I paced up and down the yard, my paws pounding the soft earth. I was trying to decide what to do. Lying in front of me, at the base of a nearby tree, lay a snow white cat, stretched out and fast asleep.
She knew this was my yard. I had warned her to stay away- and yet she persisted in coming here. I couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t leave my humans and I in peace. Not that they seemed to mind all that much.
I thought back to the time when the cat had made one of her secret expeditions over the fence and into my territory only just recently. My human had caught sight of her and instead of shouting and waving his arms threateningly as I had been fully expecting him to do, he bent over, crooning and “puss-puss-puss”ing. He then called to his partner and to my complete and utter dismay, my other owner emerged from the house, apparently equally delighted at the appearance of this intruder.
Then with great displeasure I had to watch as my humans stroked the white fur-ball and tickled its ears. I was trying to look as though I didn’t care- as though seeing my two owners doting on some other creature didn’t bother me in the slightest. However acting untroubled was rather hard to do as the stink-ball kept pointing its ugly head in my direction so I got the full view of the horrifyingly smug expression it wore.
I had thought this was as bad as it could get, that surely the situation couldn’t possibly get more irksome than it already was. Sadly, I was quite mistaken. Things took a turn for the worse when my female human scooped the white cat up into her arms and- I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this- took her inside the house.
I was utterly horrified. I had never in all my doggy-years been permitted inside the house. Well, this isn’t strictly true. I am on some occasions allowed into the big white room with all the tiles- the laundry, my humans call it. Yet, here they were, my faithful owners (or not so faithful) letting some trespassing animal inside the confines of their sanctuary! I had, up until this point, been maintaining a rather good haughty and aloof expression. Yet when I saw this insulting scene taking place, my superior look of carefree disdain slipped and I became a whimpering, hurt puppy, unnoticed by my owners whose full attention was focussed on that horrible feline.
So now, here I was, in a very difficult position. The cat was back and I needed a plan of action to get rid of her. I had even tried digging a hole beneath the fence where she usually chose to enter my yard. There was now a large ditch in the dirt just under the fence, yet she seemed to have missed it somehow. As she lay stretched out before me, warming herself in the early morning sun, I decided to try and scare her off. I pulled back my upper lip, baring my teeth and let out a menacing, rumbling growl. This had no effect on her whatsoever except she purred a little in her sleep.
I padded closer to her, lowering my head and sniffing cautiously at her. She stunk of cat. I hastily pulled my snout away in disgust, now even more horrified that something so stench-infested was lying in my favourite spot under the tree.
I was just running through ideas in my head of how best to try and get rid of this nuisance, when the nuisance itself rolled over, yawned and lazily began to sit up. I lurched backwards a little further, lest the stupid animal’s foul smell reached my nostrils again, and then, once certain I was at a safe distance, tried again with my most threatening growl.
The cat rolled her eyes skywards as if to say “Oh puh-lease” and then with a haughty flick of her white ears, ignored me and began to clean herself.
Feeling rather insulted that my growl had had such a pathetic affect, and also quite annoyed to see she was showing no signs of vacating my spot under the tree any time soon, I braced myself for the smell of feline, and treaded a few steps closer. She didn’t look up, so I barked in a low, deep voice. Still nothing.
I was not just annoyed, I was now frankly quite furious. It was one thing to trespass in someone else’s yard, but to then completely ignore that someone when they were so clearly trying to get rid of you, was a whole other thing. I couldn’t take being ignored like that; I had to show that stupid cat who was boss here. How dare she think she was superior to me?
I prepared to lunge at her and give her a taste of just how scary I could be, when she stood up, gracefully and with ease, arching her back as she stretched. She placed one paw in front of the other and without so much as glancing at me, strutted casually out from beneath the shade of the tree and back in the direction of the fence, her tail pointing straight up in the air. How arrogant.
Her stuck-up ways infuriated me, as I watched her walk away from me like I didn’t even exist. With an angry snarl I broke into a run and was upon her in a second. I let out a bark, still thinking perhaps I should do the decent thing and warn her of my oncoming attack.
The cat turned around with deliberate slowness to face me. Her eyes flicked down to look at something on the ground near our paws, before she raised her gaze again. One eyebrow cocked, she seemed to be thinking “What a waste of space, this mutt”. I couldn’t wait to sink my teeth into her. I bent my legs, ready to pounce on her, when yet again, she beat me to it and pranced swiftly to one side, just as I went leaping forwards.
I had landed in the muddy hole beneath the fence that I had so carefully dug, thinking to trap her as she jumped over into the yard, yet somehow I had ended up in my own trap. Now completely covered in mud and dirt, I began frantically to try and scramble out of the ditch so as to catch her before she could make her escape. Yet in my haste I only managed to sink further down and the cat, taking advantage of my temporary impediment, leapt lightly up and over the tall wooden fence in one swift motion.
I watched the flight of my intended target with a feeling of utter helplessness. I could not bear the fact that the cat had outwitted me once more. I was so sure I would be able to teach her a lesson this time- show her who really ruled this yard. Yet incredibly, she had managed to escape and the only harm that was done had been inflicted upon me.
I swore to myself, no matter what it took, I would bring that cat down. The next time she tried to make one of her little excursions into my domain, I would have her. Soon she would understand a simple fact: dogs always win over cats.
