Llyr Likes Boxes

He's been especially happy since we've gotten several small cardboard boxes in the mail that we placed in different rooms of the house for him.

Previously held video games, now holds one kitty.

Not really a box, but good enough. 

Here he is trying to fit into a box-like container that is clearly too small. Clearly.

 Christmas box with wrapping: the best!

Double-box goodness.

Just wanted to share some cuteness.

Project: Cat Door

We finally put in a cat door for Llyr that will allow him to go into the garage whenever he wants. This will not solve all our problems of Llyr whining to go outside, but perhaps it will cut down the annoyance a little since now he can go out there (sometimes a satisfactory second option) on his own. Though each cat door is different and should come with its own instructions, I'll show you the process I went through to put ours in, as well as pictures of Llyr using it soon after it was installed. He is a smart kitty. 

We bought a small, cheap-ish cat door ($20) from Lowe's. There were a few options. I liked that this door had just a tiny bit of space around the door so it would swing open and closed easier. One of the models at Lowe's had a door that touched at the point where the magnet is placed to keep it closed, and it was harder to push open. I also liked that this one was pretty low-profile. There was another one that had edges that were really thin and bevelled to the door and a lock that could be made to allow the cat 4 different access ways ... but then I decided that simple was better and this one was smaller and would take up less room overall on the door, even though it sticks out from the door a half inch or so. 

There was a paper provided that had steps for installing the door. I thought this was really smart: the paper itself is what you trace around to cut the hole. I still measured a bit though. I measured roughly how far below the top of the door the hole would be, so I could make the top of the door line up with the bottom edge of the bevelled panel of the door. I really disliked that all the example pictures at Lowe's had the door cutting right through the panel - that just looks tacky. Luckily, our door was small enough that it could fit below the panel.

Measuring for placement.

Ready to trace for the hole. See the instructions?

It is light but you can sort of see my tracing.

 I used the same trick to cut out this hole in the door as I did when cutting the hole for the front of kitty's litter box.  I drilled out holes at the corner and used my jigsaw to cut it out. This was tricky because the door is hollow, so I had to keep drilling and get through both layers, then I had to basically do all the cutting with the door open because it was so near the floor the jigsaw wouldn't easily cut otherwise, and also the door wanted to shake a lot while I was cutting.

Drilled holes through both sides of door.

During jigsaw-ing. It made a mess of the paint.

After jigsaw-ing.

I tried placing the pieces on to test the cutting and see if Llyr would go through it. He was unsure what to do at first, but knew that he could push on the door. After a while of my lifting the door up and calling to him, he finally went through once with my help. Then I went back to affixing the door.

Another point I should mention is that it worked really well for us to put the door so close to the floor on this side because there is a step on the other side of the door. So, when Llyr is coming in from the garage, the door is at a great height. When he is going out into the garage, the door probably seems low when he first starts to go through, but then he steps on the garage step and can get down. If the garage floor was level with our kitchen/living room floor, my plan to put the door really low and miss the door panel would have made it so that Llyr had to crawl through, which would not have been as ideal.

I screwed on the front side of the door after peeling off a lot of the paint. The jigsaw really scraped it up a lot, so I decided I'd just paint over that area again with leftover paint. This door does not hold the paint we used very well - I'm not sure if it is the door or the paint (which makes an almost laytex-like layer) that is to blame. The back piece of the cat door (which is laying beside my in the previous picture) just had double-sided stickers to attach it to the back. Actually, this cat door was really simple to attach. Some of the others were adjustable to the door thickness but had a plastic part that went inside to cover the exposed door. That was neat, but then you had to cut that down to make it fit your door, which would have been a lot more work. When our cat door is open, you can see inside the hollow door. I could stuff or cover that somehow I guess if I wanted to, but I'm not too worried about it. I guess the worst part is that in the garage that hole is not covered, so bugs could possibly get inside the door, so I may try stuffing it up with something to prevent that.

Door attached, paint removed.

After repainting.

Kitty learning to use the door.

Success! Smart kitty!

