Lilith put my dog Bailey in her place a long time ago. Bailey and Jackie are a lot alike. Bailey is a bull in a china shop. She comes sailing through the house like a tugboat. She likes to stalk the cats while they are eating and that really annoys them. She can't get their food because I have to keep it elevated but she'll circle the table like a shark until I tell her to go lie down. Before the dishes got elevated, she tried to get into Lily's dish while she was eating and promptly got slapped. Bailey is 40 pounds. Lily is 5. It was a one slap knockout. Bailey was stunned. She left the room. Every now and then, Lily will remind her who is boss by randomly slapping her. The most recent time, Bailey was laying in the living room behaving for once. Lily was walking through to go into the bedroom. As she was passing by, she stopped, slapped her and kept going. Bailey was shocked and looked at me like, "what just happened?" Queen Lily was already long gone.
What I find interesting is that Jackie doesn't like the water from her bowl. I don't know if it's something with the stainless steel or what, but she prefers the cats' water bowl, which is ceramic. This morning, I washed all the bowls, put ice in both water bowls and filled them with water. Jackie walked over to her bowl, sniffed, and walked away. She came over to the kids' water bowl and drank her fill. I don't get it....unless the water is always fresher in the other bowl, kind of like the grass is always greener..... And it doesn't matter if one of the cats is drinking water, Jackie just comes over and helps herself anyway. Boo doesn't mind...I think I posted a picture of Jackie and Boo drinking out of the cats' water bowl, but the other cats aren't particularly amused by it. Sometimes I think that one of the cats needs to teach Jackie a lesson about staying away from the cats when they're eating or drinking. A good scratch on her nose might make her think twice. Not that I want Jackie hurt, but I think she needs to learn a little about respecting the cats during meals and such. I don't think she wants to hurt them, but she's really big compared to the cats and she's very ungainly, too. She comes cruising out to the kitchen after being outside and everybody just scatters. "Graceful" is not her middle name.
The kids will eat Jackie's food, if they get a chance, but I don't allow them if I can help it. Our cats eat pretty much anything; they're not particularly snooty when it comes to food. Mollipop was a bit of a snoop when she was a kitten, but she's outgrown that; in fact, she's the one I have to constantly shoo away from Jackie's food. I put Jackie's breakfast in her dish in the morning while she's still outside with Rick. That way, when she comes in the house and she's stahhhhving(!), her dish is full and ready for her to munch down. Keeps her away from the cats for one more minute anyway. Two inhales and Jackie's done with breakfast!
That's cute.
Lilith put my dog Bailey in her place a long time ago. Bailey and Jackie are a lot alike. Bailey is a bull in a china shop. She comes sailing through the house like a tugboat. She likes to stalk the cats while they are eating and that really annoys them. She can't get their food because I have to keep it elevated but she'll circle the table like a shark until I tell her to go lie down. Before the dishes got elevated, she tried to get into Lily's dish while she was eating and promptly got slapped. Bailey is 40 pounds. Lily is 5. It was a one slap knockout. Bailey was stunned. She left the room. Every now and then, Lily will remind her who is boss by randomly slapping her. The most recent time, Bailey was laying in the living room behaving for once. Lily was walking through to go into the bedroom. As she was passing by, she stopped, slapped her and kept going. Bailey was shocked and looked at me like, "what just happened?" Queen Lily was already long gone.
Bailey is too. When Lilith and Sophie came to live with us, she was ecstatic. The introduction was far from textbook although I had everything set up for it to be. I had a room for them with everything they needed and we were going to take it slowly. About 2 hours after they went in the room, I went to check on them. When I went to leave, Lily ran out like a flash. Guess who was on the other side of the door? Yep. Bailey. They were face to face. They just looked at each other. Bailey was grinning like a fool and her tail was wagging like crazy. I never had a moment's thought that she'd ever hurt them. She's very gentle. I was concerned about Lily. Lily looked her over, sniffed her and walked away to start exploring the house. The whole time I had myself in between them so in case either one got any bad ideas I could separate them. There was no need to. During this time, I didn't notice the door was still open so who came wandering out next? Sophie who was now face to face with Bailey. Bailey's grin got wider and she looked at me like, "Another one for me?" Sophie checked her out and promptly went after Lily to explore. They were never separated again. There was never any need to. They just accepted each other. Lily likes to assert her dominance but never uses claws. She's never scratched Bailey once. She doesn't see her as a threat. She sees her as the big goofball she is.
That's cute.And that's Jackie. She doesn't mean to be that way. She's just really a friendly dog and she wants to be friends with the cats. But she comes into the kitchen like a bull. She's just so darn happy all the time and she's frisky. I guess that's the only word for it....frisky. She's rambunctious and she doesn't understand why the cats don't like that. The poor cats do tolerate an awful lot where Jackie is concerned. And you can see it in their faces sometimes....I swear if they could, they'd roll their eyes.
One of my sister's cats, Lawrence, did that to Roman, her son's German shepherd. Roman is "the largest German shepherd on the face of this earth"; I mean, that boy is just huge. Great dog, just a super dog. He's pretty gentle and he's very well-behaved. They took several courses at obedience school and he is amazing with his manners and such. But get him around the cats and he seems to lose his brain sometimes. And one day, Lawrence was coming down the stairs and Roman was going up the stairs. And they met. And neither would give ground.
Suddenly, Lawrence reached out and.....swoosh! Roman took off like a house afire. They got him and checked his face. Lawrence scratched his nose. Not badly and not really enough to hurt, but enough so that Roman knew who the real boss was. And it wasn't him. To this day, Roman sees Lawrence and he will give ground. Doesn't matter what's going on. if Lawrence is in the vicinity, Roman will let him do whatever he wants to do. He won't even go over and see what Lawrence is doing. Doesn't matter. Lawrence is the king of the roost. He may only weigh ten pounds and Roman is well over 100 pounds. Doesn't matter. Lawrence is king.
There's a reason why cats rule. And why they always will.
