I wrote about stray cats a while back in an article titled “Stray Cats.” Mainly I was writing about one in particular that we had named Mouse.

I explained why we couldn’t take her into our household. Also about buying a heated cat house and what we had to do to get Mouse to use it. Thankfully, Mouse finally accepted the heating pad and the door flap being down. That keeps it much more comfortable inside.

Bernd and I both agreed that it wouldn’t be fair to our cat, Miss Fuzzy Pants, to bring in a young and healthy cat because it would compete for laps and the like. I’d have to imagine, though, that Bernd had no doubt about the final result even if I thought my resolve was strong enough.

So Mouse is spending more and more time inside our house. I follow her around and make sure she is learning the rules of our house … mainly that means where she can and cannot put her claws.

Maddie has had to growl and snap at Mouse a couple of times when Mouse gets a little too aggressively friendly with her. And Miss Fuzzy Pants hisses to let Mouse know when she needs to back off.

The other day, while Miss Fuzzy Pants was having some food, Mouse walked up and Miss Fuzzy Pants walked away from the food without any complaint. I quickly fixed another bowl of food and put it in front of Miss Fuzzy Pants and she began to eat it. They both ate within two feet of each other without any kind of complaint from either of them. Mouse finished her food first and did not try to horn in on Miss Fuzzy Pants’ food. I thought that was all good.

Now Mouse is spending the majority of her time in the house. She is sleeping all night in the house and only asks to go out after breakfast.

I’m not really comfortable with a cat that can wander the neighborhood on its own. So far, Mouse hasn’t shown a lot of a tendency to do that. But it’s beginning to warm up a bit and the nights have mostly been a bit above freezing. The last couple of days, she’s been gone a large part of the afternoon.

We’ve always only ever had house cats that only got outside while wearing a harness and walking with me on the other end of a leash. Since moving here, we have a fenced yard and Miss Fuzzy Pants stays in the yard because she can’t really jump anymore. Even so, I do supervise all of Miss Fuzzy Pants’ outside time. I worry about Mouse when she is outside unsupervised. I may never get over that.

I don’t use a retractable leash while walking our dog, Maddie, because they are unreliable in an emergency situation … like if your dog sees a squirrel on the other side of the street and takes off after it, but there is a car coming. No way to reel her back in without grabbing the cable and risking cutting your hand. A static leash is much better for making sure your dog doesn’t get into trouble.

I’m all for minimizing unnecessary risk. And letting your cat roam the neighborhood unescorted seems unnecessarily risky. But that could just be me.

And no. It’s not a control issue.

So, we (Bernd has not protested or said no) are working on integrating Mouse into our family. So far it is going well. I have hope that it will continue to do that.

Quote courtesy of Reader’s Digest