
So Kali had a little outing today.
She quite regularly tries to get outside whenever we're coming in the door. She is fascinated with "outside." At our old apartment she actually managed to escape twice, once she was out there for quite some time before we got her back in, the second time I caught her mere feet from the door. But anyhow, she will sit at the window for hours, and even try to climb the screen. She just wants to see what all those interesting smells out there are, I think!
So a couple of weeks ago I bought a cat harness. She is definitely an indoor cat, and I wouldn't feel right letting her run loose outside, but I figured if I could get her used to the harness, we could have little walks once in a while. So I'd put it on her, and then, so she associated it with "out" I'd carry her outside for just a minute immediately after. She didn't really like actually being out much at first, and she really didn't like the harness either. She'd slink around the house whenever she had it on, with her ears back, bellying on the ground and looking pissed off. But this time she didn't seem so upset about the harness, and was really looking around with curiosity outside. So I sat down on the ground just out front of our apartment, where there's a little bit of lawn, and a tree, and a fern. I put her on my lap, with the end of the leash firmly in hand in case she tried something crazy. She stuck to my lap for a bit, then cautiously crept off on to the grass, and started sniffing everything. Then she tried sharpening her claws on the grass. Then she went over to the fern and sniffed it.
Then, of course, she tried to eat the fern, and I had to pick her up and move her away from it. I've heard that ferns can poision a cat. Anyhow, she wanderd around a bit more, and ate some grass, (which I don't think will do her any harm, and which was hilarious to watch, she was sort of attacking the grass and tearing at it like it might get away!) and eventually she plopped down on the sidewalk and started grooming, at which point I figured she'd had enough fun for the day and brought her in.
It was really cute watching her explore. I'm sure I'll start doing this fairly regularly. We're not going to have walks, the way I would with a dog, but that's all right. This is more intersting anyhow.