Our home has been turned into a well-organized crime scene. Jaz has settled into a nice routine: daycare on Mondays and Thursdays, grooming on the weekends, and terrorization of the cats in between. She’ll chase them from barstool to scratching post to sofa, until they surrender and disappear upstairs (where Jaz isn’t allowed). Sometimes, she’ll corner one of them, attempting to stick her nose in their fur and take a good whiff. But she’s messing with the wrong felines. If she thinks she can win this battle, she’s got another thing coming. Our cats are no pushovers, and, unfortunately for Jaz, they will not succumb to the mere threat of nuclear weaponry. For over the past year, they have realized that Jaz is a lot of bark and no bite, and that they hold some impressive ammo of their own…
You better watch your back, Jaz…
Namely, whenever possible, our cats play the sympathy card with mommy and daddy. Their big eyes and scurried trips up the stairs scream: “Help us! Please!” However, when they suspect we’re not looking, they’ll throw a punch or two to defend their kind. From time to time, our oldest cat, Nana, even builds up the courage to turn the tables and chase Jaz around the living room, or hit her on the head when she passes under the scratching post. Nasty little sneak-attacks! Moreover, when Jaz comes home from daycare, Nana will rub herself up against her, as if by transferring her scent, she is reclaiming her property… or perhaps this falls in the ‘kill ‘em with kindness’-category…?
Dogs have masters, cats have staff. Cliché but oh so true. Nana is working hard on making Jaz one of her minions, because she knows that it’s only a matter of time; eventually, we all cave.
Take last weekend, for instance. I was grooming Jaz, and Nana came down to revel in her misery. A shameless case of Schadenfreude. She pulled up a chair, and came to take a closer look at Jaz, who was on the grooming table, held up by her noose, unable to defend herself…
Nana: “Well, hello there, doggy…”
It could have been the perfect crime, had I not been there with them. So out came Nana’s most innocent face as she she purred and twirled around on the chair, meowed at Jaz a couple of times, and was taken aback by the sight of this other, gorgeous cat in the mirror… If you didn’t know any better, you’d think she might actually be growing fond of Jaz!
“Ooooh! Look at her!”
