Playful cats better than porch pirates

Alarm system discovers surprise fun visitors over holidays

I’m always on the lookout for porch pirates — those people who steal packages off of people’s front porches. My house has been hit before, and it’s annoying and invasive.

I have a security system on my house and a Ring doorbell. And over the last week, the Ring “motion detector” has been going bananas, sending me repeated notifications.

Curious, I logged in to see what was going on, and the answer surprised me.

Cats. Random neighborhood cats keep activating the motion detector. So far, I’ve identified four different furballs.

Two are clearly somebody’s pets, as they have collars on. These two like to play tag on the front steps, running back and forth, booping each other on the nose.

The third cat is black, and he just slinks around on his own, maybe hunting the birds. If that’s the case, I’m cool with it … we have a lot of birds hanging around the house.

The fourth cat is a gorgeous calico, who apparently likes to sun herself on the front steps.

This is all a new development. We usually don’t have random cats in the neighborhood, which I think is due in large part to the incredible number of dogs residing nearby. But the dog numbers have dwindled in the last few months, with two households of canines moving away.

That in turn may have opened the door to cats moving in — or moving about more freely.

There are always concerns about feral cats establishing colonies in the neighborhood, but at the moment, I’m not sure a few random sightings constitute a colony fear.

I’m enjoying the videos on the doorbell though. It’s like having my own personal kitty YouTube channel, complete with chases and nose boops.

Cats are also better porch visitors than porch pirates. Few things anger me more than people stealing off of other people’s front doorsteps.

Given a choice between porch pirates and cats, I’ll take the cats every time!

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