Cats vs Dogs

Cats and Dogs

We have three (3) cats and a dog. Two of the cats (Colleen and Grace) are female, as is the dog (Sheeba). The male cat (Ratcliff, or "Ratty" for short) happens to be black, as is Sheeba. Ratty is crazy about Sheeba, although I'm not quite sure where Sheeba stands on this whole issue. It's more like she tolerates Ratty, because to not tolerate him would be unthinkable. I mean...What would the Missus say if the dog can't tolerate one of her cats?

Just like us humans, each one of the pets has its own personality. Colleen has this real "sorry I'm alive" attitude and gets away with it, because she doesn't mind being cuddled by the "humans" in the house. She's the only cat that will jump onto the first available lap...irrespective of who that lap belongs to.

Grace is the snooty, I'll come to you when I want attention cat in the house. She doesn't mind being scratched, as long as you don't try to pick her up and cuddle her. She also happens to be "my" cat, as she can tolerate quite some rough treatment from me. She will also come into our room in the mornings, walk right past Thereza and come all the way around to my side of the bed to be scratched for a while.

Maybe afterwards she wouldn't mind if Thereza tried to scratch her, but not before she's been to "her Master" first.

Ratty...well, he's a cat with more of an attitude than normal. He doesn't mind being cuddled and scratched, as long as he can join in the scratching and biting afterwards. You can treat him reasonably roughly...for about 5 seconds before the claws and fangs come out and he starts ther retribution!!

Sheeba, well...she's a dog and likes us humans quite unconditionally, as dogs tend to do in general. She's very loyal, reasonably quiet and very territorial. She happens to be quite protective of Thereza. Of course, she's also protective of the rest of the family, but only once Thereza is safest first...or so it seems to the rest of us in the house.

Anyway...in the past week I've been wondering about cats and dogs and which is the most effective at doing what it's supposed to. Then, of course, I realised that nobody actually knows what a cat's "supposed to do"! I always thought cats were supposed to keep the rodent population in check, but I'm even wondering about that lately. Let me tell you why I say this...

This past week I woke up before the alarm was supposed to go off with a cat meowing in the passage. This is not the strangest sound, seeing as we have three of them and you hear the occasional meow around the house. However, what made this quite strange was the immediate scrabbling of claws and running frantically up and down the passage that followed.

The cat (it turned out to be Grace) ran into our room, straight into the bedside cupboard, truned around and ran out into the passage, onto the wooden flooring again. The scrabbling on the wooden flooring drove me nuts, because it's quite a weird sound so early in the morning. Also, I knew somehow that there was "something" being chased.

In our area there are quite a few rats and mice still around, so I could just imagine the rat running around the house. Anyway, being slightly incapacitated as I am currently, Thereza decided it was nearly time to get up anyway, so she could go and see what was happening. As she got up and turned on the light, Grace was sitting just outside our bedroom door with the rat in her mouth.

Problem number one...How do you get a rat, sepcifically one that was still twitching, away from a cat that had caught it, brought it into the house and decided that it was a wonderful toy? Second problem...How do you keep the cat from running into one of the kids' rooms when all the doors are within reach and wide open?

Well, as Thereza got up and tried to coax the cat in to the kitchen, Grace decided that Duncan's room l ooked like the best place to play hide and seek with her catch. As she ran into the room, she let go of the rat, which ran underneath Duncan's bed to catch its breath and plot its escape.

Now things start getting interesting. Thereza grabs Ratty and takes him into the room with Grace and the rat, because they can now form a team and get the rat "sorted", can't they? Thereza walks into the room, drops Ratty next to Grace, closes the door and wakes Duncan up so he can help his Mom move the bed away to expose the rat. All great and good, except that the cats had now decided to team up and become spectators in this whole escapade, rather than the participants.

After about 3 minutes of seeing the cats just watch the rat run around the room and not even moving a whisker to catch it, Thereza decided it was time to bring in the most unlikely "expert" to remove this problem. So she goes out the room, closes the door behind her to contain all the role players in the saga and unlocks the back door to allow Sheeba into the room.

It wasn't even a minute, I'm sure, and the rat was lying dead on the floor with a VERY satisfied and proud dog watching to see how much applause her brave act would get her. Of course, at this point I was wondering whether the cats actually had a purpose, other than being fed, shedding and sleeping on all the beds and furniture in the house?

You see, my problem is that dogs are generally described as the warning and protection mechanisms in a household and the cats are seen as the hunters and foragers that will keep the vermin to a minimum and make sure your barns stay clean. In our house it seems that the dog does all of this and the cats just make sure we supply the right type of food tins on a regular basis.

Hmmmmmmm....Maybe my friend was right when he said: "You know what the thing is with cats? Thousands of years ago the Egyptians worshiped them as gods. The problem is modern day cats seem not to have forgotten that fact!"