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Cat Meets Dog

By Eulalia Benejam Cobb

If my own life changed drastically when Truffle came to us, so did the all-too placid existence of the cat Telemann. After my Cavalier, Bisou, left us, Telemann settled into a comfortable feline middle age, which meant, aside from the bedtime dramas, sleeping and eating, eating and sleeping. No more would he play the “Serengeti game,” ambushing Bisou from under the bed skirt and clasping his arms around her neck in imitation of a lion hunting a wildebeest. But now that there is a dog in the house, life is interesting again.

The first thing Telemann did when he saw Truffle was give a disgusted hiss, which Truffle ignored. This surprised me, since when I saw them together Telemann seemed, next to Truffle’s tininess, to swell to the size of a saber-toothed tiger. The second thing that Telemann did was try to steal Truffle’s food. This is a strong-smelling pâté that Telemann finds infinitely preferable to his own diet of raw turkey and rabbit. One day I found him on the kitchen counter, stretched to about twice his usual length, eating out of Truffle’s dish in the overhanging cabinet, the door to which he had managed to open. Since Truffle, having no teeth, doesn’t exactly wolf down his food, I have to stand guard while he eats, hissing loudly whenever the cat approaches.

But do they get along? Truffle, with good reason given his size, is less tolerant of Telemann’s games than Bisou was, and his snarl, although toothless, is enough to send the cat packing. Their altercations last about one second. Otherwise they follow each other around the house, and if I am petting one, the other is never far away.

In the millions of cat videos and cat stories that I’ve consumed since the dawn of the internet, I haven’t come across any mention of feline jealousy, yet all the signs are that Telemann is, if not jealous, at least feeling somewhat displaced in my affections by the new dog. It would be weird if he didn’t feel this way. After four months of being the only animal in the house, and doing a splendid job of comforting me for the loss of Bisou, he has to watch me not just feeding this tiny hairball of a newcomer a food that tastes like manna from heaven, but endlessly bathing, medicating, brushing, and otherwise propitiating him. Nobody praises Telemann for using his litterbox, yet I burst into hymns of praise and thanksgiving whenever Truffle pees on the pee pad. How fair is that? All of which explains why I’m tolerating, at enormous risk to the quality of my prose, Telemann balancing on my lap while I write this.

At bedtime, however, everything changes. After Truffle curls up in his cozy crate next to the bed, and my teeth are brushed, and another day of this weird and scary winter is done, I get into bed Kindle in hand, ready to soothe myself with some novel about life in the damp, tweedy, tea-soaked England of the 1930s. That is Telemann’s cue to enter the bedroom, and he does it so masterfully—tail erect, pupils wide, taking his time—that I can almost hear trumpets heralding his arrival. This is followed by the search for the right spot to recline on my upper chest while I struggle to position the Kindle so I can keep reading. Then he bumps my nose with his cranium and starts with the eye-contact thing. (he thinks that if he gazes into my eyes long enough he will somehow bend me to his will, or take over my soul.) Eventually I give up on the Kindle and turn out the light.

Offended, Telemann moves off, but we do after some negotiations finally both go to sleep. This lasts until sometime before dawn, when he feels the need to remind me of his presence in my life, burrows purring under the covers, licks my nose, and paws me until he gets one arm across my neck. Some mornings I find slight scratch  marks on my cheeks.

Truffle may occupy my day, but for now the night belongs to Telemann.

14 Responses

  1. Sharing your affection with a newcomer is hard.

    I hope it switches to, “Hey! I have a new fun playmate!” soon – and they become friends.

    It’s hard to be evenhanded with your little charges, as it is with children, when they have differents needs and temperaments, but I’m sure you’ll manage.

  2. So look forward to following the progress of their story! BTW, three times while I was reading this a box popped up saying in bright red letters “Verification expired. Check the checkbox again (I’m not a robot).” Didn’t keep me from reading, but was new and puzzling. Given what’s going on in the world, these are not times when you want your verification to expire.

  3. Ditto David’s comment about “Verification expired.”. I ignored and did a bypass, but it’s new and different.
    However, to the point, this is just delightful to read…your prose is not in any way compromised by Telemann’s insistence on being close to you. Looking forward to more chapters! Thanks for sharing this totally absorbing and escapist narrative. So welcome this week in particular!

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