He Just Wanted Fresh Air. Really.

My new foster-cat Horace has been, so far, as friendly as a cat can get. Within minutes of meeting me, he was inviting chest-rubs. Every time I sit down, he steps on to my lap. He will stay there for as long as I let him, though he does have other spots in which he enjoys sitting and lying.

A friend asked me if Horace had anything bad about him. The ivory boy can’t wait to leave the library and explore the apartment, I know, and I can’t yet answer for his reaction to other cats, and that may be his biggest stumbling block. That, however, is yet to come. For now, the only problem I can see is that he knows how to open windows.

The library window is of the standard sliding kind, a sideways sash, if you will. The pane moves stiffly in its frame, and takes some force to move. Beyond that is the screen. The screen is not the stiff metal sort that was prevalent when I was young, but the softer plastic, easily sliced through. I wanted to give Horace some fresh air while I was at work, but didn’t want to tempt him to leave the building, so I kept the opening to about one and a half inches. With his big head, he wouldn’t get through that, as ingenious as are feline escape techniques.

I came home yesterday, and the window’s pane had been slid back about six inches. I am certain I had not positioned it there when I left; it had been all but closed. Horace had opened it. He’s strong enough, I’m sure, and, getting the right footing, he would have had little trouble sliding the pane open further.

Well… A safe-guard had to be put in place, something similar to the stiff piece of wood I put in the track of my sliding door to the ditch, to make sure human intruders don’t wander uninvited into my ground floor quarters. Fortunately, I am someone who likes to save a good [fill in the blank here] because you never know when it’ll come in handy. I had a stout stick of wood, half an inch round in diameter and, strangely, exactly the length needed to allow the library window to open an inch and a half, but no further. Now, that is in place and, hopefully, Horace is secure from escaping, if that was ever in his mind.

But if a desire for more fresh air is the only fault I can find in this ivory-hued newcomer, that’s pretty good.