And now, we'll never have to deal with this again:

He usually isn't that dramatic about getting in the garage, but this was just after we'd had the garage repoured and he hadn't gotten to go out there for a couple days. He was having withdrawals.

Project: Pokémon Cards

Check out the newest pokémon trio: Kitty Llyr, Llyr, and King Llyr.

Basic starter pokémon Kitty Llyr.

Kitty Llyr evolves into ninja-like Llyr.

Llyr evolves into self-assured King Llyr.

Whoa! Ultra-rare holofoil King Llyr with crown! 
Even more intimidating and powerful!

Admit it, he'd make an awesome pokémon.

Llyr Scare

For about an hour yesterday, I thought we'd lost Llyr forever.

Before we started eating dinner at 4:15 (normal for me on Mondays because I then have to drive to Warrensburg for class, but early for Matt. He came home early from work and was able to see me before I left), Llyr wanted to go out. He'd already been out two or three times and he'd been pretty good each time. He can escape the yard through one length of fence on the east side of the house, but usually he doesn't get far before I check and see he's out and go get him. He walks slowly and likes to look at things. This time, the last time he'd been out, he'd only just gotten into the side yard and was sitting by the neighbor's house, looking around. So when Matt said, "Llyr wants to go out, can he?" I said "Yes, I guess so."

Llyr desperately wants to be an outside cat. We indulge him by letting him the backyard sometimes. Usually he just watches the birds but sometimes he gets restless and leaves the yard.

We ate, and then around 4:25 I asked Matt to look out the window for him. Matt couldn't see him so he went out in the front to check. Usually Llyr just goes to the front yard, or the front of our neighbor's yard. The farthest I've ever seen him go is two houses to the west, where he sat under a neighbor's truck. But Matt couldn't see him anywhere, front or back. I grabbed Mr. Raccoon and took him out with me to look. In the house, Llyr always comes running if I squeak Mr. Raccoon. Outside of the house, if I walk around with him, I will usually find Llyr after a few minutes when he comes out from wherever he is to see Mr. Raccoon. He doesn't come over to me since he'd rather explore, but even the time he was under the truck he poked his head out to see why his favorite toy was outside, then I was able to get him.

We walked around the house, squeaking and looking, for several minutes. Now it was getting close to the time when I needed to leave for class. We got in the car and took a drive around the block, cursing the ridiculous amount of traffic in our residential neighborhood that made us speed up and have less time to look for Llyr. We couldn't believe he'd gotten so far in so short a time and was nowhere in sight. Matt said, "This might be the time he really got away for good."

Finally, it was time that I had to go. I asked Matt if he'd keep looking, and Matt said, "Sure ... there's just so many things to do." I got really hurt and mad at this and said, "Fine then, don't look anymore if you don't want to." I know Matt didn't mean to sound like he didn't care about Llyr, he was just commenting that, of course, Llyr would run off on a day when he'd had a lot of work and other things planned. But as I left I started crying. I was sure Llyr wouldn't come back, he'd just keep exploring and get lost. I prayed that he'd get hungry and come back safe.

On my way up to Warrensburg (wishing I could skip class but not able to, since I commute with someone), Matt called. He said he had kept looking for a long time but couldn't find him. I said, "If you want to do something else, that's fine." Matt apologized for sounding like he didn't want to look, and I said I was sorry I'd gotten upset and I knew he hadn't meant to sound that way. I wanted him to leave out food for Llyr but Matt thought then if he came back he might eat and then leave again. The worst part was I hadn't taken time to put our address on the back of Llyr's tags yet, so even if someone found him they wouldn't know where to take him, unless they thought to take him to the clinic where he'd gotten his rabies shots.

The whole time, I kept thinking what a horrible day April 8 was going to be from now on if Llyr really was gone. I have a journal that I've kept since the beginning of last year, and while writing in it the night before last, I'd looked ahead to last year's entry for April 8. Last year April 8 was Easter, and on that day my dog Indiana Jones, who I'd had for 15 years, was hit by a car. Well, she wasn't really hit we think, because she wasn't physically harmed. But, when the car went by she got scared and fell down, after which she couldn't stand up or move her legs correctly. We took her to the vet the next day and he said it seemed like she may have had something degenerative coming on slowly (it was hard for her to get up in the mornings) but the scare had made it progress quickly, and she wouldn't be able to get better. We had to put her to sleep. Matt came on his lunch hour to be with me and Indy. 

