Fighting -like cats and dogs!

It's been a lot of fun over the past 3 months or so, since Mandy first brought Sammy into our home -watching him interact with everyone in the family.

He's such a friendly little mutt -allows both Kurt and Maya to use him as a pillow at times, and he likes to lay at my feet, sometimes on my feet, in a way that I interpret as loyalty of dog to human.

If I happen to be outside with him on his leash when Maya's bus pulls up in the afternoon, he strains at the lead until the doors of the bus open and then, he pulls hard enough so that he can climb up at least on the first two steps of the bus, excitedly waiting for her to gather up her backpack and make her way over to the steps. He knows who is going to be getting off that bus and who he will have to play with once we get back inside the house and judging by the smile that comes over her face when she sees him there too, it's obvious that Maya really likes him too.

The first month he was here, if you recall, we still had four of the six kittens here from Nina's earlier litter. And Sam. being the ultra friendly little guy he is, wanted desperately to be friends with those kittens. It took a good while before the kittens all finally made up with him, but they did and the one we got "stuck" with -"Fluff-Nuts" has become Sammy's best friend here now.

They race and chase each other all over the house. Upstairs, downstair, up and down on the furniture and then, when they tire of that game, they end by curling up, in little balls, sometimes with a paw draped lovingly around each other.

Now, that's how the relationship has gone between Sammy and Fluff-Nuts. I only wish it were that peaceful between him and the two other cats!

Nina, the first Mama cat, has never -to my knowledge, actually engaged in anything more than arching her back and hissing at Sammy. But even that is enough to scare him and he will run backwards, cowering all the while yapping and crying in fear.

Chino, the gray cat, has generally been one to pretty much just sidestep Sammy or lay down someplace a bit out of his range and glower at him.

Well that came to a screeching halt this past Monday when Chino had her first litter of kittens -four of 'em to be precise!

If she even thinks he is anywhere near the bathroom door -much less that he may have been really stupid and walked into the bathroom (which is where she and her kittens have been ensconced) she comes flying out of her little nest and goes into full attack mode!

Today, things changed yet again too when Nina -or "The Slut" as Katie refers to her -added to our cat population some more -again! Yes, now instead of the three cats and four kittens we did have, now we have the three cats (Nina, Chino and Fluff-Nuts) along with nine kittens!

Wonnerful, wonnerful! And yes, I know what caused this and yes again, in that we have found a place now where we can afford to take both Nina and Chino to get them fixed too! And that will be done as soon as it can be done -what with them both being new mothers and all that now too, ya know!

No names shall be assigned to any of these nine cute little kittens either -no matter how appropriate a name may seem for said kitten, no matter how sweet, cute, cuddly, soft, lovable each or any of them may be because a name often leads to the "Oh, we can't get rid of that kitten" syndrome, ya know. Oh yes we can and oh yes we will! Find homes, that is!

But anyway, tonight -while I was typing my earlier post this evening and was sitting here in deep thought, heavy concentration on my typing, my words, trying not to ramble too much -Sammy and Fluff-Nuts decided it was time for them to launch one of their playtimes.

And so they were chasing each other, round and round the dining room table, then making a sweep of the living room; leaping on the sofa, then the love seat, back to the chase again, then up on the recliners and back and forth this went for several minutes.

I tried to get their attention by yelling at them, clapping my hands, stomping a foot now and then but to no avail as they just kept up with their very raucous behavior.

However, about the time they decided they were going to take their game into the hallway and begin the chase up and down the stairs, I think Chino decided that she had had more than enough of their loud behavior and she came flying out of the bathroom, heading right straight for Sammy!

Sammy -who is scared "S******s" of Nina but who until the past couple days hadn't really paid much attention to Chino -simply because she pretty much ignored him -had apparently forgotten that since Monday, Chino has had several spells in which she has come after him and showed him that she really means business too!

Tonight, when she went on the attack, he had made his way to my chair and she cornered him under my chair and then, claws extended -big time -she lit into him like there was no tomorrow!

She was hitting and clawing at his fur, screeching and hissing away and he was scrambling like crazy trying to find shelter from her -all the while, yapping and crying to the extent you'd swear he'd been mortally wounded.

Because all of this by that time was taking place between the calves of my legs, I was the one who ended up shedding a bit of blood as one or both of them apparently had managed to snag the skin and scratched both my legs a good bit. (Another thing here is that my skin is like tissue-paper thin so the least little tap will cause a little nick and draw blood -so it wasn't that I was really injured in the fight -just scratched up a bit.)

Finally, I managed to move my feet enough that I could push Sammy out and away from her a bit and he slunk back into the corner under my computer desk, sitting there shaking all over in a bit of a panic. Meanwhile, Chino sat directly under my chair then in a nice firm pose, glaring at him and just daring him to breath in a way that she would see his chest heave a bit and that would be her signal then to warn him again with another loud hiss that he'd best keep his distance and mind his manners a lot more in the house too!

And when she did leave out that hiss -even though he was well beyond the reach of her claws and safe in the corner there -he began crying all over again!

Such a wuss! Such a watchdog he is, huh?

All this ruckus brought Mandy back downstairs to see what the heck was going on. She grabbed Chino then and took her back to the bathroom, depositing her back with her babies. And I told Mandy to grab a couple of bandaids too to bring me on her way back out to the living room.

By this time, Sammy had emerged from his little hole and was standing on his backlegs, front paws on my knee, still shaking slightly and giving me this big old sad-eyed look as if to say "Why's everyone always picking on me?"

I can see his point after all, he means well. He's really just trying his darnedest to be friends with everyone in the family -including those two felines who apparently have both gone bi-polar on him this week!

I had a nice little chat with him then as I tried to explain this phenomenon of why the cats were both more on guard towards him than they usual vigilance and how, if he KNOWS that they're gonna come out with claws extended, he should remember to, above all, steer clear of their private area now -and for oh, say six to eight weeks from now too.

Of course, tonight -with the excitement of all the fun and games he and Fluff-Nuts were having, it's understandable that he sort of forgot about the cats and the prevalence of their mean streaks showing up then.

But when he does remember that the cats are now both in the bathroom, at opposite ends, with their babies, it does provide a bit of privacy to the rest of us who, prior to this, could expect to have Sammy accompany us anytime we had to go into the bathroom and that he would lay down on the bathmat and watch over us for whatever it was we were doing in that room and he would remain there for the duration too.

Gotta take the good things along with the bad ya know -and finally being able to go back and have no audience with big brown eyes watching your every move -well, that really is a good thing, ya know!

And with that being said, I'm gonna call this my "Only The Good" post for the week -although I'm not so sure than Sammy would agree with my theory on "good" things, would he!