Lockdown - Day 1...

Sassy spent twenty four hours in lockdown.  She was installed in the laundry room yesterday morning about 5:30 a.m. with her dry food, water, blanket and some toys.  I rescued her for a couple of hours yesterday afternoon and brought her to my craft room for some playing and leg stretching.  She spent a lot of the time by stretching up on her back legs and scratching at the door to get out.  She was locked up in my craft room on our last trip so maybe having the door shut is stressful.  Every time she tried to claw down the door (she doesn't have front claws), I called her over to play with her string for a bit.  Eventually she settled down on the window seat and talked to the birds coming up for peanuts.

The upside of locking her up is we didn't have to cover my chair and footstool with a pet carrier so we stored those for a while.  And this morning, I went into the laundry room and she had used the box multiple times, lot of pee but just a little poop.  We let her out to eat but I kept an eye on her.  I played with both cats for half an hour, and when I went upstairs, I went back down to check on her every twenty minutes or so, inviting her each time into the bathroom to 'go potty' and she finally rewarded my patience with both pee and poop (a much larger amount this time).  So, I hugged her, praised her, chased her (she loves that) and will continue to do that all day.  However, tonight she goes back into the bathroom.

A long article by the ASPCA on retraining cats to use a litter box says nine months is a cut off point.  If you can't get a cat retrained in that amount of time, it isn't going to happen.  November 11th is our date (272 days).  We won't get rid of her, but might consider keeping her locked up past that date, at least at night.  Our only problem will be our cat sitter won't be amenable to the regimen we're planning so Sassy will need to stay locked up while we're gone.  She won't have the time to wait in the morning until Sassy does her business, she just comes in to clean the boxes, feed the girls, love on them a little and then leave - she has four kids and a housecleaning business to run.

No problems with Sadie.  Since she's so crazy about sleeping on our bed, I went on an internet journey to find a cover (other than the thin piece of plastic we've been using that she's already poked holes in) so if she decides to pee on our bed again, it won't soak through.  I was unsuccessful in finding something.  While cleaning a litter box in the spare bedroom, I had an aha moment.  We had purchased waterproof pads that were on the bed in the spare room under a plastic tarp and covered with the tubs I keep my finished cards for craft shows in.  I sneaked them out under the pile, sewed three of the long ones together and it fit our king sized bed just fine.  We can wash it and it doesn't look crappy on the bed, more like a quilted spread.  Sadie is pleased with the comfort and we're pleased the bed is protected.