When we first got Tut he was very nocturnal. He used to prowl around at 4:00 in the morning, yodeling at ghosts and the gremlins who steal your breath. We chalked it up to the 4 years he spent as a stray on the mean streets of Hamilton. The way we throw animals away like so much garbage, wrecks me. Anyway, eventually Tut got his internal clock organized and fell into the rhythm of the house, which meant sleeping at night, until the arrival of...............da, da, daaaaa............ INTRUDERS!
Yes there are 2 cats who regularly show up in our yard in the wee hours of the morning threatening to break into our home through the screen windows and kill us all in our sleep. What is a guard cat to do? Well I'll tell you what he does. He patrols the halls, stopping at all windows and howling his fury, ALL NIGHT LONG!
Which means the poor guy isn't getting much sleep, which would be fine, he could catch up during the day except, we have 2 new foster kittens. 2 very active foster kittens, who are what kittens are supposed to be, little shit disturbers. They want to play tag and no matter how much Tut and Minerva growl and smack them away, they keep coming back for more. They run around and over and through and up curtains............sigh,in great burst of sustained energy until they finally collapse into a pile of black and white purring exhaustion, and then they get up and do it all over again. A friend of mine aptly described them as magpies. They are all about the next shiny thing, unfortunately that is far too often Tut's tail.
So poor Tut has got it coming at him from all directions. He was always the cat I could count on to be great with the others we brought in here, Minerva is a bit of a princess, but Tut, although he looks all kinds of thugging, was always welcoming and sweet. And I think he still would be if it wasn't for the afore mentioned cats invading his territory. Please people, keep your cats indoors.
Anyway Tut will survive. He gets extra treats ( at 20 lbs not exactly what he needs) and strokes and chin scratches, and I have caught him on more that one occasion, with a kitten, albeit in a strangle hold, grooming and washing the little thing. Yes and sometimes biting their ears, while growling at them. But a cat has to maintain his position hasn't he?
Today's last word is from Rudyard Kipling~"Cat said, 'I am not a friend, and I am not a Servant. I am the Cat who walks by himself, and I wish to come into your Cave."
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