cat – Das Katzenhaus

Tigger is a red tabby tomcat who’s home is right under the roof in a nice little apartment. He lives there together with Susanne my friend and neighbor and with Bruni an old chartreux cat. They are both house cats and never go outside. Tigger is a shy gay and he is also a little scared. But he is very curious. So Tigger loves to explore the staircase sometimes.
In summer he spends much time on the roof. Up there is his kingdom where he is the unchallenged ruler. Tomcat Tigger has also the talent to hide so perfectly that nobody ever can find him when he doesn’t want to be found. But one day this special talent was not for his good at all.
On a summer evening Susanne was looking for Tigger and could not find him. After some time she gave up and thought by herself: so or so I have no chance when he doesn’t want to be found, he will surely be back in the morning when he is hungry. But what she didn’t know, this time her poor tomcat hoped desperately that she would find him.
Susanne went to sleep and in the next morning no Tigger was anywhere to be seen. Now she was very concerned and afraid that may be he was fallen from the roof. Our house is really high with five floors. So she hurried into the backyard to look for her tomcat. Susanne searched for him all over the garden behind every tree and in every bush…he was not there. At last she went to the old external stair that leads down to the basement.
And down there in a dark nasty corner she finally found him.
Tigger had big wide eyes and didn’t move at all. He sat there like from stone and his fur was over and over covered with snails. That poor tomcat must have spent the whole night in this position, so scared that he could not move and all the snails had enough time to find a nice little place on him.
Susanne touched him very carefully and tried to find out wether he was injured. She put all the snails from his fur and took him slowly into her armes. He seemed to be alright and Susanne went with Tigger into our house. The last stair she let him down just to see wether he can move and run normally. And for her big relief he could. Like a thunderbolt he run into the apartment and first of all on the litter box.
After that he started to clean his fur and did not stop for at least two hours. The rest of the day Tigger slept in Susannes bed totally exhausted.
So the only explanation for this unwanted adventure was that he somehow came to the backyard over the staircase. Somebody has opened the door to the garden, Tigger slipped out and the door behind him was shut. And so poor Tigger had to spent all the night on a strange planet with strange noises and strange creatures.

I would like to give you a little insight in the everyday life of our band of cats. Four of them are out door cats, these are Lola the mother, Luna and Lara her daughters and Tobi the adopted foundling. Every morning when we go to work and the children to school we let them go outside. Our Luna is sitting the whole morning beside the frontdoor and is looking at us with big eyes. Every three minutes she said „Miau! I want to go outside!“ Also Tobi and Lara can not wait to get outside and stand impatiently at the doors of their owners appartments. The adventure is calling every morning no matter how the weather is.
Finally I put the collar on Luna and open the door. She scampers into the staircase and waits there very patiently till we put on our shoes and till my daughter has her backpack on her shoulders and we finally start moving down stairs. After every stair she took quickly and easily she sits down and waits for us hulking humans to come. She has so much understanding and it is so touching how patiently she always is looking up to
us. At the backyard all the playmates meet and start into a new adventure. They go to the old closed Jewish cemetery that is next to our garden, because there is the new big hunting ground. We are pretty happy about that because on the cemetery are no cars and no dangers for the cats, it is quiet and safe. And next to the Jewish cemetery is another big graveyard that is a perfect place for them to conquer new territories.

Every cat belongs to someone else and so we have a What’s App group to share important cat-news all the day. So everyone of us knows wich cat is already at home or still outside or visits friends. At noon Lara and Tobi very often come to us because their owners are at work at that time. Our bengal cat Timur is so happy when his playmates are visiting him and they always have much fun together. Every day between 12.00 and 13.00 o’clock we take the cats inside for feeding and sleeping.
None of them should be forgotten and so I have sometimes four cats running around in our apartment. In the afternoon they go outside again and stay there till the evening. It is easy to get them in at night because we only have to rattle with the keys or the goodie box and they come running. Only Lola is a night hunter, she is roaming around outside the whole night and comes home in the morning. Then she sleeps all the day long till the next evening.

Today it is very cold. The thermometer shows 10 degrees below zero. But how can we explain that to our cats ? They of course insist on going out. So they have to find out by themselves how uncomfortable it is in this terrible could outside.
Just now came a new What’sApp massage: „ Tobi slipped in to the staircase. May be he found it to cold after all.“
He slipped into our staircase and not into the house of his family but of course he is welcome here. The next massage was:„ Tobi is visiting Lola now.“ and a picture with the two. So we all are perfectly informed.

Not long after Tobi who warmed up and went out again Lara came running and slipped into the staircase. Also Lara actually lives in the neighbor house. So they had a flying change and it was Laras turn to warm up at her mother Lola.