Indy was a great dog. I got her when I was 7 years old. Even though Llyr is technically Matt's first pet, I felt like Indy kind of was, too. Indy barked at Matt the first couple times he came to my house, but after that she fell in love with his wonderful pets and scratches, and he loved her too. When he played with her I knew Matt was a pet person. She was a crazy Jack Russell Terrier who bossed around my family's other dog, Chipper, an Australian Shepherd, and licked the wall when she got nervous. But she was loving and playful and the best dog ever. I miss her a lot, but I'm glad I got to have her for so long.

Thankfully, Llyr wasn't really gone forever. Matt called a second time around 5:30 to tell me that he'd "found" Llyr. Matt had decided to plant some seeds. He said he squeaked Mr. Raccoon for a long time, but didn't see Llyr. But when he got down to plant, all of a sudden he heard a jingling sound, and as he looked around, Llyr appeared from behind the pew sitting against the wall of the house on the concrete pad in our backyard. Thank goodness he called, because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to concentrate on class. Matt had to tell the neighbors he'd alerted that Llyr had been in the backyard the whole time. Matt said he knew something was up because Llyr never strays that far ... but I don't know what happened. I guess he was asleep and didn't hear the squeaking? Or he was being terribly mean and hiding from us. Either way, I was ready to get home and love on him and scold him for hiding from us. You can bet now I'll be engraving his tags and not letting him outside without supervision for a while. It was a horrible scare. Matt joked that without Llyr we would have time to do more stuff - but really it's not Llyr that takes up our time, but work and homework. Without him our things wouldn't get destroyed as much. But as Matt said more seriously, without him our little family wouldn't be complete. How could we be "Matt and E and kitty makes three" without our precious kitty? I'm glad he's back and I hope that, like Indy, we can have our dear Llyr for at least 15 years, too.

That night as I wrote in my journal that thankfully Llyr wasn't gone forever, I looked at the quote at the top of the page. It is a Jane Austen-themed journal with a quote from a novel or correspondence on each page. April 8 reads: "Do not give way to useless alarm; though it is right to be prepared for the worst, there is no occasion to look on it as certain." Matt said I should take that to heart. He's right, I am worried and anxious too much. And perhaps I shouldn't have thought it was so certain that Llyr was gone - but the thought that it might have turned out that way is scary and painful. I don't know what I'd do without my kitty Llyr.

Here are some recent pictures of Llyr being cute in honor of him not actually having run away from us:

Llyr loves, loves, loves his new crinkle-tunnel.

Look I'm a puppy, scratch my belly ... NOT! *bite*

Still thinking he's meant to be a wild outside cat.

Llyr's Friends

Llyr's stuffed animal friends recently got a new home when I made a kitty toy bag for him.

While putting all his friends away since company was coming over, I was thinking about the relationship Llyr has with each of his friends. I decided for posterity's sake to make a note the different ways Llyr shows his love for his toys.

Mr. Raccoon

Mr. Raccoon is by far Llyr's favorite friend. He was one of Llyr's earliest toys. If one of us squeaks Mr. Raccoon and throws him, Llyr will almost without fail rush to him and attack, usually with teeth chomping and back feet vigorously kicking. You might not think of this as showing "love" for his friend, but Mr. Raccoon is certainly the toy that gets the most consistent attention from Llyr. He is now matted beyond repair (I tried to wash him unsuccessfully). Once, when Llyr got out of the back fence and we were searching frantically for him, I tried squeaking Mr. Raccoon outside and Llyr came running from out of nowhere within seconds.

