My Blog! My Blog!

esrblog called me at work today to tell me he couldn't take it anymore. Couldn't take watching Sugar slink around our house, looking for opportunities to dart upstairs to see us, acting for all the world like a member of the Resistance during World War II evading the Nazis. "I'm sorry, but we can't keep Princess," he said.

I was saddened too, but not surprised. My morale was flagging from having to track down my beloved older cat just to spend time with her, and my energy level was dropping from all the effort I spent trying to intervene. To say nothing of the fact that I had come to feel guilty about spending time in my comfy room with Princess, when Sugar was crying for me from the basement.

So I went to the friend I got Princess from and told her where we stood. She was unhappy too, because she wants Princess to have a good home but already has four cats and cannot take Princess on a long-term basis herself.

However, my friend knows more local cat owners than I do. She made phone calls. Turns out that a friend of one of the other attorneys in our office is interested in Princess. If she commits, we can take Princess to her Friday. If not, it will take us a bit longer to get her placed, and my friend suggested that her son could take Princess in the meantime.

It's a shame. esrblog and I will both miss Princess. But while she stays, we fear we will be missing Sugar even more. At least if this works out both cats will have a good home, and I will have gotten my peace of mind back.

I am being defeated by a cat. A young, seven-pound, gray-and-white cat.

It's Princess, of course. Princess's campaign to keep Sugar on the margins of our lives is succeeding once more. She haunts the main hallway in our house, because that allows her to successfully patrol the basement doorway as well as the main bathroom, Eric's office, and all of the bedrooms, and she can charge Sugar and chase her back to the basement when she pleases. (And since we don't sit in the hallway all day, we can't always catch and stop her.) She has even gone so far as to charge Sugar *on our bed* to drive her away.

Worst of all, Sugar is tolerating this treatment, with only occasional token hissing.

My guess is that there were confrontations between the two of them when I was in Texas, and thus was unable to soak down the bedrooms with calming cat pheromones every night. Whatever the reason, we won't be able to keep Princess if she continues to try to monopolize me (much less of this behavior goes on when I'm not home, according to Eric) this way.

I have had enough of feeling as though I need a license just to be with my beloved older cat. So now, when Princess chases Sugar away at night, I shut Princess in my room, which is where her food, water and litter boxes are, leaving the path to the master bedroom clear. At least that way Sugar is willing to come upstairs and up on our bed with us again. Though Sugar's stopped waiting for me in the front window (Princess now does that) and coming into the bathroom to wait for me while I shower (Princess is usually patrolling the hallway in front of the bathroom door at that time of the morning). This is a less than optimal solution, because when Princess gets hungry, around 6:30 a.m. (my normal feeding time for the cats during the work week), Princess starts meowing loudly and clawing the hallway carpet under the door.

I am also trying to discourage Princess from hanging out in the hallway (by picking her up and moving her, if necessary). That often results in her nipping me, which she doesn't do hard enough to draw blood but does do hard enough to hurt. My efforts to discourage her from biting by hissing at her (or squirting her when I have the spray bottle handy) are not being any more successful than my efforts to keep her from gratuitously harassing Sugar.

The worst part about it is that Princess isn't really trying to hurt Sugar; she just wants to be our primary cat, and force Sugar onto the margins of our home and our lives. I don't want to keep Princess from spending time with us, or deny her the affection she obviously wants. But the current situation is wearing us out and sapping *our* morale, not just Sugar's.

Any suggestions for other things I might try to alleviate this situation would be greatly appreciated.

Yesterday afternoon, I was in my room, answering e-mail, and Princess, my newly-adopted second cat, went up to her food dish (which is still located in my room) to munch some kibble.

Suddenly, I sneezed, rather loudly. Princess was so startled she jumped back a foot, tipping over her dish and sending kibble flying.

It was funny to watch, but I felt a bit sorry for her too. She's a bit jumpy, since Sugar has been coming in to steal her food.