Several weeks ago, we replaced a section of fence in the back yard. There were two main reasons for this:

the old fence with Pippin perched on top

1. It was a strange, old, ugly fence built out of logs, and it was starting to fall down in spots.
2. Pippin had started escaping the back yard at night. However he was getting out, he couldn’t get back in, so he’d sit on the front porch and cry (loudly) in the middle of the night till we woke up and let him back in. We suspected he was using the concrete wall we added for the waterfall this past summer to jump the fence (he has no front claws so he couldn’t be climbing out).

Anyway, we replaced the fence with a more normal-looking fence, complete with a custom trellis to make it tall enough (hopefully) keep Pippin in. We finished it up back in mid-October.

new fence from the outside

Pippin stayed in the yard for several nights so we thought we solved the problem. We had several cold nights, so on those evenings we locked both cats up in the cat room to keep the heat in, so he didn’t have any opportunity escape for a while.

This past weekend, we finally setup the cat door in the cat room so that they could go outside when they wanted. All was fine for a few nights…

Until this morning (October 31), around 7 am when we heard Pippin crying at the front door again! At least this time he waited till morning instead of yelling in the middle of the night.

Hmm…a black cat with amazing escape artist abilities…and he waited until Halloween to demonstrate that he could still overcome the fence.

So…from now on, that cat is getting locked up at night.

Oh well, it is still a really nice fence and I’m glad that project is done – one less thing to worry about next spring.

panoramic view of the fence from the inside