Ms. Kitty

Any time we had a "father figure" and "mother figure" cat in our small outdoor cat family at my parents' house, the daddy cats inevitably got called Mr. Kitty by me while the mother cats were Mrs. Kitty - I'm not sure why, because they all had perfectly good names ... I just liked calling them that sometimes as a nickname. So, when my mom brought this stuffed animal for Llyr, she became the Ms. to his Mr. When Llyr would sleep on the orange pallet I made for him, I'd often lay Ms. Kitty next to him to see if he would snuggle with her. Usually,  he'd just end up pushing her out of the way, but he never really attacked her, even when I rolled her around trying to provoke him. Now, Ms. Kitty lives in Llyr's kitty-cage-palace-bed and he doesn't seem to mind. He curls up however he pleases, using her as a snuggle-buddy or pillow, whichever she happens to become once he is settled in.

Mr. Monkey

As you can tell by now, though Llyr's name is pretty awesome and original, we didn't worry about taking so much time thinking up original names for his friends. Mr. Monkey was given to Llyr for Christmas by someone in our family. He is kind of like a tolerated friend who sometimes gets a little affection if Llyr is really feeling up to it. Usually if I throw him or try to play with him, Llyr will just run over to see what I threw and then walk away, maybe nuzzle him for a moment or sniff him, but usually not really play with him much. However, the other night Matt was holding Mr. Monkey near Llyr's crinkly tunnel and Llyr came over and sort of gave him some soft nips and kisses. He certainly won't attack him as readily as Mr. Raccoon.

Mousey

This Mousey is actually Mousey #2. The first mouse was brown and Llyr loved chasing him ... but I don't know what happened to him. I looked under all the furniture that Llyr sometimes loses toys under and couldn't fine him anywhere. I've decided that Llyr must have eaten him. The second Mousey is grey-green and if Llyr is in a playing mood, he will chase him pretty readily and bat him around. He likes to lick Mousey's feather tail.

Mr. Fox

Mr. Fox was a Christmas present from us to Llyr. You can see Llyr playing with him on Christmas day in our Christmas post. Llyr played heartily with Mr. Fox early on. As you can see, he tore his nose off and even destroyed the front squeaker in his head. I liked to place the fox on Llyr like a stole, and that would usually provoke Llyr to yank him off and bite him a little. He also likes chasing him, but we don't do that as often now as when we first gave him to Llyr. All in all, Llyr seems to like to attack Mr. Fox if we shake him around, or especially if we throw him in Llyr's tunnel. No one goes in there without immediately being checked out by Llyr, and usually jumped after. Sometimes the visitor gets to stay, but sometimes not.


Those are Llyr's everyday buddies and I hope they make his life as a solitary housecat a little more enjoyable. Luckily, Llyr has recently been able to meet a real-life kitty friend who comes over once a week to visit. I think Llyr likes her a lot, but she's very active and likes to provoke him to fight, usually playfully (of course, to be fair, Llyr starts the fights some of the time). Sometimes, once the night is over and he is exhausted, I think Llyr is happy that throughout the week his closest friends are quiet and soft, take all of his attacks without fighting back, and are only ready to play when he is.

Llyr Montage

Here's a Llyr montage for you . . . because I know you are dying to see pictures of our adorable, ferocious cat. Why else did you come to this page?

June 2012. Tiny and adorable in our bird feeder swing.

Back when he still slept on our laps. He's so tiny and cute!

Can you see the kitty?

Pounce!

 

Llyr cleaned and did all my homework for me. Not.

August 2012. He liked to sleep in the papasan, all curled up.

Llyr really liked to lay on our clothes.

 

He is always looking out that window, wanting to go outside.

Then when we plan a trip *OUTSIDE*, he does NOT want to go.

Llyr happier later that day.

Meercat Llyr.

October 2012. Bothering the dog in the yard catty-corner from ours.

This is when we tried to keep Llyr off the counters with carpet tack
and aluminum foil. Yeah, right.

 

King Llyr for Halloween.

He does not look best-pleased here, but look at that handsome
moustache!

 

These are Llyr's "hunting eyes." Notice they are almost completely
black. He shares them with us often.

Llyr and my parents' dog, Dollar.

December 2012. Trekking through the snow.

January 2013. A special occasion - sleeping on Matt's lap.