Anyone with pets will tell you that their pets have distinct personalities. When you have six cats you have to be mindful of the fact that people who don’t have pets don’t understand this concept. Also, they already think you’re nuts, so if you start rambling about a cute thing your cat did their eyes glaze over. I make it a point not to talk too much about the cats unless I’m specifically asked. Even then I try to keep my stories short.
We have six cats, all with different personalities. We’ve been volunteering at the shelter since 2007, we’ve fostered kittens, and I grew up with cats so it’s safe to say we’ve been around a LOT of cats. I have never met a cat like Jack.
Jack is truly exceptional, he doesn’t just do cat things. Even when he does the usual cat stuff, he does it with flair. He likes to open drawers and cabinets and take stuff out. He opens our closet doors and pulls things down, he’s particularly fascinated with Bob’s ties. He gets on Bob’s printer and steps on the buttons until he gets it to print test pages; this is particularly annoying because he wastes a LOT of ink doing that. We come home to stacks of paper on the floor. Last year we had everyone over for Easter, Bob went out to play golf after everyone left and I took a nap. When I got up I discovered the front door wide open and Jack standing outside. He watched everyone leave and decided HE wanted out. At first I thought someone didn’t shut the door properly, but then I SAW him do it. We don’t have typical round door knobs; they are more like flat paddles. He jumps up and pulls on it until the door pops open. He does this with the front door, the garage door and the coat closet. We had to put latch on the front door, we have to keep the door to the garage locked and we have door stops wedged under the coat closet door. But that doesn’t stop Jack, he picked the door stops out and got into the closet. He climbed the vacuum cleaner and got on top of the coats.
I hope I can post some pictures of Jack’s destruction because words don’t really do it justice. We put bird seed out for the birds, the cats love to watch the birds come on the patio. There was a bag of bird seed on the patio by the glass door. Yesterday I came home from the gym and discovered that Jack had picked a hole in the screen door and pulled the bag through the hole. Most of the bird seed spilled out on to the patio, some got on the floor. When I came in he was laying on the empty bag looking through the hole. That’s what Jack does.
We’re missing small things, like a small crystal cat, pens and pencils always disappear. Bob saw Jack go in the spare room, a few minutes later he went trotting by with a pencil in his mouth. We don’t know where he keeps his stash of treasures, we’ve been looking.
We keep the dry cat food in a cabinet in the kitchen. Jack knows this and likes to go in the cabinet. He shredded a bag of food, not sure why because they get plenty, but he made a huge mess. The cat food is on the bottom shelf and my baking supplies are on the top shelf. He knocked over a bottle of molasses, it formed a puddle and ran down the back of the cabinet on to the second shelf. It took me over an hour to clean it up. Afterwards I put packing tape on the top and bottom of the cabinet. Bob and I watched Jack, he tried to open the cabinet door. It literally took him five minutes to figure out that the tape was preventing him from getting in the cabinet. He picked the bottom piece off, got on the counter and picked the top piece off and got back in the cabinet. When Jack wants to do something, he’s going to do it. He’s not afraid of anything, in fact he follows me around when I vacuum. You can spray him in the face with a squirt bottle; he just flinches and continues what he’s doing.
UPDATE Right after I posted this I discovered that I forgot to lock the garage door. Of course Jack opened the door and went in the garage, he didn't walk on MY car. He walked all over Bob's car and he got IN the car. The window wasn't even open that much, maybe that's why it was so exciting. There are claw marks and holes in the leather seat like he probably clawed his way up the side of the seat to get out of the car. Most cats would go out in the garage and sniff a few things, maybe climb on some boxes....not Jack. Nooooo Jack has to cause some destruction.
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