We are doing a renovation on our house so that we can get some light in our
house and views of the backyard.  I think it'll be pretty substantial and it
probably makes sense to move out for a period of time.  But I can't.  It's
Otis.

Even if we could find a house in the neighbourhood to rent, its unlikely
that they would accept cats, that the neighbours wouldn't complain about
outside cats, or that Otis wouldn't be stupid enough to run away from the
house in confusion like he did when we moved here.  He'd have to be heavily
sedated for the whole time and I don't want to go down that road again.  For
those newcomers - we had neighbour problems in our old house and I couldn't
let him out and Otis required Elavil and then Prozac to sedate him and
eliminate the stress induced Interstitial Cystitis from being confined.

If we move into my parent's house for a period of time (they just live down
the street), my father simply would not allow us to bring the cats - no
question about this.  If I'm not home to cajole Otis into the house at night
with food, treats, and the promise of snuggling all night, he would go wild,
stay out all night, and then get eaten by a coyote.  It is critical that he
spend his nights inside in this neck of the woods.  Absolutely
non-negotiable.  The only reason he's about to make it to 10 yo (January 19)
in this neighbourhood is because we are religious about getting the cats in
before dusk.  He really goes wild very quickly.

The best I've been able to come up with is that we'll stay in the house as
much as possible and arrange the construction schedule to do plumbing
disconnects and such during three week periods.  We'll stay at my parents
for these periods and board Otis.  Three weeks is about the outer limit for
him for the stress of boarding.  He might need some kind of sedation.  Last
time I boarded him sucessfully (meaning not last summer when he escaped for
12 days), I had to go and bring him home because they felt he had started to
get depressed - I visited him once a day for long periods of time too.

I feel like a terrible cat mom; however, he's still a relatively young cat
at 10 yo and I expect to have him around for a long time yet.  I'm not going
to wait another 10 years to do the renovation until Otis is not around.
We've known the contractor for a long time and he seems willing to work
around the cats to accomodate this.  Maybe we could even construct a very
large temporary shelter in the backyard for the cats during the boarding
time.  Otis would still go nuts being confined but at least he'd be confined
in the backyard?????  Maybe I could just get him to sleep there????  Maybe
the neighbours would call and complain to the noise by-law about the
complaining serenading cat in the backyard????

Oh this cat!  I have absolutely no worries about Chester.  He is a very
accomodating cat.

Susan M
Otis and Chester