Saturday, August 22, 2009

A Tale Of Two Cats



There are two cats that call my little farm home. Both dumped by their previous owners they have unwittingly come together to live in harmony. NOT. Oh no there is no harmony here. They hate each other. Dottie has good reason to hate Martha. Martha is hateful to her. She will run all the way across the field to attack poor Dottie who is minding her own business. Poor Dottie...and she was here first.
Dottie was found by the side of the road with her mother and brother a few years ago. I had just lost our old cat and didn't want another. I'm not really a cat person. A lot of good that did me. I suddenly had 3. The mother kitty went to live at my sister's and I took the two kittens down to my farm to be barn cats. That was just fine with Dottie's brother Spencer, a slightly feral cat, but Dottie aspired to be some one's house kitty. Delicate and sweet and very photogenic, she would have been a fine house kitty but no one wanted her. I asked everyone...twice. So she ended up living at the farm , perfectly content until Martha showed up.



Martha, formerly known as Sparky, is the product of divorce and dysfunction. When the neighbor's son from a previous marriage came to live with him he brought along his cat. When his step-mother wouldn't let him keep her in the house he plunked her down outside where the rowdy dogs and loud people drove her to run away. She didn't run far, just on the other side of the fence where she took up residency in Ole Yeller. That suited her just fine until we hauled Ole Yeller away and she needed to find a new home. All this time I had been feeding her so she just moved closer, making her home in the hay tent. Not seeming like a Sparky I renamed her Martha after a cat from my childhood.
Now Martha is a fine cat. She loves people, is good with the dogs, and is very pretty to look at. But she has an evil side. She hates other cats and lives to terrorize my poor Dottie. Spencer has disappeared all together. I have thought about boxing her up and handing her back to the Dysfunctions but what good would that do. She would be back in a few minutes. I thought about posting her on craigslist and finding her a cat free home. So far I've done nothing. Dottie now lives with the goats and seems quite happy there. When they go out to pasture, she goes out to pasture. When I feed the goats I feed Dottie too. She has a good life.
But looks wistfully at the life she once had.



Before the face of evil.

5 comments:

Barbee' said...

Bad Martha kitty!

@JDHealingTimeOnEarth said...

Punky's cat, Daisylou, who I inherited upon her high school graduation, also hates other cats. I can sympathize.

Mindy said...

We have four and none have a good relationship. Thank goodness the house is big and two spend time in the north 40. The north 40 is the neighbors backporch that the cats have claimed as their own. Thank goodness the neighbors don't mind!

Sally said...

That is the saddest story I've head in a long time. Bad Sparky.
My two cats often fight too, at which point I usually yell at them or throw( not literally) them out of the house or spray both of them with water in the face or whatever area of their body I can find. I have also been know to throw pillows at them as well.

fivetolove said...

My senior cat, "kitten," is in bondage to the other three teeny bopper kitties, whom she despises. She says to tell you she sympathizes.
Please, oh please, can we see Cora Belle's gorgeous bod in all her shaved glory?