Otto Meets Some Chickens and Enjoys the Cuddle Box

As you already know, Dear Readers, Otto loves a good walk.  Okay, that's not really true.  Otto loves for us to put his harness on him and take him out to the back or front yard, but Otto does not, strictly speaking, walk while doing so.  Mostly he just plops on the ground and rolls around, purring and squinking up his eyes contentedly.  


So last Sunday, when we were taking some broccoli stalks out to feed the chickens, who live with our neighbors a few doors down, we decided to take Otto with us.  Since Otto was not really big on the walking part of the walk, we carried him instead.  Sean fed the chickens while Otto sat on the ground in front of me, staring warily at birds that are as big as he is.  You could see him trying to work it out, how on earth these things that looked like birds and sounded like birds and smelled like shaky treats and mush could possibly be as big as Otto.  Something just wasn't computing.  We inched him a little closer. Still wasn't making any sense.  The chickens seemed completely unfazed by the feline attention.  Finally, Otto got bored and we "walked" him back home. 


Then, this morning, I got to finally witness Otto enjoying Sean's new sauna.  Here's how that works:  1.) Sean gets in the sauna without Otto.  (This particular morning, I got to be a part of that step as well.)  2.)  Otto comes downstairs looking for Big Buddy and stands outside the glass door of said sauna, getting more and more vocally insistent that Sean needs to let him in.  3.) Sean lets him in and Otto puts his face into the infra-red heaters for a few minutes, then sits down on the bench, smiling and purring up a storm.  Otto has pretty much decided that the sauna must have been purchased for Otto and Otto alone.  I'm sure he thinks of it as the Big Warm Cuddle Box, since it's got everything he needs in it for a good time:  lots of warmth, a Big Buddy, and a small enclosed space where other Buddies (i.e. Elroy) cannot find him and bother him.  


Okay, so maybe we did really buy it for Otto.  It's nice that he lets Sean and me use it now and again.