Catfight!
Minette and I have 2 tabby cats - a brother and sister named Diego Rivera and Georgia O’Keefe, respectively. They are beautiful animals: Diego is a roll over and wait for skritches cat, happy to be carried around like a sack of dough, Georgia is more standoffish, hates to be carried, slow to settle in your lap if she does at all. Diego is large and would eat until he turned into a sausage; Georgia is slight and eats very little. They love house guests and generally bounce between laps.
And Diego is dumb as a post.
Case in point, this morning. There is a neighborhood cat that has the exact coloring as Georgia. Diego doesn’t like other cats and turns into a yelling, hissing, bully when he sees them. We were awoken at 5am by just that, the neighborhood cat having made an appearance outside the window beside their cat tree. The problem is this: Diego transfers the sight of the other cat onto his sister and begins attacking her. While Georgia can get her claws out in defense, we worry about him overpowering her. So, this morning has been spent in upset, throwing water on cats, alternately exiling one or the other to the garage or the basement.
As kids we didn’t have pets - “Dad’s allergic” - and were taught to chase off or throw rocks at off-leash animals that found their way into Mom’s vegetable garden. Strangely, both my Mom and Dad grew up with pets: Mom with a Springer Spaniel, Dad with a budgerigar. Minette grew up with horses, parents breeding German Short-haired pointers, and cats throughout college. She and I got a dog before having kids and I regret to this day not treating him as well as I could have. We’ve had a number of cats along the way as well but it was easier to have them be indoor/outdoor animals. Now we’re in an HOA situation that doesn’t allow pets that roam so the cats are indoors and it has been a challenge for all four of us.
I don’t profess to being a great animal person. I struggle mightily with not having personal space and with nice things being destroyed: neither of those things match well with having pets. I always fall into the trap of trying to control their behavior and getting angry when I inevitably fail. I was brought up with the attitude of animals as second on the ladder with people at the top. It’s difficult to move away from that, even though in today’s Western society we are increasingly expected to treat pets as first-class citizens. My attitude is slowly softening, especially as I begin to recognize animals’ ability to dream, feel happy or sad, to need lovingkindness like people … but days like today make me wish I had just bought a fish tank. I’m sure as hell not built for the stress of fighting in the house.
As of now we’re all in our neutral corners trying to calm down. If history is any indicator the cats will be licking each other’s faces again by the end of the day. Maybe my lesson for today is to forgive quickly … or possibly to avoid emotional transference of my fears onto others.
Strong99 is about thriving longer in life and time and again I see studies that show that pet ownership significantly helps our quality of life as we age. I may be more suited to owning a robot, or a capybara.