The Little Pack

The pack dynamic is interesting to observe. Jackson hates Cheyenne, and Baby Titten and sometimes even Archie. This has everything to do with his possessiveness and insecurity with me. Except that you will find him occasionally bathing Baby Titten. He loves IO and Dixie and will put up with almost anything from either one of them. Cheyenne lives to provoke, well, anyone, but particularly Jackson and Baby Titten. Her and Dixie are like peas in a pod but they bicker like sisters. More and more Cheyenne is getting the nerve up to challenge IO’s authority. Dixie bosses Jackson and Archie around. She mostly leaves Baby Titten alone, as Baby Titten will chase her down, and I think she is actually slightly afraid of her. Dixie tangled with IO exactly once. Archie and Baby Titten have a complicated relationship. They fight often, and yet they snuggle together often.  During times of tension—if Cheyenne is acting too big for her britches and IO begins to warn her, Jackson and Dixie will quickly begin to stand guard, at the ready to follow IO’s orders. Further, if any single one of them perceives danger, it only takes one to lead the charge, and they all come running. Cheyenne need only make a peep and Jackson is there in a heartbeat, ready to defend her, us, and the rest of the pack if necessary.  As much as they all argue and squabble with each other, at the end of the day, they are a pack and will protect each other at all costs. One time, Jack got into a scuffle with a dog next door that was literally about 3 times his size. That dog pinned him like nothing. Within moments the other 3—IO, Cheyenne and Dixie—were at his side, determined to protect him and willing to take on this horse of the dog. Even more telling, Cheyenne loves this other dog and has played with him on many occasions. But her pack is her pack and she was there for her Jack. It was a normal dog scuffle, nothing more than a tiff really, and the melee was soon broken up. But the incident shows just how deeply pack bonds go and how superficial their spats really are. It really is a bit like watching a big family interact. This living breathing organic web of love we call our little pack.

After accumulating several boxes, one day I decided it was time to recycle them. I carried several broken down boxes out to the truck, and had a very difficult time holding onto to them. I was completely perplexed as I continued to practically drop the boxes and had to keep readjusting them. When I got to the truck I started to put the boxes in the bed when suddenly to my surprise a little 5 or 6 pound orange fluffball fell to the ground. And this perfectly illustrates the difference between Archie and Baby Titten. If this had happened with her, she would have been gone in an instant. And if I had the good fortune to catch her, I would have had serious puncture wounds. Archie, on the other hand,  just laid there.  At the time, I admired my superfast reflex to scoop him up, however, in retrospect, in all likelihood, he probably would have just laid there until I helped him. I held him close to my chest, my heart ready to pound out of it as what happened slowly sank in and I realized just how close I came to accidentally throwing him in the dumpster and losing him forever.

I realized afterwards he had been playing his little games, discovered the boxes and thought this was a perfect place to play.

Yesterday I vacuumed underneath my dresser for the first time in obviously too long and was startled to discover a treasure trove of the animal’s most prized possessions:

• 5 tennis balls
• 2 mouse toys
• 1 mini tennis ball
• 1 hanger
• 3 bottle caps
• 1 sock
• 2 furry puff balls (originally the feet of some toy)
• 4 bones

I have written before about how the animals learn from each other. This is not limited to the dogs, the cats do it too, particularly Baby Titten. She is a smart cookie and understands a lot of what goes on around her. Archie loves to sprawl all over the place, on his back, all fours in the air. Baby Titten sleeps in traditional cat positions—in a ball, or on her stomach with all her feet tucked underneath her body. Soon after adopting Archie, we would come into a room and see her awkwardly laying on her back, front legs stiffly in the air, eyes big as silver dollars, still as can be and obviously uncomfortable, but determined to copy Archie,  and thereby proving the term, copy cat.

Both of our cats are indoor cats. We live too close to busy roads to even consider letting our cats be outdoor cats. There is no question that indoor cats live longer, healthier lives than outside cats. Besides, we always say that Archie is too dumb to be an outdoor cat. He would probably nap in the middle of the road, thinking the warm pavement was the perfect place for a snooze. Once in awhile, we will take Archie outside and hold him in our arms. We could never do this with Baby Titten as she hates to be held and we would be scratched to heck. Lately, we have taken him out on the deck and sat him in our laps, where he is fairly content to hang out. Unfortunately, now every time we sit on the deck, he waits at the slider and cries his head off while desperately digging at the door the entire time we are within his sight. This is better now that it has been warmer and we have had the air on, only because we can’t hear him cry. Because we don’t always respond, and because he has decided he loves the fresh air, he has taken to “escaping.” Today, while I was letting the dogs inside, he made a dash for it (and by dash, I really mean a slow stroll). Dixie was on the porch and went after him and pinned him to the porch, holding him there until I could pick him up, as though she knew he wasn’t supposed to be outside. Once inside where she continued to punish him by trying to smash him to the floor and lecturing him by making this strange grumbling complaining sound. For the record, I did not condone the smashing (we never condone smashing of the cats), although she was successful once. She definitely has a mind of her own.