Cat and Dog

Cat and Dog: in memory of Chula, 1960-1974.

The shed roof was pleasantly warm. I stretched my front paws out until they lay on air, and surveyed the goings on next door. The usual van, piled with interesting-looking cardboard boxes, and a car. A man. A woman. The ends of my whiskers twitched. A dog.

I drew my paws in and rolled into a crouching position, craning my neck to keep it in view as it went up next door’s garden path. It was one of those small white affairs with so much wiry fur sticking out around it that if it stood still it would be hard to tell which end to attack. It was racing from its owners to the door and back again in that ridiculous way dogs have, wasting energy on nothing and trying to make itself look important.

Then it spotted me. It froze, then began barking furiously and jumping up and down against our shared hedge. I sat up straight and stared at a cloud, making it quite clear that a cat of the Royal House of Siam didn’t acknowlege dogs.

The barking got the man’s attention. He whistled. The dog gave a final bark, and galloped off to him. I watched with disdain. Answering to a whistle, indeed. When it came charging back, still barking, the man followed. I began washing my left front paw.

‘Look at this, Carrie!’ the man said. ‘There’s a Siamese next door.’

‘Oh, what a pretty cat!’ the woman said. ‘Puss, puss!’

I slid the paw I was washing over my ear, to make it quite clear that I couldn’t possibly hear anything they said. They admired me for a moment longer, and speculated – the cheek of it! – whether I was pure pedigree. I stopped washing at that and gave them a glare from aristocratically crossed sapphire-blue eyes.

‘It’s got a squint!’ the woman said.

I turned my back on her.

They returned to their house, taking the dog with them. I watched them carry boxes in for a bit, then decided to take a closer look. The shed had a tree growing beside it with a convenient branch which hung right over next door’s garden. I sauntered nonchalantly along it and settled at the furthest point which would bear my weight, just a couple of metres from their kitchen window.

The dog had been shut in there. It was hurling itself at the door with no apparent understanding of the paw technique required for round handles. I curled my tail around the tree branch and batted the leaves with one paw.

It caught the movement and rushed over to the window. I watched with interest as it jumped against the window, barking all the time as if noise might dissolve the glass. I let it get nicely hysterical, then turned and sauntered back along the branch, onto the roof again and in through the bathroom window to see what was for tea.

I kept an eye on the situation over the next few days. My mornings watching the birds and the Persian on the other side were interrupted by the dog whining at the house door, keen to help its woman with her cleaning, or whining at the gate while she went shopping. It growled as it dug holes in the garden, spraying earth everywhere. It barked until it got its afternoon walk, and lay snoring loudly afterwards. What should have been restful summer evenings were spoiled by it chasing after balls with its man.

Then one morning it was suspiciously quiet, except for a bit of digging and panting, which I ignored – until, with a triumphant volley of barks, the dog came charging though a hole among the hedge roots and headed straight for me. Caught by surprise, I hissed at it, leapt up the nearest tree and told it from a branch what it’d get if it didn’t beat a retreat, now.

I suppose its owners heard  the commotion, because they came running out of their garden and into ours, just as my hndmaiden came our from our door. The man grabbed the dog while the woman said breathlessly, ‘We’re so sorry – what a dreadful way to introduce ourselves! He so likes chasing cats. He wouldn’t hurt them, of course.’

Dead right he wouldn’t, I said, from my branch. Seeing the dog was secured I came down in a leisurely fashion, tail still fluffed out, and stalked towards the house.

‘Our cat might hurt him,’ my handmaiden said. I could tell she was a bit flustered. ‘Why don’t you come in and we can meet properly.’ She looked to check I was in the hall. ‘Maybe your dog could stay in the garden?’

My whiskers quivered indignantly. He most definitely could not. I waited until the people had gone into the sitting room, then went out through the cat flap. The dog was busy scratching in the flower bed. I raised my spine fur, took up my battle stance and gave a warning yowl before advancing on it with my most impressive stiff-legged sideways walk and my best battle-wail.

It hadn’t a chance really. It made a rush at me, which earned it a scratched nose. I kept advancing until I had it nicely cornered by the porch and was telling it that it was now toast when the people came out to see what was going on. I let the dog’s people past me to fuss over it and remove it. My handmaiden smiled at their retreating backs. ‘I did try to tell them,’ she said to me.

The dog could have left it at that. It had invaded my territory, it’d been told. End of. But no. That, it decided, was war declared. It followed my morning patrol, scurrying along on its side of the hedge, reinforced now by a mesh fence. While I lay on the shed roof, it lay below, barking if I so much as moved a paw. Walking along my branch above its garden, I discovered, sent it into paroxysms of rage. If I let my tail dangle, it would exhaust itself trying to reach me, which was entertaining for a bit.

That gave me an idea. It was so ridiculously easy to set him off that I wondered if he might drop dead from sheer rage. I took to strolling along the top of the picket fence between the dog’s garden and the pavement, pausing to look disdainfully down – until suddenly I was hit by a jet of cold water, and the dog’s woman shouting, ‘Shoo, you brute!’ I hissed at her before jumping down.

It gave me great pleasure to spray her front door that night.

The blackbird was a stroke of genius. I’d noted it in my patrols, lying dead by the road. I wasn’t going to touch its body, but I picked it up by the tail feathers and dragged it to where I could jump onto the fence. The dog rushed over, barking, and I made a pretence of being startled. I dropped the bird neatly in front of its nose, then watched in disbelief from the shed roof as it rolled on the stinking thing. Really! Then it bolted the corpse down, feathers and all.

Its own greed saved it; it sicked the lot up straight away.

Very well, then. That night, I investigated the latch of the garden gate. It was a wooden bar which I could lift easily, and my weight swung the gate inwards. I just needed to time it right.

I waited till the dog’s woman was busy clattering in her kitchen, then attracted its attention by sauntering along the top of the fence. Behind its barking I was listening intently for the sound of a car. Now! I leapt for the gate, swung it open, then, at the precise moment the car came hurtling into view, leapt clear and raced across the road, the dog at my tail. The car screeched to a halt. It had, I realised, been slowing anyway, for the driver was the dog’s man. He grabbed the unhurt mutt and hurried indoors with it, calling, ‘Good news! We’ve got the house!’

They moved a week later. I watched the boxes being carried out from the shed roof and gave the dog a last growl as it was driven away, still barking.

The next few days were suprisingly dull. The peace was blissful, of course, but I rather missed the daring raids, the battle of wits. I missed my adversary.

I was sitting on my shed roof when the next van arrived. A man. A woman. A dog basket.