beyond cinderella

Yes, I surrendered to our Diva Drama cat, Carmen, and aborted the mission to harness train her…! After a good week of working with our little DIVA, several times a day, I finally got the harness and leash on her and actually thought she was going to warm up to the idea of learning how to walk in a harness with a leash… In our last harness training session I lured her into the harness with lots of tuna samples, then attached the leash to the harness, and she rolled around on the floor playing with the leash and was acting like she was enjoying it… See, doesn’t she look like she is having fun?

So, while she seemed to be in such a good mood, I decided it might be a good time to take her out on our back patio and introduce her to the great outdoors… NOT A GOOD IDEA….

I got her over to the back door and opened it. Carmen stood there like she had never seen the outside world before even though I open the front door all the time and let her watch the birds through the security screen door. I helped her out the back door and closed it behind us… that’s when our DIVA cat came unglued!!!

She sat down on the door matt and howled like I’ve never heard her howl before. She started clawing at the back door and cried and cried trying to get back in. I tried to tell it she was a good girl and she was doing great and everything was going to be alright once she gets used to being outside but she as having none of it!

After several attempts of trying to get her to venture off the door matt while she was howling at the top of her lungs, I began to think the neighbors might think our cat was being tortured in our back yard and call animal control or something. There was nothing left for me to do but take her back inside the house and take the harness and leash off of her.

Once we were safely inside the house I walked her over to the area carpet(with her growling in a low, evil sounding, growl now) where I was going to get her out of the “torture chamber…” She was none to happy about the whole experience and was letting me know it. Does this look like one angry cat or what?

I was afraid to get too close to her for fear she would rip my arms and legs to shreds out of sheer anger and frustration, so I leaned down and tried to unhook the leash from the harness first, but when I did that she stood up on her hind legs, with her front legs up in the air, and started walking backwards shaking her whole body until she freed herself from the whole harness/leash contraption.

Yes, one minute she was what I thought securely strapped into that harness and the next minute she was gone and I was left holding an empty harness with a leash attached to it. I was horrified thinking OMG, I’m so glad she didn’t do that while we were outside… Although as scared as she was of being outside I really think she would have made a beeline into the house as soon as I opened the door…but one never knows…

Anyway, I decided if this harness training was going to stress our DIVA DRAMA cat out that much, not to mention what it was doing to me…., it just wasn’t worth it. So I told her she was just going to have to spend the rest of her life in our motorhome when we get it, and I took the harness and leash back and got my money refunded… Just see if I care if that Diva Drama cat ever gets to enjoy our outside happy hours/dinners when we are traveling in our motorhome… 🙂

Stay Tuned!