PJ has this thing about closed doors.
Our home is an open-concept ranch; the only doors are to the outside, the bathroom, and our bedrooms. The cats can run from one end of the house to the other at breakneck speed as much as their little hearts desire, which is great for them but not so great for houseguests. To me, the cats’ activity has become just more background noise, but it turns out that four cats can make a lot of noise at three in the morning, and in the midst of a sound sleep, no one really appreciates a herd of felines racing over their prone bodies.
But I digress…
Even with all of this open space, PJ remains deeply bothered in the presence of a closed door. He’ll sit at the end of the hallway and howl because the kids have their doors closed. He’ll push, paw, and even body slam the bathroom door, as though shocked that we would have the audacity to lock him out. We generally ignore him, because the doors need to stay closed to conserve heat. But we’ve seemed to reach a consensus on my parents’ bedroom.
The routine goes like this: PJ eats breakfast, and then sits patiently outside their bedroom. If we look over, he pointedly stares at the door or he stands up, stretches so that his paws gently touch the doorknob, and looks back at us. Can you see that I’d like to get in?
So we let him in and he stays there for most of the day, snoozing on my parents’ bed. He comes out when either Mom or Dad arrives home in the late afternoon and he rejoins the rest of the household.
Eat. Sleep. Repeat.
Cats are so strange.
