Hah, cats tolerating dogs. I can remember when I brought home a puppy, some years ago. puppy was great, just wanted to play, but the cats would bait him and tease the hell out of him by getting up higher then he could jump and leaning down to swat him on the nose.
My woman was always on me about my puppy chasing the cats, always mad at me because I wasn't concerned about it. What she never saw or paid attention to was the fact that kitties would sneak up on the puppy and tie into him then run like hell for high ground with the puppy yapping after them, then look down at him like he was the stupidest accident in history.
Just to prove how dangerous the kitties thought that puppy was, I was watching tigger stalking a flying moth with his eyes that came in through the open door and was hovering around the light there. Puppy ran up yapping at tigger and tigger simply ignored him and kept watching the moth. puppy was beginning to distract tigger and make him look away from the moth, so he charged at the puppy and lit into it like a growed up mountain lion, puppy ran yelping away and tigger immediately went back to watching the moth, then when it flew low over a couch, he ran up the couch and lept up into the air and caught it. So much for puppy bothering the kitties.
My kitties have always gotten along with each other, but then they have raised each other and have developed a sort of social system of thier own. It all started with my brothers step daughter getting married and moving out of state and couldn't take her cat, Alex so I took him just to be sure he had a good home. Up until then I had always been a dog person though I gave away my last dog, Ruth, back in early 80's because I no longer found the time to associate with her and take her out like I used to and she needed, so I gave her to a friend who had a ranch with room to play and people that would keep her proper company. Actually Alex was my first cat. he was about a year old, still had his claws and had not been nuetured. Fortunately he was already a comfirmed outdoor cat and loved to hunt birds. Alex wasn't the friendliest thing, not very pretty and his coat was not pleasing to the touch, but I loved his heart and spent hours watching him and we developed a real relationship. he even learned to come to me almost immediately on a whistle. Later my youngest daughter got a cat that was half crazy and it had kittens, one of the kittens who my daughter named Biancha, or binky for short, the daughter wanted to keep, but I told her we already had two cats and a third would be troublesome, so she gave her cat away and kept binky. Binky was crazier then her mother, spooky, and she grew up under the influence of Alex, a highly dominant Tom. then alex died after 10 years or so from a bladder infection. hundreds of dollars for vet bills didn't help, he died in the animal hospital. Anyway, was missing him and got a kitten that looked just like him but had a sweeter disposition and a softer coat, that was tigger, he was raised by Binky who had been raised by Alex, so a lot of alex was passed on, binky became mine when my daughter moved away and couldn't find time for her.
A friend once told me if my daughters ever wanted a horse, then buy an old one so that when daughters moved out but didn't want to give it up, guess who ends up taking care of it and all of it's bills? So getting an old one was just common sense, but the time daughter moved out, horse would die and the keep problem would be solved.
So now anyway had binky and tigger, then along came baxter and he was raised by binky and tigger, so learned from them. since each had come into the household in sucession as early kittens, the learned from the previous cat and threw in a few new twists of thier own, and each learned to respond to a whistle from the previous and so forth.
Now days binky is gone and there is only tigger and baxie, but I still see alex in tiggie and basie is kind of on his own trip. Baxie has feline Aids and the other cats had been inocculated against it. Vet told me he would live pretty much a normal life only a little short. he often feels miserable and coughs and sneezes a lot and sometimes just looks kind of drug out, but when he is feeling good, he just wants to snuggle up and keep company. Love the little guy, I have a special bond with him.
Don't know I'd ever have a dog again. I love them but especially sporting dogs, Ruth was a Black Labador, a specially trained (by myself) trials competitor and in the field capible of marking and fetching birds only on command and also doubling for fetching cotton tails on command and never breaking to chase anything when on a fetch. I fixed her of that when she was a young pup. I found a big mean tom cat one night taking the trash out, caught it, put it in the bathroom and put Ruth in with her and shut the door till morning. Ruth never ever paid any attention to cats or to anything with fur from that day on unless I told her to bring it to me and it was actually dead. Loved that dog, but she required more time, play and love then I could give her during the last few years of her life and I gave her to a friend who could give her all that and treat her with respect.
Terri
