Bengal Borders - Closed!

It took us a few tries, but we think we finally mastered an escape proof yard!  It took most of the summer and various design iterations.  I could almost swear with every new attempt I heard HeyZeus say “challenge accepted”.  Good ‘ol Barney Stinson style! I should add that we never leave the cats outside by themselves.  We are always outside with them supervising.

Thankfully, we have a fully fenced yard.  However that alone isn’t enough to keep these adventurous boys in.  The first attempt involved buying a dozen or so rolls of wire edging which we stapled to the top of the fence.  Sadly, after finishing the entire yard HeyZeus quickly showed us that the spaces between the wires were just big enough for him to squeeze through.  That’s when we met our neighbour behind us for the first time 😳 Thankfully he’s a really nice man who helped us scoop up our little rascal quickly.  I didn’t get a picture of it once it was up...but here’s a pic from the internet ...where we got the idea from.

You can see the spaces in-between.  
Just wide enough for a determined cat to squeeze through!

So, next we tried to bend it over to reduce the size of the opening.  The result.....’Challenge #2 Accepted AND defeated!’ This time though, HeyZeus escaped while we weren’t paying attention.  Sitting outside for hours on end, that can happen.  You look down or away and the perfect opportunity opens up.  This time when we looked in the back neighbours yard, he was nowhere to be found.  And, no way was he gonna come when I called him. Not now that he had escaped and was able to explore the neighbourhood!  So to Facebook we went, putting a “lost cat” sign up on our neighbourhood group page and wandering all over the neighbourhood on the lookout, all the time with a sick feeling in our stomach.  After an hour or so, there was still no sign of him.  We just sat there looking at each other thinking he was gone.  Then, amazingly we got a response on Facebook.  Someone out walking her dog had spotted him in a neighbours front yard down the street!  We rushed out and down the street with his cat carrier in hand, hoping he would come to us and not run away for more adventures.  As we approached the yard and called him he turned and looked at us, then ran right toward us and jumped into his carrier.  Envision HUGE SMILE here! Phew!  I guess he’d had enough adventure for the day and was eager to get back home.  

You’ll likely have noticed that both of these escapes have been HeyZeus.  And, all the rest of them are him as well.  Thankfully his brother HoseHey doesn’t seem too interested in “adventures”.  He’s never made an attempt, but sure starts to make a racket once his brother get’s out, quickly alerting us, thankfully!

So, attempt #3 - pull down all the stapled up edging and try moving it down on the fence, bent over.  No picture of that one....it too didn’t work.  Challenge #3 Accepted AND defeated! So back to the drawing board. More ‘googlefoo’ as Dan likes to say, to research other options.  We landed on a combination of angled netting/snowfence for the majority of the yard and doubled up the wire edging for the panel with the main gate.

Success, at last! Once we finished, we watched as HeyZeus surveyed the yard.  It appeared we had defeated him once and for all.  He spent the entire afternoon outside looking up at the fence, jumping up to test it out but not having any success.  Sadly, that didn’t last long.  Recognizing the obstacle we had set up, he looked to find another way out....Challenge #4 Accepted!  Off he went to the gates, where if he put enough effort in, he was sure he could dig his way out! So, once again we loaded up the staple gun to reinforce the gates. 

Ok, surely NOW we had everything covered?  Finally we could sit outside and not have to be “on guard” all the time.  

Alas, once again HeyZeus studied his options and defeated us!!  This time he found objects to aide him in his escape.  In the back corner of the yard we had an open compost bin for grass and yard clippings with sides about 3 or 4 ft high.  Challenge #5 Accepted AND Defeated! HeyZeus balanced on the sides of the compost bin and propelled himself up and over the angled fencing.  Luckily, we saw him this time and quickly drove around to our back neighbours yard to retrieve him once again.  Little bugger!!!  So, down came the compost bin as well as any other objects we could see that he might use to jump off.  Now we were convinced we had mastered it!  

