As One Door Opens An Other Closes

Butter wouldn't melt in his mouth...or would it?

Never was a saying so true as this one is in my house at the moment. When the cat comes in the front door..the shout goes up "CLOSE the doors, the cat's in!" and panic stations!! I scrabble across the floor, slam the door shut..... not daring to look behind me to see if I'm one step ahead of Charlie. Tigger then eats his food in peace, has a wander and either goes out or back to his bed......or that's what's happens most of the time!

We also have a stair gate at the bottom of the stairs to keep Charlie down and more to the point...to remind him to stay away from the cat!!! The cat loathes him with a vengeance!! Tigger has "his own room" now, upstairs...he has since the dreaded dog arrived. His  hammock is slung on the radiator in my husbands little office..his own private boudoir away from the cares of the world (the cat's that is not DH's, lol)...and of course away from the dreaded Charlie.

But...a failure to close the door on time spells disaster...Charlie skids and slides down the hall looking for that lovely little fur ball to play with...he adores Tigger! Tigger at this point is normally minding his own business, tucked away in the corner under the stairs in the hall. Until ....he hears the skidding and scrapping on the tiled floor...and then...the fur and tail shoot up.....just before he leaps the stair banister and flies like a maniac up the staircase.

The only problem is that Charlie is almost as fast, well faster than me anyway!! He does a racing turn at the bottom of the stairs and takes the stair gate in one leap!!!! I Charlie you KNOW that's wrong!!! But in the heat of the moment he thinks his best friend is playing and he is not going to be left out..not him. When will he get the message that he is NOT the cat's best friend...more like an unwanted neighbour, no more like a hated neighbour!!

By this point I'm trying to open the gate and shouting at the top of my voice at Charlie.....why I don't know, it is a complete waste of time, he's gone deaf..again!!

When I do catch up with him he's normally standing back jumping around, ducking and diving at Tigger, tail wagging ten to the dozen. The cat however, is not amused and has his claws ready to swipe that nasty great dog on the nose if he comes within range. If I'm not fast enough then all I hear is the yelp as Tigger whacks Charlie sharply across the nose....and I mean sharply, claws and all. This normally makes Charlie back off...well, move one step back at least.

The whole episode ends with Charlie being firmly taken back downstairs by a stone faced me, to spend the next hour surrounded by stony silence. At this point he normally just goes to sleep until all the hue and cry has died down and to save his energy for the next playtime opportunity.

It's amazing, the stair gate works to keep him downstairs most of the time as he understands that he is not allowed past it. That is unless the cat runs up stairs and then the chase is on, he just can't control himself.

So you can imagine what it was like at the weekend when you added Lilly into the equation....total chaos!! I closed the door and Lilly opened it, Charlie escaped and the cat ran. Lilly was as bad as Charlie, she laughed and laughed to watch them and I think she thought that it was all for her benefit!! She, of course loves Charlie and Tigger and so she really believes it's their playtime and Grandma is a spoil sport not letting them run riot!!!

The good thing about it all was her laughter, it was just like music, so happy and sure that the world was a good place and that these to hooligan animals did really love each other...it was just a game....for her benefit of course...or so she thought. Oh, the innocence of little ones....if only it were true!!!

Before I go I have some grungy papers...not all dark and grungy, more like a Spring time grunge of lighter colours.

You can download them here

I'm of to make sure the doors are well and truly shut...or the cat is out!! So take care and have a great day/evening!!

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