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As close to the outdoors as he wants to get
Recently we introduced Chrestomanci to outdoor grooming sessions. He was tense in my arms as I carried him into the front yard, but no worse than Cole usually is so I didn’t think anything of it. I should have. As soon as I placed him on the grass for my husband to brush, he bolted. Chihiro immediately took off after him.
My husband ran after Chrestomanci, while I grabbed the dog and put her inside. While I doubt she was the sole or even a main reason why Chrestomanci ran, I know her chasing him wouldn’t help his mood.
I returned to find that my husband had located Chrestomanci under his car. We placed ourselves in strategic positions alongside him and attempted to pull him out. My husband tried getting a hand on Chrestomanci’s scruff, but unfortunately because he’s overweight the extra fat on his neck made it hard to gain purchase.
My husband successfully pulled Chrestomanci out from under the car, but Chrestomanci did not like that one bit. In contrast to his usually sweetness he scratched up my husband, then took off again.
We lost track of him around the other side of the house. As concerned as I was for my new kitty, I first wanted to make sure that my husband was O.K. He was fine; the scratches were superficial and didn’t even hurt that much.
Now we had to find Chrestomanci again. We wandered back and forth around the house, hoping that he’d crawled under the deck or the porch and not gone off into the woods. Then my husband made what turned out to be a brilliant suggestion: let the dog track the cat.
Chihiro’s never been the greatest tracking hound. She always has her nose to the ground but never seems to find what she’s after, and two days before she’d even mistaken a pair of plastic rabbit lawn ornaments for the real things, even after having her nose right on top of one.
However, Chihiro had chased Chrestomanci moments earlier in the yard, and was still sitting by the door hoping to continue the hunt. She seemed like our only hope of finding Chrestomanci soon, rather than waiting for him to turn up at the door hours later when he’d calmed down.
For once, Chihiro’s hound instincts proved true and useful. As soon as she was let out she raced around the yard, following the path I knew Chrestomanci had taken. It only took her seconds to locate him, squeezed under the HVAC unit. His coloring is such that we just hadn’t seen him at first.
We placed our cat crate in front of Chrestomanci, hoping that after we coaxed from under the unit he’d run there. He didn’t. Fortunately, after escaping the HVAC unit Chrestomanci made for the porch and stood, quivering, facing the front door.
We decided it best for me to make the next move, as Chrestomanci didn’t seem a fan of my husband’s just then. I gingerly crept up behind Chrestomanci. He didn’t run. I held my breath and placed a hand on the door, hoping that the loud noise the often sticky door made wouldn’t scare him off.
It didn’t. The door opened, and Chrestomanci, the cheeky thing, walked calmly inside.
I gave Chrestomanci a vigorous brush after allowing him some space to calm down, and he enjoyed that so much as to even forgive my husband for frightening him earlier. Lesson learned: the outdoor grooming sessions don’t apply to Chrestomanci.
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