A few years ago, we had the audacity to introduce a lowly, vile dog into our cats' happy little world. It has taken a long time for the cats to came around, but I think they have finally taken the first step on the long road to acceptance.

It hasn't helped that Sadie divides everything in life into only two groups:

1. People More Important Than Sadie: Anything placed into this group is to be deferred to at all times. This group includes all humans, most other dogs, the vacuum cleaner and...get this.....Luscious Lucy! Sadie knows that Lucy carries knives and does not tolerate any puppy foolishness.

Everything else gets lumped into group two:

2. Chew toys/food: this group includes all things that don't move (i.e. dog kibble, treats, rawhide, furniture, the occasional pair of underwear...) and a few things that do move (i.e. spiders, blowing leaves, sleeping cats...).

Everyone tells me that dogs are basically still puppies until they are about 3 years old, after that they start to settle down. Sadie is only 2, but Lucy is middle-aged at 9 and Demon is now 6. It has taken a *very* long time to just get to the point where Lucy ignores the dog and Demon is almost willing to play, but is still intimidated by Sadie's size and tendency to bounce. Just a few weeks ago we still had open warfare in the hallways. If Sadie was stupid enough to corner one of the kitties (and please note that her first name is Stupid so this happened fairly often) then she would come crying to me, all battered and quite likely bleeding from somewhere.

I think a major breakthrough for Demon was the introduction of the Squeaky Pig. Sadie just loves squeaky toys and will play with them for hours. My Aunt Hilda thinks this is hilarious and she frequently sends us the most obnoxious, loud, hideous squeakies she can find. Apparently, Demon finds these toys as irresistible as the dog does. As soon as Sadie finds her pig (this is the latest "gift" from my aunt and we hide it just so we can get some peace around here) Demon comes running to her. He tries to give her head-butts but is too afraid to get that close to the drool factory so he settles for sticking his back end in her face. Then he looks at her over his shoulder as if to say, "Go ahead, smell my butt" As we all know, this is a cat version of walking up to someone, hand extended for a handshake and saying "let's be friends".

So, I have very high hopes that someday we'll be one big happy family again. It took almost two years to get to this point, so maybe in another two years my dream will come true.

Copyright © Kathy Hyle
Spring, 2000