by Matthew Cobb
Regular readers will know that I have become the staff of a small kitten called Harry, who is bitey and scratchy and generally excitable, except when he’s not all floppy and purry and asleep. On Saturday, Harry decided to help me with marking (aka grading) second year university exams. These were short answers about Xiphosurida (aka horseshoe crabs—in keeping with the law of nomenclature, these aren’t crabs and don’t look like a horseshoe, plus they aren’t ‘living fossils’)—and about the advantages of being bilaterally symmetrical. Here he is, as I told Tw*tter (he loves my marking pens):
Harry the kitten "helping" with marking pic.twitter.com/fh3ZvRqopc
— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb) February 14, 2015
However, life isn’t all a bed of roses. Harry is a very pesky kitten who loves chasing the two grown-up cats who we serve, Ollie and Pepper (Ollie is the one who scratched Jerry’s nose a few years back). Today Ollie decided he was having no more of it, and when Harry came for him again, there was a stand-off. This was the first real fight they’ve had (though there’s been plenty of growling and hissing from Ollie and especially Pepper, who really does not like the kittenish behaviour of the kitten).
No one got hurt, and it looks worse than it was, but a bit of fur (mainly Harry’s) flew… I decided to leave them to and to take photos, just like, when my children were little I’d occasionally take vids and photos of them crying or having a tantrum, so I’d remember that life isn’t always happy… These two cats were both pretty cross!
Nice left hook Ollie!
Love the action shots!
My wife teaches second grade, so we always have a pile of papers sitting somewhere awaiting grading or return to parents.
Our series of felines has been generally well behaved with regards to such papers. But one night while we were out, Fuzzy went medieval on one such stack of papers.
My wife had to send a note to all the parents: “I’m sorry, but my cat ate your child’s homework.”
🙂
My puppy once chewed a student’s assignment. Classic man bites dog turn-around. Fortunately the kid was fond of dogs and had a laugh about it.
Great pics, Matthew. Would love to hear the audio!
And no humans were injured in the making of these pictures.
Ollie’s in the power chair! Know’s his military tactics – take the hill and attack from the dominant position. And don’t run down the hill after the enemy, or it’ll be Harold vs William the Conqueror all over again! No interlopers taking over this time, with or without the pope’s blessing. 🙂
Harry is such a little scamp!
Bitey and Scratchy– aren’t they characters on the Simpsons?
Horseshoe crabs don’t look like horseshoes but from certain angles they do show more than a passing resemblance to a horse’s hoof which I guess is how they come by the name.
Great photos. Before our Abby passed, our two would have their twice-daily tussles. Sometimes it would get a little heated and a few bits of fur would fly.