Please Provide Shelter

We lived through our part of Hurricane Sandy.  I know we had the easy side of Sandy and my heart goes out to the people of New York and New Jersey.  Heaven help them.

One thing that needs to be talked about is our outside pets.  Lisa brought this up recently on our Lorain 365 blog.   I know I probably go to the extreme by bringing in the cats from outside, but I'll have you know I do practice self control here.  There are still at least four cats out there that I HAVEN'T brought in yet!

Anyway, your outside pets and/or friends need protection from the weather.  When Sandy was so bad on Monday, I brought Ava inside.  She was the youngest kitten out of the group I have and she was sitting against the house just shivering and crying.  She had me at hello!

Three of the others were off somewhere, hopefully dry and warm.  But, my Hemingway was sitting on my front porch, looking for shelter.  He has become very aggressive recently, so I am apprehensive about bringing him inside.  This will be his third winter on or around my porch.  But, I still worry about him.  He's proven that he can take care of himself, but since he has attached to me, it's my job to help make sure he's safe, aggressive or not.

I got the idea from the fact that Hemingway was trying to hide under the glider on the porch.  I just ran with his idea.  I knew we had some paint tarps in the garage, so I grabbed a tarp, threw it OVER the glider and tucked the ends under the legs of the glider.  I left the back open, but put the back close to the house so he could get in and out and turned the glider a bit to make sure the opening was out of the wind.  It wasn't the Ritz, but he would be dry and hopefully warm.  I did a good job, but Ron came out and helped and he did a GREAT job!  Here is our make shift shelter for Hemingway or any other of my outside cats.

I know at least Hemingway is using the shelter as I see him come out of it when I take his food bowl out there in the morning.

Don't let what happened to the dog that Lisa blogged about ever happen again.  We all need to be RESPONSIBLE pet owners.  The outside animals need help in surviving the bad weather.  We got through Sandy but we still need to get through the winter.  It doesn't take much to make a shelter.  A plain piece of tarp is doing a great job!  Of course, there is bringing them inside, too.  Ava is MUCH happier with her lifestyle now!