Angry Cats and Spastic Dogs

If a dog jumps in your lap, it is because he is fond of you; but if a cat does the same thing, it is because your lap is warmer.
*Alfred North Whitehead*

No animal should ever jump up on the dining-room furniture unless absolutely certain that he can hold his own in the conversation.
*Fran Lebowitz *

I think I live in some sort of domestic zoo. Or at least that is how I felt today. For the first time in a while I spent most of my day at home, alone. Now usually this is no big deal and the only interuption is a few dog barks and maybe I’ll have to feed our two golden retrievers and two cats.

These four animals have lived together for seven years with little incident. They have made a treaty so that no one gets hurt, and while Buck tends to try and eat Sadies doggy chow, she usually just steps aside and waits for her owners to smack him on the nose and let her get back to eating. Normally this is the only problem.

Enter Abigail Grace aka Gracie or monk monk (no, I don’t know why that’s her nick-name). Gracie is a chihuahua terrier mix and one of the craziest looking dogs I’ve ever seen. She’s small. She’s happy. She’s the most adorable thing to ever hit this house.

On with the pet jealousy!

Judy the cat absolutely hates this dog! She refuses to come downstairs and instead jumps around me all day trying to get attention and reinstate her position as most awesomest animal in the house.

Boots the cat simply growls at Gracie; she is too fat and lazy to actually care.

Sadie, the drama queen of the house, is most annoyed and has thus employeed every “sad puppy dog” face she can muster, but to no avail as we all know her dramatic ways of getting attention.

Buck, the big honkin’ man of the house, sits in my parents room and only comes out to eat or to be let outside.

Now, normally feeding these animals is simple: fill dog/cat bowls with some pet food and a little tuna. Now it is complicated. You see Gracie doesn’t eat pet food. So now it’s half a can of tuna which is hand fed to her because the cats will try to attack her if you leave all the tuna in a bowl, even though they all have their own half a can of tuna in a bowl to enjoy. So juggling the cat jealousy of the small dog who must be hand feed along with the prissy dog who won’t eat unless you are standing next to the food bowl because she has to have attention, as well as the big dog who will try to eat everyone’s food if he’s not watched makes me feel like I live in a zoo.