But, never one to be dismayed by a challenge, he just put his sneaky little mind to finding a new way out.  Challenge #6 Accepted! It took a couple of days for him to calculate his next move...just enough for us to get a false sense of security.  Then....one afternoon he got out and it was a complete mystery to us.  We didn’t hear him, he had by now mastered the art of the silent escape.  His brother HoseHey alerted us that something was wrong so we went to explore...where the heck had he gone and how did he get out?  A perimeter check confirmed all exits were still blocked with no sign of a breach. Then we heard him meow - thankfully!  Yet again he was in the back neighbours yard.  You might be wondering what it is back there that has him so interested?  And to be honest I don’t know.  There is a dog in the yard next to the back neighbour who barks non-stop whenever he is outside...so, I wouldn’t think he wants to go “meet” him...but who knows. Sheesh!!  Off we went, around the block and into the back neighbours yard to retrieve him once again.  

When we got back home we looked and looked throughout the yard to try and see how or where he had gotten out.  It was his brother to the rescue again. HoseHey meowed at us and stood up on his hind legs pawing at the trellis in the back garden.  It stood about five feet tall with a beautiful wisteria vine wrapped all around it and trailing up into the large spruce trees in the yards behind us.  HoseHey was giving us a clue....the little bugger had climbed the trellis and found a convenient branch overhanging from the spruce trees in the back neighbours yard which worked beautifully as a bridge up and over the angled fencing right onto the top of the fence.  U N R E A L!!!  So, down came our beautiful trellis and Wisteria....sad, but having HeyZeus getting away from us, and potentially losing him forever was a far  sadder possibility.

Ok, so....the yard is minus a compost bin, minus the trellis and our fence is adorned with lovely green angled fencing all along the top.  Oh well, what can you do?  It is still worth it, to allow the boys the freedom to run around and play in the yard.  You might wonder, why not just hook them up to a long lead? Well, that wouldn’t work.  Although their harnesses are touted as “escape proof”, there is really no such thing.  With enough tenacity and with the smarts to pull it off (which these boys both definitely have) they could easily get out of their harness.  So...we do what we need to do.  Finally, we had it mastered.  The yard was cat proof! High fives all around - woohoo! 🙌  But then....

Challenge #7 Accepted! How is this possible you ask?  Well, did I mention we have a large deck off the back of the house?  Umm yeah.....Sooooo, Mr. HeyZeus figures ‘surely there must be an avenue for escape up there!’ So, one afternoon while I’m out visiting my sister I get a frantic text from Dan who had been on yard duty....”HeyZeus is ON THE ROOF!”  Yep, easy peasy....all he needed to do was jump up on the deck railing and from there onto the privacy fence panels we have at the ends of the deck, from there with only a short jump, onto the roof he went. GULP 😳.  So, up Dan goes on the ladder coaxing him to come down.  Thankfully, he gets him down and in the house he goes.  By now we’re running out of brainpower to figure out how to defeat this little escape artist!  

What we eventually come up with to prevent him from getting onto the roof sadly wasn’t successful.  Challenge #8 Accepted and Defeated! First we tried to put the angled netting on the top of the panels at the end of the deck.

Privacy panels at the ends of the deck.  
We used mesh netting and garden stakes drilled in at a 45 degree angle

That worked for a bit, until he reassessed that attempt and ...Challenge #9 Accepted and Defeated as he used the hot tub as his platform to leap a good 6ft...no, that isn’t a typo.....literally SIX FEET from the top of the hot tub up onto the roof.  Just a reminder here....that it is still only HeyZeus making all these attempts!  This time, up onto the roof he went, walking from the back of the roof to the front, just hanging out...ignoring us as we called him to come back down onto the deck.  Did he oblige?  Hell no!  He thought it’d be more fun to jump off the roof of the house, onto the roof of the RV parked beside the house!  How cool would that be heh?  Dios Mio!!! 😱 OMG!!! Can you feel the heart palpitations we had? He explored the roof of the RV then as he neared the front of it he slipped and slid down bouncing off the hood and landing on the ground.  I’m sure that was one of his 9 lives...Thankfully, by now we had run out front and were quickly able to scoop him up unharmed...except maybe for his pride. 

