A few days ago I took note of how aggressive my two male cats have been with our pregnant, female visitor cat. (I don’t know what else to call her. Guest kitty?) Luigi, normally very placid, and not inclined to start a fight or even defend himself against rabble-rousing young humans, has been hunting down our friendly pregnant friend and giving her a very hard time indeed—crouching low, sniffing around, grumbling at her, and pouncing and fighting. Butter does the same although he is seems content enough to simply stalk her and harass her. I watched him attack her, as well, outside when he thought I wasn’t looking.
In the meantime I have to admit that female kitty friend is not really endearing herself to me or my husband. She is sort of nasty-tempered with the other cats, as though she has territory to defend in the house, which she does not. She is a guest and does not appear to realize that. What’s more, she’s a pregnant guest, and here on charity alone. When she sleeps in the house at night it is because we have taken kindly to not kicking her out. The other cats have the right to be here because we made that choice, but this cat is just doing whatever she feels, and so I do not tolerate her bad attitude and over sensitivity to having other cats in her presence, or within a 15-foot radius of her vicinity.
This is why I am occasionally at odds when the male cats harass her or attack her; on one hand, I agree with them, and feel that she could use a little putting-in-her-place, but then I think better of it and I put the scrapping to a stop. Most of the time. I am not a cruel person; I am an animal-lover to a fault (sometimes to the detriment of humans in my life); however, in this case, I find myself experiencing some strange new feelings of… animosity towards an animal I have allowed into my home. I suppose it’s not the first time I’ve felt that way towards a pet—I had problems with pets in the past, but not usually the cats.
Over the last few days we’ve observed this cat behavior, these dysfunctional patterns making for a rather unpeaceful home life, and a lot more cat fur flying about. One day River asked me, “Why do you think Luigi is tracking her down like that?”
I had apparently given this a fair amount of thought because I had an immediate response. “He doesn’t like the way she smells. He is picking up on her pregnancy and thinks it is weird. He feels the need to defend his territory because she seems to be staking out a place to have the kittens and he doesn’t like it.” I was a bit surprised that I had come to this conclusion because I hadn’t yet processed the thoughts much beyond some subliminal level of being concerned about how these cats are doing. “Does that sound right to you?”
“Sure,” he said, willing to go along.
“What do you think I am, some kind of cat whisperer?” I asked. “Because I am, you know.”
A couple of days later, we were seated at dinner. It was pouring rain outside. From the dining room table, I could see Luigi outside in the back yard, huddling under the kids’ slide, in a narrow dry spot. I pointed out the sight to River, who went to the nearby back door and called to Lu. Still watching through the window, I could see Luigi turn his head blithely in River’s direction, giving him a flat expression, and not budging. River gave up after a moment and returned to the table.
“He doesn’t want to come in,” he said.
Council sprang up from the table. We watched. She went to the door and called to Luigi. I observed him again through the window. He looked hopeful for a moment, lurched a bit, hesitated, and then ran to the door. I snickered.
“I have a knack, you see,” said Council when she came back to the table. “I just know how to talk to cats.” I leaned over and stage-whispered to River, “She gets it from me.”
A few minutes later, Luigi had returned to the back door and was meowling in a way that has been creeping under our skin over the last few years, as he has worked on perfecting its annoying, loud, drawling qualities. His whining has gotten bad enough that we actually sometimes ignore him even when it is obvious what he wants, simply out of protest over the awful sound he is making. It is not unlike a preference to put up with a child whining unreasonably and ineffectively, rather than just give in and do what the child wants, because one knows that the whining will just continue no matter what you do. The point is the whining, not the accomplishment of any act or the meeting of any particular need. Luigi in, Luigi out, what’s the difference? He will still meow at the door.
“Council, Luigi is calling to you,” I said. She got up and let him out.