This last week, B.T. Rowdy, during broad daylight (of course: he never does this at night) spotted the open door and escaped at a gallop to his favorite forbidden outdoor spa, the backyard......after securing d-pet in front, I headed back into house to feed other cats, knowing Rowdy would not go far and could be retrieved fairly easily if approached on his blind side, as usual.

Loud howls and raucous squawking from backyard soon commenced, however, and I dropped the cat feeding project and headed out back. Rowdy was rolling to and fro partly under a large bush, while multiple mockingbirds, blue-jays, and a few robins (at least I think they were robins, their heads were red) dive-bombed him, in full attack mode, claws outspread, screaming fiercely, ripping and tearing small bits of fur from his blind side (left) (how did they know which was his blind side??!!) while he helplessly cried and tossed himself here and there. As you know, it's late spring on this side of equator, and all those birds, who've been singing loudly lately for weeks, have eggs and babies all over the place and Rowdy sure looked threatening to them, I guess.

They all scattered as I ran up, scooped up his delinquent self, and carried him, for once not kicking and biting, back into house. All the other cats had to get a sniff of him, but as badly injured dignity dictated, Rowdy was not about to put up with that, as he is the alpha cat. I hope he learned a lesson from this encounter.

Anonymous
May 21, 2001