A paw slips through the gap and taps gently at the door latch. Slowly, the lever lifts and the door springs open! Suddenly, it’s party time at the cats-only boarding facility.
Escapes don’t happen all that often, so they’re notable when they do happen.
This week, one guest went for a triple escape. When I showed up one morning, there he was, wandering around the main boarding room. He was very neat about his adventure — nothing was spilled or out of place. There was just one weird thing about the first breakout: his door was still closed and latched.
You read that right. This cat got out of his condo and somehow closed and locked the door behind him! I had to stare at it for a second, and even tried the door to make sure. Yep, it was locked. My best guess is that the door latch slid back down into place on its own.
This same cat managed to get out again twice that same morning. He wandered out to say hello while I was checking in a different guest… TWICE! I finally had to put a piece of masking tape on the door latch to keep my little friend inside.
Some cats are clever enough to find a litter box to use when they’re out and about. We keep a stack of clean, filled boxes, ready to go for cleaning time. More than once, an escaped kitty has used the top box in the stack when nature called! Most impressive!
Of course… sometimes, they don’t use the litter box. We have a few large potted plants in the boarding room, and that’s a popular potty spot for escaped guests. It’s easy enough to tell when somebody’s been digging (dark dirt shows up rather well on our white tile floors).
A lot of owners apologize when we tell stories of their cat’s antics. But if we didn’t have a sense of humor about stuff like this, work would be pretty miserable. Escapes, messes, antics… they’re all part of the fun, and part of the job.