Whilst Sophie was adapting to this strange new environment called a 'house', she retained a strong desire to be an outside cat. A cat flap accessing a cat run on the blind-side of the house (pun intended) was the perfect compromise solution.
Teaching a blind street cat to use a cat flap is not as simple as pushing their sorry arse through the hole a couple of times! Because they can't see thru the generally clear flap, smell is the blind cat's preferred sense for deciding whether danger lurks on the other side. So a blind cat (especially an OCC one) nudges the flap slightly to sniff what is going on. Eventually this will be followed by one paw and a snout for better reconnaissance, and then a cautious head and two paws ... before hurtling out into the beyond.
The narrator has a theory on this behaviour. At the point where Sophie is head and front paws out of the cat flap, she assesses that the danger to her hind quarters is now greater than the potential danger she can sense in front of her, and protects her derriere by scooting her boot through the hole like she has been shot out of a bazooka ...
Once outside, Sophie quickly earned the nickname 'Dirtbag' because of her penchant for laying in garden beds ... especially the newly minted ones! If we couldn't find her in the house we'd call her and most times get a 'raahh' (Sophie's meow) and there she'd be in the garden bed outside the laundry door!
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