Often we are fortunate enough to experience some of the lighter aspects of living with cats and dogs. One such occasion involved three of our pets. This Cat Tale is about Big Bad Bill (who is now Sweet William at the age of 14).

Bill is orange tabby. We had another orange tabby named Tat. Tat was a fat cat. And while Bill is no spring chicken, Bill makes up for his largeness in height and muscle. Bill and Tat never liked each other and would constantly get into full outright brawls. Punkin(our dog who has since passed away) was the peace keeper and not in a peaceful way. Bill and Tat were at it...again...and Punkin got to them before we could. She had grabbed Bill and was shaking him, as any peace making diplomat would do! We managed to get Bill free and everyone corralled. Bill had a broken leg. So Bill went off for surgery and came back with a titanium plate inserted into his leg. Bill had to be on crate rest for a few weeks while his leg healed. We had Bill in one of the large wire dog crates. Without fail, Tat would walk by the crate, stick his front paws into the crate as far as he could, turn his head sideways with his eyes closed to get those extra few inches into the crate and try with all his might to reach Bill. Bill always calmly sat at the back of the crate looking in the opposite direction...ignoring his foe’s measly attempts to do him harm.

Finally, the day came when we would let Bill out of the crate. On this fated day, Tat was upstairs. Bill made his way up the stairs. Tat saw him and did the whole arch back, hair standing on end and the low menancing cat growl. Bill very calmly walked up to his nemesis and using only his titanium plated front leg, back handed Tat once across the face, turned around and walked off!!! Leaving Tat dazed and confused! We literally saw birds flying around Tat’s head while he shook his head wondering where the war tank came from that ran him over!

There was peace in the household for several months after this incident.