Old Softie

Our cat is cranky, crusty, hypersensitive, battle eager, easily aroused and often offended. Don't touch her, move her, pet her, or presume to move her food. Don't push her off her prime spot on the pillows of the bed or off her most comfortable daytime sleep spot, in warm spot in the sunshine on the computer chair... She is a territorial grouch who hunts, stalks and kills unmercifully.

We walk cautiously out to get the paper in the morning because it may be that again, she has left on the front porch, the hind quarters of whatever she has killed and consumed head first.

The disability of being declawed... that doesn't seem to matter. "It is mine!" She yowls, "Leave it alone! she spits.

She's an testy, nasty, aging feline.

Until she senses pain. You want to get on her soft side, be vulnerable. Anything that is innocent or injured she protects. Why is that? She brings me baby squirrels that have fallen out of the nest, poor little baby bunnies (that I suspect are the offspring of the half-body offering from the day before). She nudges them, nuzzles them and licks their little fuzzy heads, (or tastes them maybe).

But best of all, she succors humans hurting. Been in a fight, feelings hurt, crying, cussing, whining, all of your feel bads been stomped? She will be there, climbing all over you, sitting on your lap, nuzzling her face all over yours. She'll drape that warmed tummy over your pain and sit and succor.

This time it was a bloody nose...

Wish we all could be like that cat.