Big trouble in Dobrzyn! My informants tell me that Cyrus the D*g and Hili are not getting along, with the result that they have to be locked in separate rooms. Further, Hili’s human staff must sleep in separate rooms, one with the d*g and the other with Hili. I am also informed that it may take months to get these animals used to each other, and Hili is forced to repair to high places, while the d*g knocks her bowl on the ground and noms her food.
Such is the perfidy of the d*g kind. My suggestion was to replace it with a donkey. Today’s dialogue describes the ongoing troubles:
Hili: We will become friends cautiously. For the moment I prefer to look at him from a safe height.
A: And when will you decide that life has returned to normal?
Hili: When he understands that he is allowed to lie on his bed when I’m not sleeping there.
Hili: Zaprzyjaźniamy się ostrożnie, chwilowo wolę na niego patrzeć z bezpiecznej wysokości.
Ja: A kiedy uznasz, że życie wróciło do normy?
Hili: Jak zrozumie, że może leżeć na swoim materacu, kiedy ja na nim nie śpię.
I would say the d*g has to come in at the basement as it were – as a puppy. Then it would know who was boss.
PS Your informants = my spies or perhaps mice pies…
Sorry! 🙂
Poor Hili…
That brings back a fond memory.
Some of my children’s (twins) favorite books when they were younger were the Skippy John Jones stories (full disclosure, I liked them too, they are funny!). I would read these stories to them when they were quite young. There is a passage in one of the books that goes as follows.
Each time I read it to them I would carefully enhance the pronunciation of “mice” hoping that they would notice the joke without having to explain it to them.
Then one night it happened! Sitting on the couch, one on either side, me doing my best mexican accent (I hope!), and I read that pivotal line. There was a pause. And then the most beautiful laughter. They spent the next ten minutes telling Mom, me and each other about this wonderful funny thing they had just figured out. There is something about the unrestrained laughter of young children that is very nourishing to the soul.
A donkey! LOL!
I have to say that I think that Hili’s human staff have been rather irresponsible in introducing a d*g into her domain. To misquote Adler, it is well known that a feline responds like a dethroned monarch to the introduction of a canine into the formerly pristine home – going through the many stages of grief before succumbing to a lifetime of plotting.
But Hili was raised in a houshold with two big dogs. She was an adored granddaughter to the male – slept on him, played with his tail, did everything a kitten can do – and met only love. Female dog was less taken with Hili’s charm and treated her like a naughty niece. Then both dogs died and Hili had the house for herself only for a few short months. We never imagined that she will be so frightened of this dog who was in a bad need of being rescued.
I’m glad you rescued Cyrus & I’m sure things will work out!
My apologies Malgorzata. I was going only on my experience of our own much loved cat, who even resented her own kittens once she had got them weaned and ready to go out and earn an honest living. She outlived all three of them and was able to recover her throne and rule unchallenged!
There’re animal behaviorists who specialize in these types of interspecies dynamics, and I’m sure much of their collective wisdom is by now available both on the Internet and in books. I don’t know an whole lot more than that, but I’m sure Google can get you pointed in the right direction, if nobody here knows more. Your vet, too, should be able to help.
Don’t be disheartened, and don’t think you’re a bad cat and dog mama. It’s taken people devoting their careers to studying these things to figure some of this stuff out. And don’t think it’s hopeless or excessively difficult, either. Some of the solutions are as simple as changes in feeding arrangements, and none are any more onerous than anything else you already sign up for when opening your home to them.
It’s like the old joke about the TV repairman fixing the broken set by hitting it with an hammer, and then handing the owner a bill for $100. The bill was for knowing which hammer to use, where to hit, how hard to hit, and so on. You just need to learn from the experts the right ritual to follow.
Good luck!
b&
Thank you, Ben! I already googled for help and got plenty of useful advice. We are trying them slowly and we are sure that it will work out in the end. I suspect that Cyrus is still a bit shellshocked with all the freedom after being locked for four years. We need to go slowly… He is very friendly to all humans, loves children, so I hope he will be Hili’s friend as well.
As long as you don’t give up — and I’m sure you won’t — and treat them both with kindness and respect — as I know you will — there’s no question but that you’ll all figure it all out.
b&
Awww, poor Hili!
At least he has an instinctive knowledge of the strategies of Sun Tzu: “be before the enemy in occupying the raised and sunny spots, and carefully guard your line of supplies [aka A&M].”
[ http://suntzusaid.com/book/10 ]
Oy, _she_.
My experience of having d*gs come to live in a house with cats is that things go a lot smoother when the d*g accepts the cats is in charge.
Our cat Trinket greeted our new German Shepherd puppy with suspicion on the first day and then took it upon himself to educate the young interloper in the ways of the world: cricket hunting and tree climbing. His lessons met with varied success; but they became the best of friends.