The Bad Cat Returns, or, Welcome Home Clyde!

The Prodigal Cat returns!

Clyde went to live with Richard and Betty last summer after some post-Jones drama.  He, for reasons that are still unknown to anyone and everyone, began using the bathroom outside of the litter box.  It was bad.  Very stressful for everyone.  More than we could handle with a newborn baby in the house.  And stinky.  Very, very stinky (there's nothing in the world that smells the way that cat pee smells ... trust me on that one).  So, Betty very sweetly offered to take Clyde on as a boarder.  He lived like a king for the last year, and Richard and Betty grew to love him (he is very lovable ... when he's not being bad ... like peeing in any place other than the litter box). 

Living like a king in NLR!

When we finally were able to pull up the carpet in the house and stain the concrete, we made arrangements for Clyde to come home, and in July, Clyde came back.  He was very standoffish at first (holding a grudge, it seems) and spent a lot of time hiding under the bed (probably plotting his escape back to NLR), but he's warmed back up to us - he's sitting in between Alan and I right now as I type this!  My new joke (although, honestly, I'm actually pretty serious about it) is that Clyde went to rehab at the Betty Ward Clinic and came back a new cat.

Jones is still trying to figure out what, exactly, Clyde is.  Is he a funny looking dog? Some sort of very life-like stuffed animal?  Clyde, in turn, is also trying to figure out where Jones came from.  They had a stand-off the other day. Alan witnessed it and said you could clearly tell that both of them were thinking, "What the heck is that?!"  Jones has learned to say, "cat", too, and the other morning he was eating breakfast and Clyde sauntered into the room to sit in the window and get the good sun,and Jones looked over and then looked at me and pointed and said, "kitty cat" (again, it was super garbled, but that's definitely what he was saying - I repeated, "Yes, kitty cat" to him and he looked quite pleased with himself.)!  He still calls him "dog" a lot though (pretty much every animal we come across is a dog, at least in Jones' world view).

After Clyde really got used to being back with us, I held him one day and let him meet Jones "officially".  I was really pleased with how well Clyde handled it (cats have a mind of their own, you know, so you can never tell how they are going to react to stuff ...).  I held him to my chest and squatted down and let Jones pet him, encouraging him to be "careful" and "gentle", and giving examples on how best to pet a cat.  Clyde stayed very still the whole time.  I think he was a bit nervous since Jones' petting is a little forceful, and he has a tendency to kind of smack instead of pet, and he likes to grab (especially soft things, like fur), but I also think he understood that Jones wouldn't hurt him (or that I wouldn't let Jones hurt him).  At one point, he turned his little cat face toward my neck and pressed his nose into my collarbone pretty hard - I could hear him breathing quite clearly.  It was like he was saying, "Okay, hold on now, just a little longer, you can make it, just a little longer, don't look, don't look, don't look, just a little longer."  So I let Jones pet him a couple more times after that and then released him back into the wild.  Clyde, since the initial encounter, is still very curious about Jones, but not curious enough to risk getting caught by him.  I catch him sauntering around, sticking his head around the corner in Jones' room, and into the dining room when we are feeding him, but if Jones sees him, he always books it back to our room and under the bed, usually with Jones in hot pursuit.  He has better luck when Jones is sleeping.

He also is very interested in Jones' room, I think because it gets the best sun in the house and is the warmest room in the house.  I don't let him in there, though, because it's carpeted and we all know that Clyde can't be trusted where carpet is concerned.  This, of course, makes him even more interested in the room.  He waits for me outside the door of the room every night when I put Jones to sleep.  I think it's sweet.

We are all glad to have the Bad Cat back, even Alan (although you would be hard-pressed to get him to admit such a thing) - I've seen him secretly petting Clyde when he thinks no one is looking.