Pets. Do you have any? If you do, you have lots of stories. Those of us who care for furry four-legged family members spend a lot of time observing and contemplating their thought processes. Sometimes it amazes us that they take the attitudes they do.
About six or seven years about we got our first pet, a tiny black kitten from one of the local pet stores. Never, ever will I do that again. Our poor Sophie came to us with fleas, ear mites and intestinal parasites. She was barely old enough to wean. But she was very healthy and she and I bonded. She grew up to be a bit lazy and the lowest one on the neighborhood cat hierarchy. She was beat up fiercely a number of times the first year or two she began to go outside on her own. The home we own came with pet doors. She had total control over when she went outside. Despite these experiences she never developed an easy way to deal with the other cats. She was hardly able to maintain dominance in her own yard. Occasionally I have been known to dart out the door and toss a rock or make some other brazen move on a cat who was fighting with her. I know this is fruitless. It isn't me that needs dominating it's Sophie. The cat would be back.
When Sophie was a couple of years old we adopted a dog. I'm sure if Sophie were to write her own story, this would be the day her life changed, and not for the better. This was her Katrina, or 9/11, her Tsunami. Sophie was terrified of Mariah, an eight-year-old, barking golden retriever. Mariah was eager to please, nervous, and easily prone to barking at anyone who walked by the house or up the drive. She still does this. Mariah came in June and Sophie moved out. She didn't enter the house until we had gone to bed for months. I won't tell you all the things we did to facilitate the extreme curiosity of Mariah and the total panic of Sophie. Let me just say that we sacrificed quite a bit, Sophie found a few new places to sleep, and Mariah began to learn to leave Sophie alone. I will say that had Sophie had the courage to slap Mariah's nose at any point in this it might have made things easier for both of them. But she was too afraid.
Sophie spent virtually every minute outside. In fact, at first she stayed across the street from the house. It was as though we had invited a monster to live with us. As we approached fall that first year the rain drove Sophie inside. She would only stay in a room not occupied by the dog. Any noise made by the dog sent Sophie into a panic and she would hide under our daughter's bed. After a while (we are really beginning to talk years, now) Sophie wouldn't run out of the room when Mariah barked.
In time, we reached some sort of common ground. It was slow, there were rough spots, but we got there. Then last year something new happened. Those pet doors I mentioned before play a role here. A new cat moved into the neighborhood. This one was very comfortable anywhere it went. It wasn't aggressive in the way other cats were. It wanted to be Sophie's friend not fight her and claim dominance that way. But it wanted to claim the back yard and the front yard and eventually the inside of the house, too. It was far too comfortable as it turned out. One night Sophie started to growl at the top of the stairs. We were all in bed and upon investigation I barely saw the orange streak as this overly-friendly cat darted out of our home and through the pet doors. It had been raining that night. We came home from Thanksgiving at the grandparents last year in the evening. We came through the garage. Sophie was outside to meet us and as I rounded a corner in the house, there was the orange cat darting out from the living room through to the garage where the pet doors were. The warm spot on a settee in the living room told me the cat had simply been sleeping in our house. Yeegads! Talk about invading Sophie's space. Later I found a few places where a cat had peed. Sophie never does this and I began to wonder just how long this cat had been coming in through those doors. The doors are now blocked. Sophie's freedom depends on her family to open and close people doors.
That turned out not to be a problem. When you factor in the fact that cats can hold their pee for a very long time, she hasn't suffered much. Use a box? Not on your life. Anyway, after this incident I began to see Sophie's behavior change subtly. Mind you, we have now had both animals for years. Mariah has her regular places to lie down in the house and Sophie has hers and they can be in the same room or not, it doesn't matter any more. Mariah has even felt comfortable enough to walk up to a prone Sophie and give her several big sniffs (Sophie would rather be given a bath then suffer much of this behavior). Mariah will defend Sophie from other cats at a moments notice though Sophie can hardly accept this.
So, it was mighty curious to see Sophie stretch herself out on a particular piece of carpet that was the frequent resting spot of Mariah's. Not only that but rub and mark and rub and mark the spot. We laughed at her audacity. Where was this coming from? Mariah looked at us with those big brown eyes that Golden's have. She had learned never, ever to push Sophie around because Sophie was just so frightened of her. And now, when it would be in Mariah's best interest, nothing. Just a quiet pleading to not let Sophie take over. Well, really it was just funny.
And then there was this:
I was shocked. This wasn't cute. This was war. Sophie was claiming ALL of Mariah's spaces. Sophie isn't a particularly messy cat. She keeps herself clean. Mariah on the other hand should be bathed more often and brushed more regularly. So her spaces, especially her bed, are not something I would want to lie down in. And yet, the urge to claim space is stronger. This camping out in Mariah's bed during the day didn't seem too harmful though the audacity was clearly ramping up. Mariah never uses the bed during the day. But then last night it was time for bed and there was Sophie, stretched out in Mariah's bed. Mariah does sleep on the floor as well and not until 3am did she want to get into her bed. And she couldn't. I had hoped she would sniff and be obnoxious enough to make Sophie decide it wasn't worth it but she didn't. Mariah turned to us, in our bed sound asleep, and silently begged us to help her. Since I sleep lightly I was aware of the movement and got right up. The moment I snatched Sophie out of the bed and put in her usual spot on ours, Mariah fairly leaped into her own.
While I admire Sophie's assertiveness which was totally lacking with the cats outside, I think she's picking her fight with the wrong family member. And I think Mariah needs to learn not to acquiesce all the time with her. Otherwise I think this war may continue. Don't you just wish you could sit down and have these furry four-legged family members explain themselves? Just once, maybe?
