Have I mentioned that we’re renting a haunted mansion?
We found one landlord with one house willing to rent to 3 dogs and a cat. The house is humongous, but it’s in terrible shape. It creaks. It leaks, so drips echo across the wood floors. Many of the windows aren’t sealed, so when it storms, the wind blusters through the gaps. Animals live under the floorboards. (I hope it’s this guy.)
I could go on. But all this is to say, this house is creepy!
We’re lucky, though, that it’s divided into three parts. The main floor has kitchen, dining, work, and living spaces, along with the master bedroom and bathroom. At some point in the house’s history, someone tacked on a garage and laundry room, which they attached to the side of the house that held the staircase going from the first to second floor. This resulted in a set of stairs going up into a gigantic room (it spans the garage/laundry/mudroom). From the big room, a second set of stairs leads to the upstairs, which has 3 more bedrooms, a bathroom, and storage.
Ok, so now you have the lay of the land, here’s what we have going on:
The dogs have full run of downstairs.
Newt has the run of the big room and one of the upstairs bedrooms (her habitat is in that room… more on that in another post).
We have a gate on the stairs leading to the big room, which has a door that we leave closed.
Then, there’s another gate on the stairs leading upstairs. This one has a cat door.
Then, there’s another gate in the door to Newt’s room, also with a cat door.
All this because Lucas still sorta wants to eat her.
Poor Newt.
I will say we’ve made progress, but it’s also still very much a work in progress.
While I track our training, I’m going to share with you guys what I learn about cats along the way. So, I’ve added another little “channel” to OMD!
I’m calling it: Holy Cat!
Anything specific to Newt will be filed here, but I’ll keep updating on the dog training portion of the cat training situation.
(Status update on that: Lucas can be off leash in the big room with Newt. As long as Newt is up high and perfectly still. Movement is totally what sets him off. We’re clearly battling a pretty strong prey drive here. All tips appreciated!)
I was waiting for a new battery for my video camera, and now that that’s arrived (yay!) I’m going to try setting it up on a tripod to capture one of our “cat training” sessions with Lucas. If all goes according to plan, keep an eye out for that in the next few weeks.
Hope you guys are having a good week! Thanks for sticking around through all the ups and downs of the past 18 months!!! Adding “Holy Cat!” should be the last big change… at least for a while! 🙂
Your description reminds me of a huge, creepy house my Mom’s friends lived in when I was a kid. Hey, at least your landlord allows animals, right? 🙂
EXACTLY! That’s the only reason we’re here! 😉
I LOVE huge, creepy homes! Really, I do….can I come visit? 🙂
Absolutely!! Door’s open! (Mostly because it doesn’t fit the frame, but whatever!) Heck, there’s enough space for the whole BlogPaws crew! Next time you’re in Louisiana…
Well hey I would run for the hills if it were haunted, but it just sounds, “broken in” tee hee
Happy Wordless Wednesday from the BlogPaws Blog Hop!
“Broken in” is a verrrryyyy nice way of describing this house. “Broken” is maybe more accurate! 🙂 The first guest we had came downstairs after his first night here, and he said, “I can totally see how you might think there’s a ghost up there!” Me? I’ve never slept up there! Thank goodness the master bedroom is on the first floor! And I have a pile of dogs to guard me! 🙂
We love big creepy houses. The only thing better is if it had its own special ghost to entertain all of you.
As long as it was a friendly ghost, I’d be happy! Oooh, and if it swept up dog fur!
Well the house sounds huge, but hope it’s not haunted!
Same here, Ann! It certainly FEELS haunted!
I have recurring nightmares about haunted houses. Therefore I could never live in a big old house!
We were always telling our older cat that if he wouldn’t RUN by the dogs, they wouldn’t chase him! That is definitely what enticed them. Although occasionally our little beagle will still chase Samantha even if she only walks by her. She does always stop when we yell at her though, and Sam isn’t much phased by it.
Oh, I like those gates with the cat doors built in! We could have used those when we were training puppies.
YES, these gates have been a life saver! Although, early on, Cooper got it in his head that he could pursue her right through her cat door… he pulled the whole gate out of the wall, got stuck, and scared himself so badly that he won’t go up the flight of stairs from the big room to the upstairs anymore!!! (In a way, that solved the chasing-the-cat-upstairs problem…)
Louisiana & Haunted Houses–why is it after seeing online about a lot of “haunted tours” in NOLA is it that I can completely believe this? *shudder*
I suppose if you could do some research and put a name to your ghost, you could always do haunted tours for the strays around you?
OOh, good idea! 🙂 I think there’s so much “haunted” stuff around here because everything is so old! I spent my life in the midwest and on the east coast prior to moving here, and in those places… most things are new! At least, new-ish. Here, they’ve maintained their history, especially in architecture, so everything feels all big and creepy and old! I love it! 🙂