly see that there's a cat there.
As spring went on last year we started to notice an an increase in the thrush's chirping whenever we went out. I didnt really care, just assumed that it was some warning to the birds around : "There's a cat here".
After about a week i started to notice that within a few minutes after the thrush would see sparta, not only would the chirping intensify, but there would also be more birds chirping the same thing. "How curious" was my thought, and didnt really care untill one day, out walking Sparta on a small patch of grass some 20 m away from out appartment. Kitty was carefully studying a bug, not caring about the obviously annoyed thrushes. I was sitting, plaing with my camera. And then, all of as sudden, a female thrush made a dive, "weird" i thought; and then saw a cat running with lihgt speed into shelter under the nearby parked cars. I didnt see anything, but ai had the feeling the thrush had been trying to attack the cat. But then again, thrushes trying to kill cats? Plausible?
The next day, when we went out, though not expecting anyhing, i was caefull to keep my eyes on Sparta, and yes; as soon as we got out the chirping started, the number increased, and this time, i got to see it: the thrush actually made a dive for the cat. The poor cat was more shocked than I was, and was laying on his back, paws up , and ears flat..What'd just hit him ?
As the days went by, the thrush's agressiveness increased untill a point where that cat would try to run away every time it heard a thrush chirp; and whenever the thrush saw one of us, he'd start chirping like crazy, preparing for an attack,just waiting to se the cat.
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