An Incident

I don’t know what happened.

I know a few facts, and then I have my imagination.

The new house has a large laundry room, upstairs. It is the largest laundry room I’ve ever had, with storage and counter space for folding. It is also where we have chosen to keep the kitty litter and where we feed the cats. It has a linoleum floor, so it was a sensible place for that.

Indy likes to eat cat food, both before the cats have eaten it, and after. After is a special treat. Ugh.

So, we do not want Indy to have access to the cat bowls or the litter box. This has been handled a variety of ways in the past, but at this house we went with a barrier method.

We have a metal gate, like a baby gate, but it is a little bit taller, and it has a cat door built into it. We keep that in the laundry room door. The cats can get in and out through the door, and Indy cannot get in and out. She isn’t spry enough to jump it, and she is too large to fit through the cat door.

One night this week we went out to dinner. When we got home Indy was downstairs. I went upstairs and found a slightly bent and dented metal gate on the floor at our master bedroom door, down the hall from the laundry room. There were a variety of dents, scrapes and gouges in the hallway wall. Willow was hiding under the master bedroom bed, shaking and traumatized. Xander was locked in the office.

Xander being locked in the office is to the best of my knowledge and imagination, unrelated, other than it apparently being a lucky circumstance if Willow’s current state of sanity is any indication.

What I envision happening is Indy thinking that there were tasty treats on the other side of that gate and giving a shot at getting in the way the cats do. It failed to work in her favor, and she got stuck and freaked out. At which point I think she managed to rip the gate out of the doorway (bending it a bit). Then I picture Freaked Out Dogzilla, with a giant, sharp cornered, metal collar staggering frantically through the hall. I wish we had video.

Somewhere in this story is Willow. I’m not sure where, but the cat is NOT HAPPY. It took about 20 hours before she would willingly leave the space under our bed. She doesn’t want to be in the laundry room. I think Dogzilla with the metal collar destroying the walls was SCARY.

I have another, insane cartoon vision, where the cat door was nudged shut. Willow tried to sneak between the posts and got stuck. She freaked out and caused Indy to investigate. Indy got stuck in the cat door, ripped the gate out of the doorway and went raging down the hall wearing a giant sharp cornered metal collar with a cat dangling from it. I don’t really think this happened, but it makes me laugh when I think about it. (I cringe too, I am not 100% cruel and coldhearted, but come on – It looks hysterical).

Now, whatever happened, I’d like to believe that Indy will never do it again, but sadly because of the senility, I’m not so sure. Ugh

Of course, it is also possible that somebody let themselves into the house, carefully removed the gate, bent it up and damaged our wall, locked Xander into the office, tortured Willow, and then left the house and locked up behind them.

Willow knows what happened, but she isn’t talking.