Beware of the Cat

Today our cat met a dog. And boy was it funny to watch! As some of you may know, when we got our cat about two years ago she was diagnosed with FeLV - basically kitty AIDS... compromised immune system, highly contagious (fortunately only for cats though), and associated with about 2-3 lives instead of nine. As such we were told that she was to be a home body and was not to come into contact with other cats. It was probably a good thing they told us that when she was a tiny cute kitten because we were very diligent in ensuring her safety. If they had have told us that later we might not have cared so much. Ok, at all.

All of this, of course, means that she has rarely come into contact with living things other than our family. (Our neighbors in SD had an outdoor cat that used to come and visit periodically. Kitty thought it was awesome to have a friend she could communicate with from her perch in our front window.) She lives a boring life, but she doesn't know any better, and she is such a chicken that even if she could go outside I don't think she would.

Our friend Justin visited us this morning with his daughter and his dog, Greta. Greta is a dashchund - a hunting dog - and from the moment she was in our apartment you could tell she was trying to sniff out our cat. She went to all of the cats favorite places to hide (behind the curtains, under the couch, in our linen closet) and eventually followed her nose right into our bedroom. All of us humans were in the kitchen when suddenly we saw Greta running from the bedroom into the living room with none other than our usually-sissy-pants cat close on her tail. She was hissing and spitting, fur on end, and arching her back, trying to make herself as big and as intimidating as possible (and succeeding since somehow she ended up taking up the whole hallway). We have never seen our cat so angry... even after Lena has been chasing her and pulling on her tail! It was hilarious! Greta tried to save face by barking a few times, but in her heart of hearts she knew her place... and it wasn't in our bedroom, or anywhere close.

So, we learned a few things: our cat doesn't like to be disturbed from her naps; she has no problem being territorial, as long as she is picking on something that she might hold a size advantage over; and we can't get a puppy until our cat dies/mysteriously disappears.

Tomorrow will probably be a different story, but today we love our guard kitty.