Such an occurrence is popularly said to be a sign of the impending apocalypse, or global wamening (or coolerizing or whatever the current cause for hysteria is) or even just something like another Michael Bay movie.
Wait, there is another Michael Bay movie out? No S#*t?! Well, just goes to show you, there might be something to it.
Because it’s happened, and if I had thought of it and Blondie were quicker with her cellphone camera, we’d have the evidence that the Lesser Weevil and the Percival-Cat are more than just a large, rawboned boxer-pit mix of a dog, and a small, timid grey cat who happen to share the same house and a mutual affection for the same set of humans. They are indeed, the best of friends.
Or they just might share a freakish interest in soft furniture and mutual body-warmth. You can never tell, I suppose. The two of them are a bit of an odd couple, in more ways than just the species difference.
I wouldn’t have expected Percy to have become the boldest of the resident cats, when it came to establishing a rapprochement with the dogs. When I first began to tame him, he was so timid that I thought he was a feral. It was the careful and gradual work of months for him to become so accustomed to me that I could even touch him. Once translated into an indoors cat, he spent the first three or four months huddled miserably in various hidy-holes, fleeing all human approaches besides my own, and having any friendly feline overtures cruelly spurned by the senior cats, Henry VIII, Morgie and Little Arthur.
Over time, though, he adjusted… especially when Blondie’s three-legged flame-point Siamese, Sammy joined the household. Sammy and Percy buddied up together, in the manner of two nerdy kids spurned by the middle-school in-crowd becoming friends… even though they both have since reached some kind of grudging acceptance with the senior cats.
The advent of Lesser Weevil and Spike made for a drastic re-grouping of the territory. Instead of the cats having the run of the house all day and night, and sleeping wherever they wish, the dogs now pretty much have my room, the den and the living room during the day, and the cats have the other half; Blondie’s room, the hallway and the closet where the washer and dryer live. Only at night, with Spike sleeping in my room, and Weevil in her crate, do the cats have undisputed reign over the entire house. The senior cats, that is.
Sammy and Percy don’t seem to care in the least about the dogs. Sammy was raised by some people who kept a large herd of Chihuahuas, so that was no surprise, but for Percy to be similarly casual… playful, even! That’s one for the books. Over the last couple of months, he would romp with Spike, and allow her to nip at him, responding with a bat of his front paws, only fleeing to a windowsill when the play got too rough. He wouldn’t do that with Weevil; she is an enormous lump of dog, compared to his dainty grey self. But when he was curled up on the seat of a chair, Weevil would park her nose and head next to him, and he would set to work washing her ears and licking the top of her head. Very amusing to see; this is why we took to calling Percy our little gay hairdresser of a cat.
Last night, we were watching television in the den, and Weevil came and curled up on the sofa next to me… yes, we let the dogs onto the furniture. I mean, the cats are allowed onto the chairs, and so is Spike who is hardly any larger than the cats, so why not the Weevil? How can we make the distinction? That would be size-ist, or something… and really, she curls up into a very small shape, quite compact for such a large dog. (Look, I hold on to some standards, ‘kay? I don’t let any of them onto the kitchen counters!!) And after fifteen minutes or so, Percy hopped down from the back of the sofa, and curled up next to and half on top of her. They slept so for the best part of “Eureka”.
If I had a big enough den, I swear I would buy another sofa… with the dogs and cats and all sleeping on it, there is barely enough room for me, these days.
