Hello my human friends. Sorry to have been a bit quiet on this blog recently. It’s been an exhausting time, and I’ve needed more naps than usual. Mum says I need to meow another post for her to translate now, or people will begin to lose interest in me and Maddie – which I find quite hard to believe. Surely everyone’s fascinated by us cats!
Well, Maddie and I are continuing to be the intrepid explorers of our road. We have both been caught out a couple of times now by Mum or Dad on one of our sneaky trips Out The Front. Out The Front has been forbidden for us since we were adopted and allowed into The Great Outdoors. Apparently Mum and Dad have had some tragic experiences with previous cats which makes them nervous about us going Out The Front. I can understand this, and feel a bit sorry for them, being so anxious about us, but we needed to find out what the danger is, didn’t we? And eventually we found ways round the difficulty of a high gate on one side and high fences on the other side. We simply get through one of the neighbouring gardens.
As it happens, Out The Front doesn’t look that appealing to me. I was pretty spooked by one of the noisy big things they call Cars going past – there’s no way I’m going near one of those. Little Maddie would be completely terrified if she encountered one. I’ve warned her to stay away. And I suppose it’s a bit unfair on Mum and Dad, but it’s quite funny to see the startled expression on their faces when I stroll up to the front door. They don’t seem to understand how I’ve got there. I don’t think they’re terribly bright, but then, humans are an inferior species.
But that’s not all I’ve discovered on my recent explorations. In one of our neighbour’s gardens recently, I came face-to-face with what I thought at first was a rather large and stocky-looking cat. I was a bit gutted, as I’d taken over this particular garden as part of my territory, and it now seemed it belonged to someone else.
‘Hello’, I meowed, but the strange cat didn’t seem to understand. Did he speak a different dialect of Cat? He just stood there, staring at me. Then, suddenly, instead of meowing, he woofed! Having been Indoor Cats for the first six years of our lives, Maddie and I have never met dogs before, but we’ve heard all about them. They’re well-known in Cat Legend for being fierce, scary, and fond of chasing us away. But I’ve heard Mum and Dad say they used to have dogs as well as cats, and that they were all friends together and actually slept in the same bed.
Anyway this particular dog next door didn’t seem too fussed about me being there, although he didn’t have a lot to say either. So after a few moments of staring at each other, I just walked away.
Later, when I was back indoors, a strange human came to our door, and I heard Mum talking to him. It seemed he was the human who lived in the next-door house, and he had found my collar lying in his garden. Oops! It must have come off when I caught it on that tree I was attempting to climb. Mum had already complained about having to get me a new one. Then I heard him say:
‘Your cat is very brave! He stood up to my dog. Didn’t seem fazed by him at all!’
Brave? Well, I felt pretty pleased to hear him say that, but he obviously doesn’t realise his dog is a big wuss who doesn’t chase cats like he’s supposed to! Dogs? I don’t know what all the fuss is about. I think I’ll pop over to his garden again and see if the dog and I can be friends. The language barrier is a bit of a problem, though. That woofing thing they do seems fairly meaningless.
As I say, this has all been quite exhausting. So much so, that Maddie and I have both finally given in and tried out the soft little beds Mum and Dad bought us at the time we were adopted. We never liked the look of them and refused to go in them, even when Mum sprayed them with catnip. We preferred a nice blanket on one of the sofas. But Maddie decided to try one of the beds out recently, and I had to say, it looked pretty comfortable so I had a go as well. I’m a bit too big for them, unfortunately, but I’ve managed to get myself half in and half out, and have had some fairly reasonable naps in one of them.
So it just goes to show: you’re never too old for new experiences.
Bye for now, humans. I’ve got some sleep to catch up on.