Letters From Home

A year or so ago, I read a book called Cat vs. Cat: keeping peace when you have more than one cat by Pam Johnson-Bennett. Up till then, I had not realized that house cats have a “pecking order” too.

In the summer of 1994, we rescued a mama cat and her five kittens. Eventually, three of the kittens were adopted by friends, and we kept two. My daughter likes to give cats names from Shakespeare, so the mama cat became Caliban (because she had a severely distorted spine, a very short tail and a grumpy disposition) and the one male kitten was Tybalt. I put my foot down on naming the calico kitten Antonio, though, and thus she became Calypso.

Time has passed, life has gone on, and Caliban and Calypso are gone. In all his nearly-14-years, Tybalt, despite being larger than many small dogs, has never been the dominant cat. He got his butt kicked by his mother on a regular basis, and after Caliban died, Tybalt and Calypso did some wrangling for position, and what came out of it was that Tybalt wasn’t about to agree that Calypso was now the dominant cat, but he didn’t mind letting her think she was.

After Calypso died, Tybalt was an Only Cat for the first time in his life, and that took some getting used to, for all of us. Still, though, it gave him a bit of breathing room before we felt we were ready to adopt another cat.

Zoe came to us from a home where there were a lot of cats being fostered. It’s clear she’s not used to being the dominant cat, either. So what we have here is two second bananas trying to establish who’s who, and it’s extremely interesting to watch. I’m glad I read that book or I’d have had a lot less insight into what’s going on.

Tybalt’s not accustomed to asserting himself, and he’s such a non-hisser that the first few times he tried to hiss at Zoe, all he did was make himself cough. Zoe is apparently used to standing her ground, so she doesn’t just run away when Mr. Monster Kitty tries to move in on her. We’ve had a few scuffles and spats, and Tybalt seems terribly confused by the notion of asserting himself in the face of female-cat opposition, but I think his few months alone at the top have helped give him a bit more confidence.

So, I guess we will have to see how all this plays out. Zoe’s backed down a couple of times, but she’s also stood her ground a couple of times and has won. It’s kind of nice to have a female cat in the household who’s not cranky and doesn’t just hiss at Tybalt on general principles, I must say.

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Today we discovered that our fish tank was leaking. Just a slow leak, thank goodness, but enough to leave a small puddle on the floor.

We’ve had that tank for at least 20 years, probably more like 25, and it has been used to house multiple rodents when it wasn’t being used to house assorted fish, so I decided it would probably be better in the long run if we bought a new tank rather than trying to fix the old one.

Want to know how to change from an old leaky tank to a new one?

• Pull the plug on all the electric stuff and remove the lid from the tank.
• Take the hoses off the power filter and put them in a bucket.
• Chase calico cat out from behind tank.
• Carry tank lid, heater, filter hoses and filter to kitchen sink.
• Chase calico cat out from behind tank.
• Siphon out a full bucket of water and set the bucket close to the tank.
• Net out each fish and put it in the bucket.
• Chase calico cat away from bucket full of fish.
• Siphon most of the rest of the water out of the tank, one bucket at a time, pouring the water in the kitchen sink and chasing away calico cat as necessary. When tank is mostly empty, remove plastic plants.
• Scoop all the rocks out of the bottom of the tank, one handful at a time, and put them in a bucket.
• Pick up the tank with the last few ounces of sludge filled water and move it to the kitchen.
• Pick up the tank stand and put it outside to dry.
• Wipe up water and loosened paint from the floor inside the fake fireplace. Put small fan from bathroom in there to blow the area dry.
• Sit down to relax and read a magazine, with calico cat on lap. Periodically remind cat that she does NOT want to get into that bucket of fish.
• When everything is mostly dry, reassemble stand and replace new tank. Put all electric stuff back. Put rocks in tank, carefully. Put plastic plants back.
• Carry water from kitchen, one bucket at a time, till tank is mostly full. After second bucket, put calico cat in bedroom and shut door.
• Turn on filter, air stone and tank heater.
• Catch fish in bucket with net and replace in tank. Pour water from bucket into tank until tank is full.
• Feed fish, stand back and admire tank.
• Release cat. Tell her “tough noogies.”

(the following is the calico cat in front of the old fish tank–new alignment looks the same)

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