Cats...and Dogs...

Observing Rolo this morning in the kitchen, I am amazed at how things have changed between our cats and dogs in just the last couple of months.

We have two cats, Smokey (or Smokey Jo as he is affectionately known as), and Rolo (or Roly Poly).  Neither of them were picked out or chosen and brought home, but rather they picked us.  Smokey has been with us about 4 years now and he arrived one summers evening while we were inside watching TV and the dogs were scattered all over.  The amazing thing is he just walked inside as if he owned the place, straight past Trinity who was lying asleep on the front verandah.  Trinity is a Great Dane and together with all our other dogs we had at that time, was one of all that had no tolerance towards cats at all.   They had none of them grown up with cats around and the only cats that they knew were wild cats.  Cats to them were fair game for chasing, especially up trees and it is nothing for Purdy to climb a tree in an effort to reach a cat.  No matter whether it is a Jakaranda or a thorn tree, if there is a way up, then Purdy will find it.

Purdy on the right and a wild cat on the left at the top of a thorn tree

We had decided not to have cats because of our dogs' obvious hatred toward them, but when Smokey walked into the house and stayed we made a plan that would keep the peace.  Smokey became an inside cat which really suits him as he is just loves to sleep the day away.   We introduced a litter box for him to use when we weren't home and the rest of the time, when he wanted to go outside we would go through the process of calling all the dogs inside before opening the front door for him.  It worked well and because we keep the dogs closed up all night then Smokey was able to be outside for as long as he liked.  As soon as he walked inside again in the early morning, the door was closed and the dogs let out. Animals get used to routine and it worked well...when the cat was in the dogs were out and vice versa.

Just over a year ago, I woke one morning to find a tiny little kitten lying at the end of our passage right next to Smokey's food bowl.  Well when Smokey saw this intruder in his domain, he was not happy at all.  There was plenty of hissing, from Smokey, and lashing out, from the kitten and I scooped this tiny thing up and took her to NiQi's bedroom, woke her and told her to look after her.  When Johan woke I told him about this little thing and fetched her from NiQi...she was already making herself at home.  I remember she had the loudest purr I have ever heard on a cat before, and she purred a lot and often.  There was no doubt in NiQi and my minds that she was going to stay and while Johan was at work we 'Googled'...yes we did...cat names!!!!!!!!  Rolo was what we settled on and the first week both Smokey and Rolo hissed, yowled and scratched a lot, but it really wasn't long before they became used to each other and Rolo settled into the same routine that Smokey had.

Smokey

Rolo

So that has been how it is here at Larkwood between the dogs and cats...that is until about a month or so ago.  Rolo has always been the adventurous one, the one we have had to scoop up and rescue and climb a tree for to coax her away from Purdy....she has in a nutshell used her nine lives. lol  Maybe that is why things have changed, she has no more lives left and yet she has the confidence that she will survive.  One morning when I was in the kitchen washing dishes, with all the dogs lazing around on the kitchen floor, Rolo jumped over the small security gate between the kitchen and passage onto the worktop.  (Johan made the gate to keep Smokey and the dogs separate).  She sat up there for a while and surveyed the kitchen floor before jumping down and sitting between them all.  No one minded, in fact they ignored her entirely.  Since then harmony reigns between cats and dogs and in fact Purdy cowers away from Rolo after feeling her sharp claws one day.  Both Smokey and Rolo go in and out at will and the dogs don't mind...that is until one or other of them is in a tree and then we have a rescue mission....