As a Snowshoe (basically a Siamese/Shorthair mix), Tuck’s a real smart cat. Always has been, way too smart for his own good. I’ve had him since 2001 and learned after about three days not to turn my back on him, not to underestimate him.
Ruca’s a normal cat. Tuck’s more like one of the velociraptors from Jurassic Park: when you look at him, you can see that he’s figuring things out. He’s problem-solving intelligent in a way that’s unsettling at times.
I knew back in December that the dog door was eventually going to be trouble. When we first moved in, it was a free-swinging door with no locking mechanism; there was no doubt in my mind that, if we kept that door in, Tuck would have it figured out in under a week. He’d watch Sam go in and out, and he’d solve the problem before long, and then shortly after he’d be a dead cat because he can’t survive for long without his meds. So we bought and installed a fancy electronic dog door that locks and unlocks on a sensor hanging around Sam’s neck.
Anyway, for a long time Tuck just had no interest in the door. So when the batteries went dead, we never got around to replacing them – the cats never went near the thing and so we figured our concerns were just overblown.
In the last week or two, Tuck’s been inspecting the door subtly but definitely more closely. He’d sit by the door (which is about eight inches off the ground), get up on his hinds and start testing the edges around the flap with his paws. We watched as he did this several times, but he couldn’t get the heavy flap open, so again we figured it was safe. Tuck didn’t have the strength to push the big door open on his hinds.
So this afternoon I’m standing out on the patio and talking to Kristi on the phone. She was on prep and waiting for the final bell to ring so that she could go home; I’d been chopping vegetables for dinner (chicken casserole) and taking a break to step out and talk to my girl. And then while we’re talking, I hear the dog door flap come down hard and I’m thinking the Sam came out (as he often does) to try to lobby an orange that he wasn’t going to get.
I look over and there’s no Sam.
Instead, Tuck was standing outside the kitchen door, looking around with a “HAHA NO DOG DOOR CAN CONTAIN ME!” look on his face. And then I freaked. I dashed back to the kitchen, scooped him back inside and locked down the kitchen. So now we’re all still trying to get the door programmed right so that we can leave the animals alone with the door without Tuck making his escape again.
Tuck’s come back several times this afternoon, poking around the flap and trying to crack it again, trying to reproduce his success, but he hasn’t managed it yet. We did learn how he managed to do it, though: he learned that he could lift the heavy plastic flap liner with one paw while pushing the flap itself with the other. The flap then opened just wide enough to get his nose through, and them boom, out he went.
Sheesh. Seven years, and that cat’s been trouble since day one. We love him to death. But I’m telling you, Kristi knows now – we can’t turn our back on him. He’s a schemer.