I just read that cats love boxes. How did I miss this important fact!

We have 3 cats: Emma (gray, female, sort of delicate) has been with us 12 years or more. Dave (male, black, kind of aggressive) joined us a few years later. Last winter, Belle (female, small) showed up between ice storms. She was bony, obviously homeless.

For a while the cats co-existed in the house. This is the one and only picture I have of them together…

And then all hell broke loose. Belle decided that she was the boss and she started fighting with the other two cats. I tried putting different cats in cat carriers. I tried closing them off from each other. No dice.

Emma fled first, to the back yard. We finally put a cat door in the shed. I got her a kitty kabin and a heat lamp for winter. She seems happy in her new home. Every now and then she flirts with the idea of coming inside the house, but then she turns tail and runs.

Dave (big, tough Dave!) is back to being a mostly outside cat. I set up a warm spot (with a heat lamp) in the garage for cold nights. He actually snuck into the house the other night to sleep in front of the fire, but he skedaddled first thing in the morning, before Belle saw him.

Belle is now the queen of all she surveys. The house is hers. We are her people. Steve is not crazy about Belle. He doesn’t appreciate the fact that she has run the other 2 cats outside. The funny thing is, though, that he was not crazy about the other 2 cats either. He (says he) would be happy if they all went to heaven.

I wish the 3 cats were happy together; instead I have 3 happy cats who thrive in their own separate spaces. Keeping them separately fed and watered is a small hassle but other than that, it’s not that bad. I’m not unhappy that Belle is our inside cat because I like her personality. She’s perky! She is also sometimes pointy—but not usually. Sort of like me :-).

I am, however, going to remember about the cardboard boxes. Maybe, if I could somehow get them all in the house at the same time—with boxes aplenty—they could each go to a box and think about getting along.