Blackie–outdoor cat
is sitting quietly under the kitchen table this morning thinking about things.
She is the cat with no tail I wrote about last year.
She spends some mornings curled up on the whicker chair next to the fireplace–showing no inclination to hot foot it out the back door after eating a bowl of food, as she used to.
Beau–the Prince of the household
has taken over the downstairs, even lounging full length on the kitchen table, usually the strictly controlled domain of Pippa, the mother of all cats,
who lost an ally and a minder when Lucien died shortly before Christmas.
We wondered at first whether Pippa had noticed the passing of her surrogate son.
When Marmalade and Butterscotch her own offspring died, she showed little sign of caring.
Back then the power balance in the house was unaffected. Pippa kept he position as head cat.
(The youngster Beauty was too busy performing acrobatic feats to waste time worrying where he stood in the pecking order and dear Lucien spent most of the day “on duty” in the garage guarding the cat-flap.)
It seems different now–and Pippa isn’t happy.
She eats upstairs and only comes down to go outside–maybe her way of maintaining the “high ground” that has always been her right, as she sees it.
Beau seems to be the cat causing the problem.
Pippa can’t set eyes on him without growling.
There have been fur-flying fights but we can’t judge who is starting them.
Beau loves a bit of roughhousing with “brother” Ben
but is otherwise benign–a homebody it seems. Sleeping and eating (too much) are his concerns–a complacent cat is Beau.
Ambition to be top “dog” so to speak, does not feature on his agenda.
“Outdoors” are coming indoors–and indoors, it’s Upstairs Downstairs!
Our cat world is in flux–what to do?
Robin Ellis 