Maurice & the great kitty bender

Maurice is going through his rebellious stage I think. He used to be such a cute, docile kitten... see evidence above. Nowdays it's another story....

Maurice Campbell gain entrance into the Campbell Clan in May of 2007. He was our pride and joy, our little brown butter ball. We foolishly allowed him to wander around the yard and become an indoor/outdoor kitten. He liked to chase bugs, roll in the dirt and patrol the perimiter of the yard. It was all so cute. Until he learned to jump the wall.


Side note about where we live....I practically feel like we live in South Phoenix but alas, we live in Marana, Arizona. On the very fringe of town out near the farmers and our neighborhood is built on old farm land. We are still surrounded by farm land since the ecomony killed our neighborhood. So needless to say there are lots of wild creatures behind our house, coyotes, roadrunners, rabbits, ect. When they built a new road to our neighborhood we brought Maruice inside for fear of him getting run over even though the road was still a field away. Enter the pain and suffering.

Maurice staged a revolt in our living room every night. Yowling, crying, moaning, sulking... you name it, he tried it. We called it his teenage years. Eventually I decided he needed a friend to cheer him up. Enter Toulouse of the Orange Tabby Cats in June 2008. Toulouse only seemed to annoy Maurice and make him sullen. But they do chase each other around the house and provide some sort of companionship. I think.

All of this to say that last week I was sick and tired of Maurice and his attitude. I finally let him go back outside on Friday night. He rolls in the dirt and trots off into the sunset. I see him Saturday morning in the yard sunning himself and go about my day. No sign of Mo on Saturday night or all day Sunday. As Monday rolls around I am nervous. He'd never been gone this long. By Tuesday night I am sitting by the screen door crying and James is posting lost kitty photos. At 11 pm Wednesday night we think we hear a yowl outside our window. We jump up and race to the sliding glass door. Maurice drags himself up to the door and we let him in.

He races to the water bowl as we cluster around him. He's dirty, thin and ravenous. I clean him up and get him more water. We have no idea where he'd been. Out catting around with loose female kitties and smokin the nip? Could be....anyway we celebrate a few minutes longer and go to bed. It was 11 o'clock. So late.

Maurice enjoys a nice leisurely day inside napping on the sofa. So last night I let him out again. Why you ask? After such heartache and striffe. Such pain. Because if I coop him up again for another year and then break down then he's probably going to go on another kitty bender again. True to form he was yowling outside our window at 5 am to be let in. I have no idea what to do about that. 5 am is not the hour that I wake up and unlike my alarm, Maurice has no snooze button. So we'll continue to try and figure out a solution to this situation that doesn't involve death.... via coyote or me strangling him.