I discovered the one thing that scars Little Feet out of his wits - monkeys. More accurately, another cat's reaction to monkeys.

First off, my mother came down from Indiana last night, and my mother has a small pet monkey named Dougie. Dougie is afraid of cats. Dougie sees a cat and shakes his cage bars at the cat. Dougie makes a horrendous racket in the direction of the cat.

Before this struck home, I had let Buster, one of our local ferals, in the house, and was holding and petting him. I leaned down in the direction of the monkey cage, and showed Buster to Dougie, and vice versa. At this time, Presto and Little Feet were entertaining their curiosity from about three or four feet away.

Well, Dougie went ballistic. Buster, not to be outmatched, also went ballistic. Buster has razor sharp claws that are ideal for making sudden radical modifications to clothing. As Buster leaped from my arms, he used my new shirt for positive traction, and left three, straight in a row slashes in said shirt. If not for the further padding of a T-shirt underneath, I might have seen a duplicate set of razor tracks along my ribs.

Little Feet scrambled. Presto scrambled. Buster meowed to be let out of the house *NOW!*. I opened the door, and Buster left cartoon dust trails behind him as he ran for parts unknown.

I later found Presto on the bed, relaxing away from the monkey. However, it is now several hours later, and I still haven't seen Little Feet. Now I'm worried that he ran out, unseen with Buster. I finally find Little Feet under the couch, still shaking.

Poor baby, I bring him out, love him for a while, and get him calmed down. Eventually, he wanders off, but still seems nervous. Buster hasn't shown back up either.

Another couple of hours go by, and Dougie goes back into the car. I notice that Little Feet is still missing. A second hunt finds him under the bed, so I bring him out again.

He listens, an ear cocked towards the living room, but is still too nervous to go look. So I pick him up. As we near the door to the living room, he tries to glance around the corner. I feel hind claws grabbing my shirt, just in case he need to run.

The monkey is not there! Hallelujah!

I sit Little Feet down, and we play a little bit of chase the laser pointer to take his mind off the monkey. This works to calm him down.

I still haven't given Buster his evening meal, so I look outside, and there *he* is, shaking in the bushes, giving me a very plaintive meow. I bring him in so he can also see that the monkey is gone. Little Feet and Buster touch noses, and Little Feet must have told Buster the good news, because he also calms down.

In fact Buster, until a few minutes ago, was doing his best to stretch out fully on my lap, on his back, while I scritched his neck and tummy. I detected several contented purrs coming from his direction (grin).

Finally, Buster remembered that he was hungry, and went to the door to be let out and fed.

All is once again well in monkville, and full apologies have been made to all cats, inside and out.

Copyright © Mark Edwards
March 3, 2002