Ginger Interloper

Nathan got a bit pwned this morning. I can't blame him, he's a skinny lanky thing and all the other cats are much bigger than him.

Firstly, he came into our bedroom, getting up on the bed and managing to do his usual scent-marking (urine) there. I really don't think he should be allowed on the bed any more, but I don't make the rules about that one.

The morning continued and I was downstairs, doing something or another. R called down and told me to look out of the window at the back. I did, and saw this:



You can see the reflections on the glass. Our first instinct was to chase it off, but I thought it would be interesting to see what happened.

They sat for a couple of minutes, this close to each other. I was mainly watching the ginger cat - his ears were flicking back and forth, the skin on his back rippling and he was staring at Nathan on and off. Nathan's tail was flicking back and forth, but not madly like when he's about to pounce on Natalie.

I decided to risk opening the back door. I did it quietly and slowly and got this shot.



You'd think they were getting on quite well. Then the ginger cat started meowing and hissing at Nathan. Pretty much "Back off, black kitty! BACK OFF!". I think Nathan may have given him a couple of meows back. But then he jumped off and backed off to the picnic bench. This is higher up, but he was definitely backing off. I think the next step would've been the ginger taking a swipe at him. I did notice that neither of them did piloerection (hair on end to look bigger). I guess Nathan knew he was beat, and the ginger cat didn't need to bother!



It's a good looking cat, and pure muscle. I wouldn't fancy Nathan's chances. We had never seen this cat until last night and I have no idea where it's coming from. I'm going to try to read up on territory disputes, as it seems really weird that so many cats have suddenly started something of a battle for our garden. But, I don't know enough about feline workings to judge.

Bully Cats

Well, I was going to do a post about bullycats and a new one just turned up, so this is fuelled by righteous rage!

Before we got the cats, we always knew there were about two or three cats that hung around in our garden. The homechecker asserted that our two would see off any intruders.

Turns out, it ain't as simple as that...

Bullycat #1
This is a grey and white thing and it is BIG. Really big. This morning, I saw it wandering around the garden, closely watched by Natalie, who then followed it into a bush! I hope she didn't get beaten up. Later on this morning, I saw Nathan on the picnic bench watching something intently. It was this bullycat, wandering along the edge of the grass, casually spraying a plant and then sauntering on. It drives me up the wall, but it's so big, neither of the cats would stand a chance in getting rid of it and sadly, the domestic feline doesn't do team work. They'd be a great team though!

We have the perception that the garden "belongs" to our cats, because they live in the house that the garden is attached to. Of course, cat territory doesn't work like this - the cats that come into the garden could be coming from really quite far away. But they are big, they spray and that's how it seems to be going. The cats do enjoy the garden, and I think this particular cat only does a daily patrol and they keep their distance. We try to chase it off when we see it but we obviously can't protect our kitties all day long.

Bullycat #2
This is a black and white splodgey cat. It could be Natalie's mum, the way it looks and it's also quite a lot larger than both of them. No way near as gorgeous as her, of course! This is the one that keeps coming into our garage and pounds on the catflap at night. I am wondering if it's stray, but this isn't really the kind of area that has stray cats. It might teach the owners to keep the cat in at night if we did treat it like a stray though, eh? That's just my mean side talking.
I haven't seen it spraying, and it's usually slinking along the bottom of the garden, rather than anywhere near the house but obviously it does come up right into the house. The cheek of it! I think this one is a bit worse than #1, as I can imagine it's a bit more intimidating for the cats having a bloody strange fatty cat intruding in their small amount of space. GRRR.

Had I been writing this post last night, it would end here. However...

Bullycat #3
Some bloody great ginger tom has literally turned up in the last HOUR! We got our cats in, and then we noticed him lolling on the floor outside their room. Just lolling, hanging out, in #1 and #2's territory. Right under our cats' noses. Ginger bastard.

So, I think, on the whole, our cats are reasonably well-adjusted, considering the amount of pressure they are under. Good kitties.

Bullycat

As I said yesterday, I think we have a bullycat.

It is quite huge, compared to our two, or perhaps just fatter and furrier. Neither of them could have it in a fight. It has quite a big head, so maybe it's a boycat.

I call it the blue cat, but it's actually grey and white and we used to see it in the garden before we got the cats.

I'm not sure if this story involves the same cat, but it certainly explains some of Nathan's behaviour if so.

You often hear cat behaviourists saying they don't like cat flaps. I read Cat Confidential by Vicky Halls before getting the cats and she is not a cat flap fan. She likened it to humans removing the front door and replacing it with an unlocked flap. I know I'd be terrifed about who could get in, day and night.

We do lock the cat flap at night, and place one of their unused beds in front of it. This is to stop Natalie pounding on it constantly as that cat really does like to go out, rather than reassure the cats they are safe inside, and I'll give some thought to this in light of last night's events.

The cats are extremely spoilt and have their own room, which is off the kitchen and is attached to the garage. There's a corridor from the garage down the side of their room (behind a wall) that also leads to the garden. As their room has a glass sliding door, they have two cat flaps - their room to garage, and garage to garden. Lovely.

Last night, I had to go into the garage and as I shut the door on their room, keeping the bed in front of the flap (they'd been put to bed) I heard an ALMIGHTY pounding on the catflap from the garden. I was absolutely TERRIFIED. It was so loud and persistent and completely unexpected. I actually froze in position for a good minute, before finishing off my chore and running upstairs to get my partner to go into the garden and lock the external catflap. It probably was just another neighbourhood cat, but oh so scary!

We don't usually lock the external flap, and it made me wonder if bullycat comes into our garage when the cats are in bed and pounds on the flap, making them scared and anxious? I really hope not, and it really has made me count my blessings that Nathan's spray/piss problems are actually quite minor. I know some people really do suffer with their cats' stresses and anxieties.

I think we may re-evaluate the cat flaps over the next few days and see what we come up with. Nothing may change, but I do know it's extremely important for cats to feel secure to get the best out of them.

Here's a picture of them in their room from when we'd had them a month. They're so much bigger now!

Hide and seek

The first clue we had that Natalie liked to hide was the day the kitchen fitters came to finish off their work. The cats were indoor cats at that point, and confined to the kitchen, to reduce the likelihood of hiding. We put them in the living room while the fitters came. And when they left, we couldn't find Natalie.

Eventually, we found her here:



Then we discovered she likes drawers:


One night, people on the council estate did fireworks, for no reason we could discern, and she hid on a bookshelf. I couldn't get any pictures of that.

She does seem to like our two pieces of inherited antique furniture. She got in the piano again last night, and a couple of days before that, had a little nestle under the music table:


I think she gets sick of being papped. But what's the point of having cats, if not to take pictures of them being stupid?

They also like overhangs:




I've seen a big bully cat in the garden and I think he scares our cats into hiding inside. He walked past Nathan the other day, when I happened to be watching. The piloerection (fur standing on end) was so freaky! The two cats sniffed noses, then bullycat sprayed on my plants and sauntered off. Cheeky furry bastard! My poor kitties are being intimidated in their own back garden. Will have to try to find a way to get rid of him. He is very large, and they are very small though. Poor kitties. At least our messy house has plenty of hidey holes and overhangs!