Animal Relations Greatly Improve

For the past year in our house, Cooper the Dog has basically not allowed the cats to live their normal lives. In the pre-dog days they could lounge all over the house, but since Cooper arrived they have been “forced” to spend most of their days upstairs while we have the stairs blocked with a baby gate to keep Cooper from going upstairs.

Last week I noticed that Ginger the Cat had started spending more time downstairs – specifically seeking out my lap for long naps. At first Cooper was a bit disconcerted and poked her several times with his nose, as if baiting her to run away from him so he could give chase. But she wasn’t having it anymore. Then this weekend I was lounging on the loveseat with Cooper and Stinky the Cat came over to me. That in itself was a shocker – she and Denis are pretty sympatico and I’m just in the way most times. But I guess I looked really comfortable because she jumped up and settled neatly between me and Cooper. I was really taken aback – Stinky makes no bones about not liking Cooper, and here she is sleeping side by side with him.

I think Ginger saw “Network”, then had a meeting with The Cats and said, “So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it and stick your head out and yell, ‘I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!'”, because The Cats are certainly in revolt.

This past Friday we took down the gate from the stairs – Cooper has matured enough to handle going all over the house without me worrying about him chewing shoes or peeing inappropriately (although he DID chew up one of Denis’ shoes, but hey – as long as they aren’t MY shoes, c’est la vie). Freddie the Cat seemed a bit miffed, but still came down and hung out on the main floor of the house.

I’m in awe at the state of animal relations – I was starting to think this day would never come.