| This photo above was sent around on the www. I do not think that
cat happened to be passing by, he probably was part of the drill. Even
so - What is the cat saying with his body ? The cat's body is keeping a low
to the ground profile. The tail is not in attack mode. That cat knows exactly the distance
it needs to outrun the dogs and in this case kitty knows that the dogs are too close for
comfort. He wants the dogs to know that he is not challenging them.
A cat is an expert in judging the distance to keep.
Some years ago our Alsation did not want the kitten on the front veranda. He had no
problems with cats, so it was not personal. He decided that was his sacred
territory. After all, the kitten had the whole house. Whenever the kitten
strolled past the veranda Mr. Dog would lie down and try to paw the small kitten (
about 3 months old) through the grid, but Kitty pretended not to notice and kept on
walking in the garden just outside the iron grid, a hair's width out of the reach of
the dogs paw. The dog was so afraid the kitten will walk through the grid onto his
veranda, that he could not step over the 40 cm high grid and chase the kitten away.
After all the kitten might run over his territory. In all fairness that dog was not
stupid, he figured the garden is our territory and he respected the fact that he will be
breaking the rules chasing the cat in our garden. He never chased the cats on
certain areas, and he never came into the house which he concluded belongs to the cats.
The real insult is that the kitten will roll up on the spot next to the
veranda and sleep, but the dog is too nervous to sleep, he must guard his territory.
Eventually the dog just gave up one day and ignored the kitten, which was a terrible blow
to kitty's ego. It took kitty days to accept the fact that the game was over.
If you have a true cat story to tell. I will be happy to put it on
my website http://made-in-afrika.com/kittens2cats
contact me the address is on the web site. |
