My Cat Is A Homicidal Maniac

Let me start off here by mentioning the fact that I did have multiple pictures of Lucy posted here until I realized that I was coming across as one of THOSE dog people. You know who they are: the ones that talk about their animal as if the genetic material bestowed upon the beast came directly from their own loins. After having realized that I was borderline obsessive about sharing the details of her every move, I decided to pull back and change my approach to the situation.

Part of this new approach is to share with you the high drama that is currently running our household, i.e., Cat vs. Dog. The Mr. Hyde side of our family feline has reared its ugly head with the arrival of Lucy. The below anecdotal evidence is being submitted for your consideration.

The road that borders our backyard serves as a shortcut from one other, moderately busy road, to a rural highway where speeds run in excess of sixty miles per hour. Drivers down our little piece of asphalt can often be observed driving well over the 30 MPH speed limit. Naturally, my mothering instincts belay Lucy from enjoying true freedom on our property, hence the construction of her kennel.

Hobbes on the other hand, has a better than working knowledge of not only our property and the existence of the road that abuts it, but also of the cornfield across the road itself. He is able to access the cornfield in order to perform random acts of killing via the culvert that runs under the road. We have often bragged about his instincts of staying away from the danger of the thoroughfare; if he is near the road and a car speeds by the house, he runs closer to our back door. Good kitty! You hate cars!

Life has moved forward with Hobbes at a rather pleasant pace, occasionally tainted by the carcasses of dead rodents that he brings back from his cornfield excursions, but whaddaya gonna do?

Enter Lucy. A naive little lab with a friendly outgoing nature, Lucy has convinced herself that Hobbes is her friend. When in the same room, she often badgers him to play with her, unaware of the fact that he is not a dog. Or perhaps she is aware that Hobbes is not a dog but feels that he is obligated to entertain her since they live beneath the same roof. At any rate, she is wrong.

Striking the “play” stance, Lucy delights in the fact that she is able to get so close to him. No amount of striking out on the cat’s part seems to deter her enthusiasm. To date, we are talking about multiple scratches on the dog’s nose, a wrestling incident in which Hobbes tried to disembowel her with his back claws, several occasions where he employed a death grip on her ear and bit down hard, and of course the “let’s play chase” game in which the two of them use our furniture to hide beneath, around and under.

About two weeks into this daily melee, Lucy was outside trying to focus her energy on voiding her bladder. As you dog owners know out there, the puppy attention span leaves a great deal to be desired. Tim and I have managed to encourage Lucy on this particular issue by saying to her over and over “Lucy go potty?”, and “Lucy, go potty.”, and “Potty, Lucy, potty.” So far, so good. This keeps her focused on the task at hand, and she is also learning to equate the word potty with her urges to go. I can’t tell you how excited this makes the two of us (there I go again – for f@ck’s sake, it’s a dog – not a fully potty trained human toddler).

During one of Tim’s encouraging potty moments with Lucy, Hobbes made his way into her line of vision (he baited her). Despite Tim’s encouraging “potty” talk, Lucy was riveted to the image of Hobbes making as if he wanted to play with her. He ran up close to her, swatted his paw at her nose to get her attention, and then took off like a bat out of hell.

Across the road.

Again – Hobbes has never crossed the road since the day that he entered our lives. He disdains all things automobile.

He did this on purpose.

I am convinced that he wants her dead.

Fortunately for Lucy (and Hobbes), Tim’s bellow stopped her at the tree line just before the road. Tim still had to walk over and retrieve the retriever, but she did stop and therefore avoided being killed at the conniving paw of our tabby.

I honestly view this as an animal kingdom version of sibling rivalry. Watching my niece and nephew interact with one another draws many parallels to this situation. Yes, there is sometimes scratching, although neither of them has been known to sink their teeth into the other. My niece is younger than my nephew and is often disappointed when he does not pay her the attention that she craves. In order to get that attention, she will sometimes morph into a big ol’ ball of negative energy, forcing him to perform a smack down of one kind or another – the result being that they both get into trouble.

Here is the difference: Thomas is not going to lure Madeleine out into the street in order to get her out of his life. He may, in his worst moments, entertain the thought – however, due to the fact that he is a human being and possesses not only a conscience but basic reasoning skills, this will never happen. Notice how I didn’t say that he loves her too much, but that’s brothers and sisters for ya.

This brings me; although I may not enjoy it, back to the issue at hand. My cat is a homicidal maniac. The worst part? He is a wickedly smart homicidal maniac. And when I say “wickedly smart”, I am taking into consideration the peanut size of his brain. I only hope that Lucy, at one point or another will be able to outwit him.

For now, they are simply not allowed outside together at the same time; for fear that he will somehow find a way to get her to play with a rope. Naturally, if that were to happen, Lucy would end up hanging herself. And despite the fact that Hobbes lacks opposable thumbs, it would surely be he that would tie the slipknot.