A couple of days ago, I went out for a photo walk through the neighbourhood. I walked towards the communal garden because it is always a great photography subject. I stepped inside, and looked around to see if there were any blooming flowers, butterflies, or other pretty subjects to be found. I was not disappointed.
The friendly neighbourhood cat Missy was sitting on the garden bench. She jumped down and ran towards me. She obviously had not been socialising enough that day, because she was even more chatty than usual.
I petted her a bit, and sat down on the bench myself. She jumped up and walked up to me. I picked her up to put her on my lap, but she wouldn’t have that, thankyouverymuch. She jumped down again. I tried to charm her back, and she decided that she did enjoy the petting, so she jumped back up onto the bench. And then… she stepped onto my lap herself! I couldn’t believe it.
She sat down facing away, and buried her long, sharp claws into my knee. It was fortunate that I was wearing sturdy jeans, but I still had to be brave. She particularly enjoyed it when I started petting her cheek. This girl certainly loves her cheek rubs!
We cuddled and cuddled and then she dozed off to sleep. So cute!
I sat there with her for about 45 minutes. She still wasn’t quite ready to call it a night, but I wanted to go home because I still had to do my knee exercises.
I went home and when I started exercising on the stairs, Freya came down. She took a long time smelling my hands. And then she hissed softly and walked away! I guess Missy’s smell was still too strong and she felt threatened. But later that night, Freya and I cuddled too, don’t worry.
A few days later, the weather was nice and quiet, so I took Freya outside for a walk in her harness. It had been a while, so I wondered if she would like it or find it too scary. I had to carry her down the stairs, but once she was on the pavement, she became very brave, and she walked around the entire street, back and forth!
Freya finds it very interesting outside. She is scared of cars and motors and people, but she just loves the random bits of grass that she finds. Snacks everywhere! So I picked her up and carried her to another street where there is a lot of grass.
She enjoyed eating the grass, and bravely walked further and further away from home. Then she took me back across the street, into the next side street that looks just like our street. I saw two cats in the distance, a tabby and a ginger cat. Uh oh…
Freya didn’t seem to mind. She kept walking and made a beeline towards the ginger cat… until she was about a metre away.
She looked at the ginger as if she was saying “how dare you exist in my world?” as she started to growl. The ginger cat was impressed and he slinked away.
Freya was rather pleased with that, and she hopped up the staircase, back to her home. Or so she thought.
“Wait, this looks like home, but it is not! Who stole my house?” The next street over looks just like our street, only it isn’t.
She started to panic a bit. Her house was gone and the strange ginger intruder was sitting at the bottom of the stairs. Now what?
So I picked her up. I took a risk, because she was still growling, but this situation wasn’t getting any better. She didn’t like it, but stayed still in my arms, except for an occasional growl. I walked downstairs slowly, looking intensely at the ginger cat to intimidate him out of the way. It worked, he walked away.
I carried Freya past some cars and back in the right direction. Then I decided to put her back on the ground. She was still quite stressed and she jumped out of my arms with some force, scratching my arms in the process. Bummer.
But… she knew the way back, and she walked home herself. She was still a bit shaken up, because when we got home, she sat in front of the door, and tried to meow to have me open it, but it came out as another growl that went up in tone until it ended in a tiny meow. That was funny!
She went back inside and lied down to rest. What an adventure! I decided that I would wait a few days before attempting this again. I hope that she will still like going outside…
Freya is being quite playful lately. She was sitting under the coffee table recently, when she discovered a toilet paper roll that was sitting there (we had used it to clean something up earlier).
She found it very intriguing, with the hole in it and all, and before I could do anything, she had picked up the roll and thrown it away to chase after.
She started to bunny kick the toilet paper roll and then she ran off with it. Silly cat!
