We have three pets: Elvis, who you've met; Opus, the Official Cat of the Posette; and Ernest, the Official Snake of the Posette (or the most chill pet ever). The three have always eyed each other warily, spending as little time together as possible.
Elvis has attempted to befriend Opus in his own inimitable way: by jumping up right next to Opus and barking in his face while furiously wagging his tail. I speak a little Dog, though it's a bit rusty, and I think I translated his barks as:
"HI!! I'M ELVIS!! BE MY FRIEND!!! BE MY FRIEND!! WHY ARE YOU RUNNING?!?! WE'RE PLAYING CHASE?! I LOVE CHASE!!!"
Opus either storms off or swipes Elvis in the face with his claws. Repeat.
After we brought home the dog, Opus decided he was having none of this, and he retreated into the guest bedroom or as he likes to call it, Opus' Room. Which was fine, it allowed the two animals to leave in peace without killing one another. Elvis literally is trying to kill to Opus with kindness.
It was a good system, but unfortunately, Opus can't keep his room because we only have the one guest room. And we kind of need to turn that into a nursery. Which means booting Opus from his room, cleaning the heck out of it to remove all vestiges of Cat, and then closing the door to keep him out. That was the easy part, though I still need to steam clean the carpet.
No, the difficult part was re-introducing Elvis and Opus. We did our best to make Elvis sleep in his bed, but we lost that battle, and Elvis now sleeps on top of one of us. I'd hate to say he sleeps on the bed, he quite literally sleeps on me. Or, if I'm lucky, the Posette.
Well, now Opus hangs out in our bedroom as well, which means all five of us (the snake is still just chilling out in his terrarium) are in there at night. And Elvis is back to trying to make friends with Opus, who wants to be friends with a dog like you want to be friends with the Ebola virus.
This means even less sleep as usual as Elvis will occasionally wake up at 3 AM and think to himself, "Holy crap! There's a CAT in here! I must now warn my People!" He then starts barking. It's a good system, and I then politely inform Elvis that we are aware of the Cat Situation. He then happily goes back to sleep, secure in the knowledge he has once again earned his keep as the best guard dog on the planet.
Opus then retaliates by peeing on my laundry. Ernest hides in his turtle shell, setting a good example on how to peacefully coexist with others, provided you are separated by a glass wall.
Bill Murray was right, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria.
No comments:
Post a Comment