Hedwig, five year-old exotic short hair, both tormentor and victim.
When Mick left for Alaska, I thought I might have the king-sized bed to myself. I'm not sure why I thought this. We've had Hedwig pestering us from the beginning. Let me change that us to me. When Mick is home she sleeps in the middle, but the word middle is misleading. Perhaps I should say in between. In between and stuck to my side. Or better yet, in Hedwig's estimation, that space between my sleeping legs that makes a little nest. This drives me insane. How can one little cat be such a pain in the butt?
She's only eight pounds, but she's got a stocky little body. Our cats are the feline equivilents of our bulldogs--stocky, dense (both in mass and mind), with pushed in faces. The cats don't snore, like the dogs do, but tend to sneeze a lot instead.
Hedwig's trick is to sneeze in our faces at daybreak because she wants to be fed. Mick and I both swear that this is a deliberately annoying ploy on her part to get us out of bed. It has nothing to do with a cold or allergy or any other kind of irritation. Sheis the irritation. When the sneezing doesn't work, she then resorts to putting her butt in our faces. So it's sneeze and spin, sneeze and spin, and then the most grating, discontent meow imaginable.
This cat is lucky to still be alive.
Her survival, as contrary as it may seem, is because she is also the family victim. In other words, she works on our sympathies when the others beat her up. In our four-legged family, she is on the bottom of the totem pole. Louise, the english bulldog, has mostly mellowed out and only has isolated moments of exuberant butt-headedness. Excuse me, but unless you've experienced it, there is no other way to accurately describe the behavior. Zeus, the french bulldog is consistently in-your-face and electrified. He has never got over this strange urge to make the cats play with him. They don't cooperate and he doesn't give up. Hedwig bears the brunt of it.
I never thought I'd see the day that these two would share a sunbeam and actually sleep together, but they do. Perhaps because they are the two most annoying creatures in the house, they've found common ground.
Hecate, our other exotic short hair, is much larger than Hedwig--by almost three pounds. Hecate is the true bully of the house and beats up Hedwig about two to three times a day,leaving masses of Hedwig hair littered around the house. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, Hedwig has a never-ending supply of hair. We are all rather bewildered by this bullying behavior. Though not from the same litter, they come from the same breeder and are only three weeks apart in age. No matter, unlike me, Hecate feels no hesitation, shows no sign of a conscience when annoyed by Hedwig. She just lets her have it with four paws of claws and her teeth. Hedwig has extraordinary fur, a beautiful dense coat that has to be felt to be believed and I swear it is the only thing that has saved her from serious injury.
Sam likes Hedwig and Hedwig doesn't seem to mind Sam so much. This is amazing considering that Sam almost accidentally drowned Hedwig in the hot tub a couple of years ago. Being autistic she didn't realize that cats do not love the water like she does. Luckily I checked on Sam in time to save Hedwig and rush her to the vet. Sam realized that she'd somehow messed up and has never tried it again (she was trying to hold Hedwig's head out of the water as the claws frantically swished through the air in a desperate panic). Sam still picks up and carries Hedwig a little. Hedwig doesn't really like it, but on the other hand, she doesn't put up a fight. Just that annoying meow. Sam pets Zeus, too, who is also an extremely annoying little beast.
But there is something about these near-death experiences that makes me realize just how much we do love and care for these animals. All their irritating behaviors fade into the background and we're left with a clearer picture of just how dear they are to us. They are, after all, our four-legged family.
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