You can see the dynamic this week.

When two or more cats of our cats gather together, Bessie is probably not one of them.

She’s the social isolate. Not completely, but odds are if one is left out, she’s the one.

We don’t know how to account for this, except that the other three all spent significant time in a cat colony, and were well trained in managing relationships with other cats. We were told Bessie had been dumped at the colony only a short time before we agreed to adopt her. Perhaps she lacked the necessary training in responding to bullying.

In any case, we’re now just a few days away from the big vet visit. Kinikini is due for his annual checkup, and Kali is due to be doped up just enough, we hope, so that she can’t successfully defend against a routine vet exam, including a check on the condition of her teeth. Fingers crossed. We start the night before with the visit her first dose, repeat after 12 hours, and then give her a final dose a couple of hours before her appointment.

Hopefully all will go smoothly!

But then this happened! Meda got up to get another glass of wine, and when she opened the door, Kinikini trotted right past her and out onto the deck. He had one eye on me as I stood up to try and block him, trotting right along the deck just out of my reach, and then down the stairs onto the ground in front of our bedroom. With me in pursuit, he doubled back and disappeared under the house.

None of our current generation of cats has made a break-out like this. Romeo did it, once. Spent 10 minutes or so exploring under the house, seemed to figure out we weren’t in Kaaawa any more, and appeared to let me pick him up.

Kinikini didn’t take that long.I asked Meda to bring out the container of Temptations to lure him back, but before she could bring them out to me, Kinikini emerged and let me pick him up.

Now we have an unresolved question. Was that enough of the unfamiliar outdoors for him, or is he likely to be looking for the next opportunity to slip outside? That’s going to give me heartburn for a while!

And now the cats make their final appearance of February, and they make the most of it!