Territorial Disputes

It is finally starting to warm up in the Hill Country of central Texas.  With that warming comes problems in the Gallery at Spicewood.  During the winter, Roo spends much of her time in the front of the gallery next to the big windows where lots of sun comes into the gallery.  Squad Car on the other hand, spends a lot time in my studio on a nice soft leather chair with her blanket spread on the chair. There is a small window there but it is on the north side of the building and no sunshine makes an appearance.  

Now that it is getting warmer, the front windows are too hot for Roo so she migrates back to my studio looking for cooler digs.  She finds Squad Car's chair and blanket, sees that it is unoccupied at the time (possession is nine-tenths of the law) and homesteads the place.  Roo is sleeping soundly very quickly not knowing that Jaws (Squad Car) is heading back to her lair.  I love to watch these little dramas.

Squad Car hops up on the chair (Roo pretends to be asleep) and circles her prey.  The first step in repossession is the steely stare.  After staring at Roo for about fifteen minutes with no apparent reaction on Roo's part, Squad Car moves in for the "licking gambit". She gently starts licking Roo's head and back while purring all the time.  I guess she thinks this will irritate Roo, but Roo is strong and steadfastly ignores the licking and purring.   Squad Car stops the licking seeing that is doing no good and pauses for a couple of minutes to figure out what to do next.  

Squad Car remembers her ace in the hole - violence. That always works. She moves in closer to Roo, purring the whole time, and quickly bites Roo on the hind leg two or three time in rapid succession.  Roo of course retaliates and the battle of the chair is on.  Usually, they both fall off the chair, Roo runs to the front of the gallery and Squad Car claims her spoils of victory.  

Here is the neat part.  About ten minutes later, Roo comes to the studio, jumps up on the chair and they both go to sleep back to back happy as bugs in a rug.  They don't hold grudges very long. Cats can teach us so much!

Feline Therapists

When I come into the gallery in the morning and find some small catastrophe (notice what the first three letters spell in CATastrophe) such as the peanut caper or the broken shelf incident (see previous blog entries), or cat vomit on my keyboard, it tends to upset me.  Then, two little souls so glad to see me come running to the front of the gallery and welcome me with purrs, tails twitches, and rubbing.  My point, they are always glad to see me no matter what my mood, how I look, or what I am wearing.  All I can do is love them back.

I am not perfect.  I have stepped on tails, been late with the chow, treated them rudely when I have not had a good morning or day, and within ten minutes, we are best buddies again.  They do not hold a grudge for long. Wish I could say that about me and my dealings with humans.  Cats live in the moment.  I think this is probably true for all animals, domesticated or wild.  

Humans can learn so much about living a good life from these little therapists.  I have customers  come into the gallery far the first time and not be too terribly friendly or outgoing.  Most of the time, I can pick up Squad Car, walk into the gallery holding her in my arms with her purr motor revving and ask the person "do you like cats".  Even if the initial answer is no, within a couple of minutes, Squad Car is getting petted and the person is more open and friendly. A win-win situation almost every time.  

There is nothing like a happy, purring cat to make a happy, purring human being.

Gallery Jungle Cats

It got really cold here in the Texas Hill Country this week.  Usually, a cold day here is 30 degrees and then it warms up the next day.  Not so this week.  It has not been above freezing for the past three days and the lows at night went down into the teens.  You might well be asking why am I giving you a weather forecast that has nothing to do with cats in a gallery.

I have three foliage plants sitting out in front of the gallery hopefully making the gallery look more attractive.  With the cold weather, I had to bring them inside the gallery where interactions with the gang of two was inevitable.  The interactions started immediately!  

Squad Car, as usual, was afraid of the new intruders and hid for about two hours.  Roo, on the other hand, was curious right off the bat.  She sniffed and did her sneaky walk all around the plants for about fifteen minutes and realized there was no danger here. Too bad for me and the plants.  The next thing I knew, she was tasting the plants.  Then she climbed up into the deep, dark jungle and started roaming through the potted plants.  Stems were broken, leaves were shredded, and dirt was dug.  She was in hog heaven.

About this time, Squad Car thinking how dangerous could it be if Roo had made friends with it, came wandering up to check out the new territory.  As she approached the plants, Roo rooted deeper into the jungle and only her little beady eyes could be seen.  Evidently, Squad Car did not see the beady eyes and moseyed up to the plants only to be pounced upon by a dangerous jungle cat, Roo the Beast.  Squad Car jumped straight up squealing like a little piglet and ran for cover with the Beast right behind her.  Roo headed back to the jungle to lay in wait for another unsuspecting target.  

Finally, Roo got tired of waiting and got up on her bench and went to sleep.  Squad Car finally came up and explored the plants, but never would get into the plants.  She soon tired of the new gallery addition and got up on the bench beside Roo and went to sleep. Roo liked that jungle motif and when she woke up, got right back into the plants and started chewing on them.  I needed to protect the plants from extinction.

I had two very large plastic bags that I put customer paintings in.  I put the bags over the plants and set the plant pots on the bag so it was like a little greenhouse (cat proof, I hope).  Seems to be working so far.  Hopefully, it will be warm enough by the weekend to set the plants back outside.  Here are a couple of photos of the jungle cats.