To back up, Jaime had told me when he came here in July, that our yard seemed to be the cat hang-out for our apartment complex. There were two cats that spent a lot of time here, both of whom he met and said seemed nice.
When we all arrived on the 11th after only being here about 15 minutes, one of the cats showed up in our yard. He is a pretty guy, looks like a Maine Coon cat. He is also very friendly to Button and she really likes him as well. So after a couple of days, I thought we should name him instead of calling him "the kitty". I'm not sure where he lives or who he belongs to, but Lucia and I agreed that he seemed like a Pascal, so that is his name (at least to us).
Shortly after Pepe arrived, Pascal showed up at the door trying to come in. (Oh, to back up again...on our first night here when Lucia woke up at 2am, he appeared at our door and I might have let him in for a while in an effort to stop her screaming fit. It worked. I might have also let him in a couple of other times during the week that we were waiting for Pepe too... I know, my fault for starting this in the first place) So Pascal shows up at the door and poor Pepe seems bewildered - like does that cat live here too? Is this my house? Should I do something? The poor guy hadn't even had time to recover from jet lag or settle in and stake out his territory before someone was trying to butt in. So since then, it has been an ongoing battle to keep Pascal out of the house. We have doors that open directly to our yard and Lucia spends a lot of time going in and out, providing him with a lot of opportunities to sneak in. I have had conversations with Pascal right in front of Pepe so everyone is on the same page and told him that this is Pepe's house, you can't come inside unless Pepe invites you, etc. But it hasn't really worked. Jaime has gone the route of shooing him out, which works temporarily, but he keeps coming back.
So - last week I was in bed trying to fall asleep when all of a sudden in occurred to me - Pascal speaks French! He probably hears "blah blah blah Pepe blah blah blah" when we are telling him to stay outside. So the next day I promptly went to google translate and came up with this:
Pascal, ce n'est pas votre maison. C'est la maison de Pepe. Vous pouvez passer dans la cour, mais vous ne pouvez pas venir à l'intérieur. Merci.
In English
Pascal, this is not your house. This is Pepe's house. You can hang out in the yard, but you can't come inside. Thank you.
So far this approach hasn't worked either. Which leads me to believe that a) I am mangling the pronunciation and Pascal can't understand a lick of what I've said b) Pascal speaks another language other than French or English c) He is ignoring me and doesn't care what I say.
**A note about the photos. I woke both of these guys up from naps, so they weren't that into posing for pictures.
LOL! thank God for Google translate!
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