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June 25, 2006
my little vampire
so one of the ongoing problems that j and i have to solve is the dog and the cat.
the dog is a 2 year old black lab mix with great manners but absolutely no experience with cats.
the cat is my 16 year old overweight, arthritic tabby who has spent his entire life being terrified of dogs.
so we keep them separated a lot, but that's not a long term solution. last time, j brought both his baby gates and we restricted reese the dog to kitchen/dining area for some periods of time. this was okay, but moses mostly wanted to hang back in the back bedroom and didn't come hang out with us as we'd hoped.
so this weekend we reversed it. while we were cooking, we kept moses the cat in the kitchen with us, and shut reese out. moses was terrified at first, and spent a lot of time yesterday hiding in back corners but sometime today he seemed to turn a corner and started interacting with us normally while we were making breakfast and stretched out and acted happy and comfortable after a while.
and then something interesting happened.
i was in the kitchen with moses, and j and reese were outside. when they came back in, reese went right up to moses, who was near one of the gates, and stuck his nose over the gate. moses, who wasn't trapped at all, and could have easily slunk under the table, didn't budge.
the nose was not withdrawn. moses went on the attack. he swatted the nose, then attempted to jump the gate while batting at reese's face! reese started barking, j yanked reese back away from the gate and moses slunk off after a while.
i put moses in the back bedroom and he was still pretty ramped up-- hissing, crowding the door every time we came in to visit him. i think he wanted to go out there and finish the unfinished business with the dog.
j was pretty good-natured about it; i think he considers moses to be a lesson the puppy needs to learn. the cat can and will defend himself.
later in the day, j said, "he's like a little vampire," and imitated moses' hissing noises. i laughed. "he is! he's like a little furry brown fat vampire! awww."
anyway. j and reese are gone now and my little vampire is reclining happily on the ottoman, his eyes closed and a small smile on his face.
Posted by lisa at June 25, 2006 09:42 PM
Comments
"Reese" makes me think of "Reese's peanut butter cups" which makes me want to say "Cats and dogs -- two great tastes that taste great together." Even though that doesn't make any sense at all.
Posted by: Phil on June 25, 2006 10:19 PM
little furry brown fat RADIOACTIVE vampire!
meeeOW!
Posted by: xta on June 25, 2006 10:30 PM
We've been having similar battles here at our house -- Lucy vs. my cats in a Battle Royale. Occasionally the dog will mix in as well.
Posted by: Steph Mineart on June 26, 2006 09:09 AM
Don't let Moses suck your blood. You might turn into a human-sized werecat or something. OTOH, having spinnerets or retractable claws might be useful. ;)
Posted by: Joseph H. Vilas on June 26, 2006 10:55 AM
ok, so a) your comment won't post right away because i have to approve it first and b) you might get a server error but your comment probably posted anyway and c) previewing doesn't work so i've removed the preview button.