Friday 9 August 2013

PEPPER & HER SUITORS or MÉNAGE À CAT

On some days, the Garden of Anxiety may as well be situated in Rome due to the number of cats in it!  Although the Pepper kitty is an indoor cat she does get to go out to the garden two or three times a day.  When she does, the garden is her own personal jungle and amazingly enough she’s good enough to stay within the boundaries.  Her favourite pastime is swatting flies & bees and chowing down on grass.

Pepper



















Two other neighbourhood cats now come to visit her:  She first met Toby, (lives two gardens to the right) who is silent and aloof but does drop by once in a while to see her.   She seemed more curious about him than he was about her.   I think he may be an older cat.

Toby
 



















Then she met Snowy, who lives two gardens to the left, and who has become her regular playmate.  I'd guess that they are probably around the same age.


Unfortunately, due to both tom cats getting territorial and fighting a few times, we’ve had to deter Toby from visiting the garden.  We still see him around but the last thing we wanted were both toms fighting over her.   The howling, hissing and fur flying that we've witnessed is not a pleasant sight.  We are keeping the hosepipe on hand.

Snowy



















Snowy is a very handsome cat.  All white with blue eyes and resembling a little polar bear.  It’s interesting that 72% of blue eyed white cats suffer from congenital deafness but this doesn’t seem to be the case with Snowy.   As soon as he hears her little bell in the garden it’s only a matter of time before he comes bounding over the fence with quite a thud.  He’s quite vocal too and meows repeatedly to let her know that he’s arrived.

Kissing


















  
After their initial greeting or ‘kitty kiss’ of rubbing noses he normally follows her around, overtakes her and rolls around in front of her.  He’s always in the mood to play.  Pepper seems to become all cool and coy and he likes nothing more than giving her a playful swat or push.  She likes to hide behind the furniture and wait for him to find her.  Sometimes she’ll hide in the foliage and spring out at him.  Occasionally, when she finds him a little over-attentive she’ll slink back indoors, unless it's a ploy to try and lure him inside...

The look of love
 


















Playful swats



















Just chillin'



















It’s great for her to have interaction with another cat as she’s very social with a good, friendly nature.  Having watched her behaviour over these last few months, I can see that having a friend is a nice experience for her but she also likes having her own space.   Cats can live together but are not social or pack animals like dogs.  They tend to find ways of sharing a space and try to avoid confrontation with each other.  While she does enjoy playing with Snowy, sadly there are times when she chooses to ignore him.  Perhaps having him around a lot gets in the way of her bug swatting...  Still, I'm hoping that theirs remains a beautiful relationship.



 

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