Off The Cuff

Pets And The Pesky Stuff They Do

Posted by: From Arkansas in Pets on Aug 27 2008

Welcome back!

We have a cat. We also have a puppy but the puppy is currently residing at a farm due to incredible problems and exuberance. And our cat is extremely grateful that the puppy is not here at the moment. He seems to be much more comfortable now that our rambunctious puppy is out of the house yet we do think he misses her. He hollers a lot. We think that he is calling for the dog. He keeps yelling at the door and other places in the house but not at us. He does not really want the puppy here. She pounced on him. He hated that. But he did get her back a few times. Biting noses can be very satisfying, I guess.

Because the cat is alone now, he does have a problem or two. One of them is that he has no four footed people to talk to. The second is that he is extremely particular about where and how his food is placed and given. He wasn’t like that so much before the puppy showed up. His food dish is double sided. Now, one side must be filled, I said FILLED, with dry cat food. The other side is required to have a partial can of cat food, a particular type. If my husband does not feed him at a very early time, he will yell and holler at him until it happens. If that does not come in a timely fashion, his majesty jumps up on my husband’s lap to beg him for his breakfast. And of course, his supper is just about the same. He doesn’t get canned food at night but he definitely gets more dry food. If that does not happen, he makes sure we know it…..loudly.

Now, the puppy grew up in our house. She was 5 weeks old at the time. From the beginning, puppy was running the show in the house. We did not plan it that way. It just happened. She learned pretty quickly. We knew she was smart. She learned to get up on the couch within a couple of hours. She wasn’t actually big enough, she simply climbed up there. After that, she invaded all sorts of spaces. And took over the house. She decided that there were things she did not have to learn. She stubbornly did not do them according to plan…things like going outside to go to the bathroom. We taught her how to do this within the first week. She did know but did not like the outside nearly as much as inside. Oh, she was willing to go out but you had to make her do it. This was play time trying to hook her to the leash. She would drop and roll. Nope. There was no fire. She just wanted to play instead of go outside. Sigh.

She would slip her collar often outside. It was great that she always headed to the door then. But it would have been a ticket if some police had seen her do it. Did I mention how aggravating this puppy is? At this time, she is about 5 months old. She made it her job to make sure the cat was terrified of her. See, our cat is about 6 lbs of meow and attitude. The puppy is currently about 35 lbs of pure pouncing action. There is no fight here. She won the battle each and every time. The cat was not amused.

Like I said, he did get back by biting a nose. She yelped and looked perplexed at said cat. He simply looked satisfied for once. Their battles were daily but playful. Well, puppy was playful. Not as sure about the cat. Her idea of playful was to restrict his movements to the windows and high places. That, of course, did not include the cat potty. In protest, our cat made sure we noticed that the dictator in the house was keeping him from his safe haven. He wanted to make sure she got her comeuppance. We received regular presents from him. Even now, when he knows that puppy is gone for a while, he still lets us know via protest that he did not appreciate his world being rocked.

Peace is in the house. Puppy is at my Mom’s farm to learn how to be a dog. Yes, she learned a great deal from our cat. Unfortunately, that did not include doing her dogly duties. Cats do not have to guard houses or families. There are times when they do but that is not the duty of the cat. That is to trill at birds, meow for meals, make sure the family does things the way he wants them. His duty is also to seek a place of rest and do so all day.

Puppy was supposed to learn how to guard and notify. She did that. Everyone was her best buddy and she let them know that. She was good at it. But now, she is among the farm dogs that guard my Mom’s place. They really are good at their jobs. We expect puppy to learn her job from them. Who knows. She might actually turn into a dog some day. Yeah right.

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