Outdoor Cat After One Year Indoors

This time last year we brought Outdoor Cat indoors for the winter in advance of a snow storm. (She had spent who knows how many previous winters living outside, which in Wisconsin is pretty cold going. You can see all the related posts here.)

Once she figured out that she could stay inside, she pretty much became an indoor cat (though we still call her "Outdoor Cat"). Occasionally she will ask to go out, and we'll open the front door for her. She sit on the porch and look around, nibble some grass, and maybe explore the bushes, but about 5-10 minutes later she's at the door waiting to be let back in. Like all cats, she is trying to train us humans. As this video shows, her hardest task is getting us to follow her to her empty food dish (and she will put up with annoying baby talk to get what she wants).

Now that cold weather has set in, I sometimes wake up in the wee hours to find I'm wedged in between my husband on one side, Outdoor Cat on the other, and Nuts the 16-lb. cat crushing my feet. Sometimes all three of them are snoring. (The third cat Ruby prefers the living room couch.)

As I type this, we're under a winter storm warning. Outside, the wind is howling, the snow is gusting, and the windchill is 6°F (-15°C). Outdoor Cat is sleeping in front of the heat grate on my office floor (amidst the piles of papers seen in the video - I'm still cleaning!) And when I get up from my chair, she will probably run straight to her food dish in the next room and look at me expectantly!