The Case of the Intrepid Feline

Little Guy, one of my cats held prisoner on the enclosed front porch, has never been one to be held back by the likes of human beings. When my next door neighbor complained about my cats in his yard when I first moved into my house 10 years ago, I tried all sorts of things to keep my felines in my yard. The electric shock wire across my fencing helped at first, but a grapevine began to wind its way along the 6-foot high chainlink fence between our properties and caused the electric shock wire to go dead (a safety feature). Neither one of us wanted to take down the pretty vine, so my next idea was netting on all my fencing (which is quite a lot). The creator's idea behind the netting was that cats can only jump 4 feet and then they have to climb the rest of the way. So the netting was placed as high as possible on the 6-foot fencing. It came complete with 18-inch long brackets that caused a one foot netting overhang to stop the cats from climbing over the netting. Well, that stopped most of my cats but it didn't stop Little Guy, Blackjack, Boy and a couple of others who could jump 6 feet. Others climbed up and found a minute weakness and tore the net apart and out they went. I was constantly fixing that damned netting. Next, I tried 18-inch high hard plastic screwed into the wood or tied with wire onto the chainlink fence at the top of the fencing. I don't know how the cats did it but they got over that too. After that (and hundreds of dollars), I gave up. If my neighbors wanted to call Animal Services, then that's what was gonna happen.

Now, because of another neighbor complaining about my roving cats (most likely just Little Guy), I have Little Guy and Jude imprisoned on the front porch with its many windows. Three times Little Guy has escaped the front porch. Most of the windows are shut; just a few are open a bit for some sort of air circulation. He found out one of the slightly open windows is broken and doesn't stay shut, so he pushed it open and off he went. I stapled cat-tough screening all around that window. (He just bends aluminum screens to get out.) But this week he escaped twice more. I finally figured out that he found out that another of the slightly open windows has an easily maneuvered handle, so he just pushes it with his paws or body until he gets it moving enough to open the window wider...and off he goes. Jude seems to accept his imprisonment and doesn't follow in Little Guy's footsteps. I guess it's time for more screening. But I have a suspicion that nothing will stop Little Guy from being the adventurer that he is. Somehow, someway, he will find a way out of his prison...and I don't blame him.