On the Catwalk

In the six-plus years that we have lived in this place, I am pretty sure that the neighbor's (several doors down) cat takes the same route — every day. He or she comes up  our driveway and front walk and across the lawn working its way home — or vice versa if its coming from home. In winter whenever there is fresh snow, we see the tracks. In summer we often see the cat amble by while we are sitting in the porch. I can't understand why the critter uses this route in winter because it must traverse mounded snow because that's where I dump it when shovelling the walkway. I guess, like most us, it's a creature of habit.