Not one to give up, guess what happened?  Well of course.... Challenge #10 Accepted and Defeated!! Yep, on another afternoon after playing in they yard he decided it was time to try again.  So, up to the deck he went.  BUT, we spoiled his plans....jumping up on the hot tub he saw our latest attempt to defeat him.  We’d figured out a way to attach the surplus wire garden edging along the eavestrough opposite to the hot tub.   Now that 6ft jump would land him squarely into the edging.  Success, finally!  Or was it? 

The brown in the bottom of this picture is the hot tub cover

Nope, I did already tell you Challenge #10 was Defeated didn’t I?  Yeah, unfazed by this obstacle, he reassessed his options.  Studying the angled mesh netting we put up on the fence panels at the end of the deck, he saw an opportunity.  I hadn’t blocked off the posts at the end of the deck that the fence panels were attached to.  

This is the end post I refer to above. He climbed it to get around and over the netting. 
We added the netting you can see afterward. 

Well, be damned if the deck is 10 ft off the ground....he’s no sissy....he can easily shimmy to the edge and climb up that post to get around the angled netting and swiftly up onto the top of the fence panel.  Voila!  Back up onto the house he went.  Of course, we were outside as per usual on “guard duty” so ran up to try and coax him down.  Nothing would do it, not shaking treats, not speaking nicely....nada.  So, up on the roof he sat.  He ventured over to the side of the roof the RV was closest to and contemplated his options.  Seemed like he remembered his embarrassing ordeal and thought better of trying that again.  So, over to the front of house he went.  We followed, running to the front yard telling him to “get down”.  We could see him weighing his options.  Yeah, he could easily jump down onto the deck and into the yard again.  But, what fun would that be? There is no adventure in that.  And, do you realize how far he could see in the neighbourhood from this vantage point?  There was SO much to explore out there!  So this time he chose another option.  Our house is two stories high with the main entrance door on the ground floor.  Above the front door is a small roof.  You can see it in the aerial view below (along with the position of the RV for reference). 

Yep, he jumped from the top roof to the small roof over top the door and from there, swiftly into the front garden.  He has literally NO FEAR! Again, we were at the ready, waiting for him.  We quickly scooped him up and put him in the house.  So....now what?  We were determined to still be able to let them outside in the backyard.  These little fellas have LOTS of energy and running around the yard, climbing trees (that don’t overhang into the neighbours yards) gives them lots of opportunity to expend that energy to tire them out and “technically” keep them out of trouble, ha!

So, solution #11.....block off the deck access.  Yes, it means we too are blocked from going onto the deck from the yard...but we can still access it and the hot tub up top through the house.  So, out came the snow fence and the staple gun again and for extra measure a couple plastic shelving pieces Dan configured into another “block point”.

This time, I’m ecstatic to report that we have had no more escapes!!!!  🎉. Now when the boys are outside, HeyZeus just concentrates on playing.  Every now and then he’ll jump up and hang off the fence just to test it out...and sometimes it is just to spy on the neighbours dog, or the pesky squirrels who like to tease him.  But, he seems content that he’s tried everything that is possible and for now at least, and isn’t looking for a new Challenge. 😊 

Well, that was a much longer blog post than I envisioned.  I don’t know why....considering all the attempts and mitigations we had to go through.  Hopefully it was an entertaining read.  As much as it drove us batty trying to figure out a solution, at the same time it was fascinating to see how smart and determined HeyZeus is 💕 and to learn that he and HoseHey are quite different, thankfully.  I can’t imagine having two escape artists!

Until next time / Hasta la proxima vez!