Dear Ferret Folks-

I have long enjoyed having a "Peaceable Kingdom" in my home. If I had a
lion, it wouldn't surprise me to find it lying down in the living room
companionably with the lamb, just as it says in the Good Book. The dog
and the cat are friends. The dog and the cat are friends with Puma,
whom I have now renamed Puma, Princess Toe-Biter to better define her
nature for the unwary. You have been warned.

Sometimes the whole house rumbles and shakes because the three of them
are playing a mad game of chase. Puma tags the cat, who chases the
ferret, who are then chased by the dog with a madly wagging tail. The
kind that has so much energy that it smacks your shin like a riding
crop if you get too close!(It's that lab who might have been her parent
or grandparent, making her a short-haired rather than a long haired
Border Collie.) Things fall over when they play, small items tumble
from the shelves. But it is good-natured play.

Now, Ping and Puma (Princess Toe-Biter) also play together happily.
At this point in my life I really don't even notice the dooking, the
thrashing, the leaping that is Ping and Puma at play. Countless times
I have looked up from whatever I was doing to find Puma nearly flat
against the floor, pulling herself along one paw at a time, breathing
that little "Hee! Hee! Hee!" with the much larger Ping blissfully
riding her back as if to say "Giddy up Puma!" This activity is just
a fact of life in my house, and I count it as a good thing.

Now, nobody is really a friend to the fish, except me. I have a
fifty-five gallon fish tank right out in plain view, on top of the
island that divides my kitchen from my living room. Inside are half a
dozen *enormous* goldfish that swim past all day long, looking like an
antique Japanese art print from long, long ago. Goldfish are beautiful,
they are koi for the poor man. Sometimes I find the cat sitting on the
crossbar that divides the top of the tank itself, looking hypnotized.
The fish swim right, the cat's silvery gray head swivels right. The
fish turn to the left, the cat's head turns to follow. When Sterling
the Silver Cat was just Sterling the Silver Kitten, he would
occasionally fall in and emerge thrashing and drenched, sheeting water
all over the kitchen floor. The fish were not amused, I am sure, but
they kept their complaints to themselves.

Despite all this thrashing and dooking and panting and chasing and
dripping, my little guys really do get along. ("Can't we all just get
along? Yes!! And yes again.)

Then...there is Ping. There is an exception to every rule, yes? Ping is
my buddy, hands down. He comes up to me multiple times a day as I go
about my chores (I am a housewife, a good one, and damned proud of it!)
and steps on one of my feet with a front paw to ask for a pick-up and a
scratch on his sweet spot, which happens to be the soft dark fur on his
chest, right between his front paws. If he could only purr, he would.
Ping does not engage in hostilities with the dog, but the dog none the
less accords the much smaller Ping a wary respect. They do not play.
Ping likes to sit up on the counter and *watch* the fish fly past in
their watery world, he has even occasionally tried to embrace his inner
otter, and has emerged dripping and humiliated from the tank just as
Sterling the Silver Kitten used to do. And Puma, Princess Toe-Biter?
She is the love of his life. The two spend most of their lives entwined
in shared sleep, snuggled deep within a sleep sack atop a hammie.

But Ping hates the cat. Just hates the cat. Why? Because Ping believes
that the cat's food should be for *him*. The cat believes precisely the
same thing. It is after all marketed as CAT FOOD. It says so right on
the bag. The catfood tray rests right up against one of the short sides
of the rectangular fish tank, sitting up on that island. Ping is He
can often be found hunkered down there, chewing and watching fish. In
former times I would even find both Ping AND the cat hunkered down
there side by side (it is a little two cup cat-food tray) each feeding
from one cup, as if this were a completely routine run-of-the mill
event.

No more. Over the last few days when Ping was out I have heard the cat
making make the most godawful noise! It is a wail, followed by a hiss.
I had my suspicions. They were confirmed this morning when I decided
it was time to fill up the cat food tray. Ping was already up there,
waiting, and the cat came at the sound of the chow bag. I poured, and
Ping physically interposed himself between the cat and the food tray,
the stood up on his hind legs and *bit* the cat on the shoulder, hard.
Ping weighs a little over two pounds. The cat a hair over ten. The
*much* heavier cat wailed, ran away, then hissed. He squatted on top of
his carpeted cylindrical tower and watched the ferret eat *his* food.
The cat's tail thrashed and thumped mightily, but he chose not to
advance on the ferret who calmly ate his fill, then waddled away to
nap.

Did I *laugh* at the cat? That would be cruel, cruel.

But it didn't stop me.

Alexandra in Ma

[Posted in FML 5897]