Nittens are in the House!
Chapter 1
First Exploration
Setting: Yesterday, while the dogs were outside, I opened the door between the master bedroom (Griffin and Violet’s safe-haven) and the rest of the house, inviting them out for the first time.
The room was bright and sunny. Griffin was napping on the bed. Violet was snoozing on her throne (in the nitten-sized cardboard box on the chair by the window). The door latch clicked, waking both. The door swung open and Mama appeared. She asked if they wanted to explore!
Griffin launched himself from the bed and dashed over to the threshold. Violet came to the middle of the room and sat and waited. She knew her loyal, royal scout would report, if he didn’t come back dead.
Griffin stopped at the threshold and peeped into the unknown. “Hm…smells like dog, Your Highness…” he reported.
Violet replied, “Yes, we knew that.”
Griffin looked right, looked left, and then took a step into the hallway. “Smells more like past-dog, not here-right-now-dog…”
Violet made no comment…waited…
Griffin, knowing he was responsible for Princess Violet’s safety, went into full scout mode. He resisted the siren’s call of the entire house and, instead, explored the short end of the dead-end hallway. He headed across the hallway toward the closed door there. As he passed the one slightly open door, he tossed a quick sniff in that direction. “Still not seeing/smelling here-right-now-dog…”
The tip of Violet’s tongue could now be seen, but still she waited, ready to run if necessary.
Griffin thoroughly smelled the closed doorway and declared it long-time-since-dog. Violet got up, stretched, moved a few feet forward, sat again and said, “Yeah?”
Griffin turned right and performed the same process on the other closed door. Again, he declared it long-time-since-dog. Violet got up, and moved to the threshold. She caught a glimpse of Griffin as he jauntily stalked through the slightly open door; tail raised, ready to cheerfully greet whatever awaited him there.
The guest bath was uninhabited. “Still past-dog here.” Griffin reported. “Hm…nobody else here. Looks like a small version of safe-haven, with no playrooms and no litter box. Lots of interesting stuff in here…”
“Interesting stuff?” Violet asked. She pondered this news for two seconds and decided it was time to move out. She met Griffin in the doorway and gave him a quick boop and a body-brush as they passed.
Griffin confidently strode past the open doorway to safe-haven. The next new-thing he found was a change of flooring. The warm-fuzzy under his feet suddenly changed color and was cool and slick. “Change of footing here.” he reported to Violet. “Doesn’t look dangerous, but be careful.”
“Dog Status?” Violet softly inquired from second-haven(?) (She hadn’t decided that’s what the room really was, but she was willing to consider that name for it, for now.)
Griffin took a couple of tentative steps forward and found a warm-fuzzy pathway through the cool-slick floor. He stopped to investigate. Violet peeped out from second-haven. “Dog Status?” she repeated. “Please report, Sir Scout.”
Griffin raised his head, sniffed, and then bounced all this information around in his little nitten brain. “You know, Violet, the further I go, the more it smells like dog-hangs-out-here. But…” he paused, drew breath, then continued “But, it’s quiet. I don’t think there’s here-right-now-dog anywhere…for now.”
“But there’s two of them, Griffin. The loud one is very scary, but the quiet one could be dangerous, too.”
Griffin considered… “Violet, I think the quiet one is really, really (really, really) old. I think the only part that works right is eating and sometimes smelling. In fact, I think you’d have to jump into his mouth for him to be dangerous. And, you know what else? I’ll bet he doesn’t have any teeth, either!
“Now come out here, if you want. You tell me if you hear/see/smell Loud-Dog,” Griffin said, a little impatiently. “Meanwhile, I’m smelling this spot-favored-by-dog on the warm-fuzzy pathway.”
Violet, flush with curiosity, enthused, “OK! Here I come! I’ve got my tail half-bushed, just in case we need it!” She low-slink-trotted from second-haven and paused in a crouch in front of the open doorway to safe-haven. Yes, it was still there. Yes, it still looked safe. And most importantly, she could still escape there when needed.
Back in motion, she hesitated only a second at the flooring change. She stopped and looked and then smelled at the spot-favored-by-dog that currently was holding Griffin’s interest. She sat down. “Griffin, this isn’t really very interesting…” Griffin muttered something about military intelligence, but it came out “miltayree tellgents.” Violet rolled her eyes and looked around.
“Griffin! Have you looked at this place?!” she exclaimed, wide-eyed.
“Yeah,” Griffin chirped, “through the holes of a crate, same as you!”
“I had my eyes closed,” Violet whispered. “I was too scared to look!”
“All three times? You’re silly!” Griffin jeered.
“I’m a nitten! It’s okay for me to be silly!” came Violet’s indignant reply. “Mama said so!”
Griffin laughed at her. “Ok, but I’m going to start using that excuse, too!”
Turning his attention back to the warm-fuzzy pathway, Griffin said “smells like most of the warm-fuzzy pathway is spot-favored-by-dog. I wonder where they are…” Then he took a smart left-turn towards the living room.
At the same time, Violet looked up and saw the magical office. “Ooooooooh!” she said. “Griffin! Griffin! Come look at all this stuff to explore!” as she took a right-turn and stood agape in the doorway.
About this time, Mama decided that was enough for “first time”. Mama scooped up the accelerating Griffin and the stunned Violet. She snuggled both together and listened to them purr their major chord, then kissed them. Next came a swift ride back to safe-haven, some kibble and another nap.
I watched this episode unfold between the nittens. I was so rapt that it never occurred to me to film it. I regret I cannot bring you video of this, because it went down exactly as described here. I have also learned that I cannot upload video to the image library, so even if I had this video, it appears that I can’t share it. I don’t Twitter nor YouTube, so I have limited options. Sigh. Instead of video, I offer you some still shots lifted out of videos from this time period, about the three week mark of Griffin and Violet’s furry-ever (or is that ever-furry?) home.
Forward link for those reading from the beginning: PWB Peeps: “Nittens are in the House”, Chapter 2 - Who Eviscerated the Mousie Toy?
This is Part 3 of a multi-part series named Nittens are in the House. Links to previous episodes are below. Please join me here on Thursday mornings and allow me to share my wonderful fur family with you.