Dear Ferret Folks-
(This was supposed to be posted for wed., but was delayed by the
unexpected. A six year old was involved. Sorry!)
Yesterday I tried to give you a sense of how this year's hard winter is
impacting my cat, Sterling. He of the silvery gray fur and extra toes.
He is a very handsome boy with pale-emerald colored eyes and just the
faintest suggestion of dark rings along the length of his tail. At
eight pounds, he fills out his lanky frame nicely. He is well-muscled,
and in the prime of his life. And he is bored out of his tiny mind,
after being largely house-bound by the harsh weather for weeks and
weeks. No mice, no birds, no nothing. Just day after day of bellying
up to the wood stove, dozing in my lap, searching out sunbeams and
watching out the front window for Mr. Princess Fluffy. He has gone from
spending all day outside to all day *inside*, and the transition has
not been good for his nerves.
Especially not since the ferrets realized that "Hey, the cat's inside
all of the time. We can make him our toy!" You see, the ferrets are not
in the least troubled by the recent cold snap. It hasn't affected their
routine one bit. They come out to play in late morning for a time, they
come out again in the evening, just the way they do in the summer. Yes,
the winter's cold has left them with beautifully lush, minky coats, but
otherwise, life goes on as before for them. Except that the cat is
*inside* almost all of the time. And he is a very fine ferret toy,
indeed.
It is Caff-Pow (It's always Caff-Pow, isn't it?) who takes the greatest
delight in hunting the hunter. Caff-Pow only weighs half of what the
cat does, and that is a generous estimate. I suspect that Sterling
outweighs him a bit more than two to one, especially given the cat's
winter bulk-up. Does that give Caff-Pow pause? Intimidate him in the
least? Heck, no! Cat baiting is just plain good fun, even when the odds
are insanely stacked against you, apparently. Once Caff-Pow is loose in
the house and done checking his favourite spots, it's cat hunting time.
The cat-baiting always starts the same way. Caff-Pow finds the cat, and
chases him. Eventually the cat gets tired of running from the weasel,
and turns to make a stand. That is when Caff-Pow changes tactics. He
stops pursuit, and moves to stand *underneath* the cat. Not biting. Not
being aggressive. Just standing under the cat's belly so that the cat
becomes completely freaked out. The cat will even sit on Caff-Pow, the
ferret doesn't care. He bides his time. The cat starts to panic, and
bops Caff-Pow on the head with a front paw. Caff-Pow just blinks, and
adjusts his stance *beneath* the standing cat so that his head is right
under the cat's head. The ferret looks up, blankly, and stares Sterling
down.
Finally, Sterling becomes completely un-nerved and throws himself on
his side while cradling Caff-Pow with his front legs and bunny kicking
him with his back feet. Caff-Pow can endure this embrace seemingly
forever, but after a time he nips at Sterling who immediately releases
the ferret and runs away with a feline snarl of intense frustration.
Caff-Pow follows. There is a chase, and again Caff-Pow situates himself
maddeningly *beneath* the cat, who cannot handle this psychological
torture and moves to kick the snot out of the weasel.
That doesn't work. Caff-Pow doesn't care if he gets tightly wrapped up
by four muscular cat legs and rolled across the floor like a tin can
rolling in the gutter. That panicked embrace just allows him to nip the
cat somewhere particularly soft, and the chase begins anew in another
location. The other day the cat jumped up onto the coffee table to
escape Caff-Pow. Caff-Pow followed immediately, and stuffed himself
beneath the crouching cat who instantly leaped for the safety of the
velvety green sofa. In that three second battle atop the table the two
managed to knock hundred of pieces of a thousand piece puzzle that I
had been working on atop the table for *days* ONTO THE FLOOR. The
puzzle was completely gutted. I have since abandoned the effort
completely, and swept the pieces back into their cardboard box but the
damage was done. The pieces were flung about like shrapnel, and I will
be finding them beneath the living room furniture for some time to
come.
Would someone be interested in a thousand piece rustic scene from
Turin, Italy with a few dozen pieces missing? I think Sterling is
starting to feel as if he has a few pieces missing. Pity, pity, the
housebound cat.
Alexandra in MA
[Posted in FML 6577]
|
