My cat Riley came to live with me as a kitten after he showed up at the neighbor’s house and was then beat up by their dogs. He now has very strict views on dogs. He divides canines into two groups.
1. Animals bigger than him (aka – DOGS!). The proper response to DOGS! is to run away very quickly and hide until they go away.
2. Animals of the canine persuasion who are smaller than him (aka- Not-Dogs). Not-Dogs take the brunt of Riley’s pent up aggression towards DOGS!. So far Snowball has been the only Not-Dog that he knows. He tortures her enough that now he often only has to look at her to upset her to no end. This is fun for him. Occasionally he still hides behind a door to ambush her when she comes in but mostly his reputation is enough to make her pee on the floor when her only other option is to walk past him to get to the door open to the outside. But the other day another Not-Dog wandered into his house. He met Maya my friends’ Jack Russell. Anyone knowing the nature of Jack Russells know that they aren’t likely to take any crap from cats. It was a battle of the wills of monumental proportions.
Here Riley has Maya backed into a corner. He then walked away to show his indifference to Not-Dogs. When she eventually followed him, he gave her four good swats on the nose and then ran upstairs to hide savor his victory.
