Dogs

I know that we cats are supposed to be traditional enemies of dogs and all that.

But really, I don't have strong feelings for or against them. My human suspects that it is because I have never had real encounters with dogs and so haven't gotten down to working myself up into a furball over them.

Before I came to live with her - from the time I was born till the time I was nearly a year old - I was living with a bachelor in a highrise on the edge of Marine Parade. I think it was Lagoon View or Laguna Park or something like that. I don't think dogs figured in my life then. Maybe I didn't even know what a dog was.

One day, the guy moved away - just like that. He took away all his things, but I guess I didn't figure in his future plans, whatever they may have been.

I wandered around the lobby of his floor for I-don't-know how long. There were three other flats on that floor, but the families there ignored me. Then a lady by the name of Auntie J came to "rescue" me. She lived in one of the neighbouring blocks and had cats of her own. So I went to live with her. I didn't know then that she wasn't intending to keep me.

Before I knew it, she had found someone from her office - she was a journalist - to take me in. Her colleague, also a journalist, was my human. So that's how I came to live in the East Coast with her and her husband.

They were busy people who worked long hours. They had no other pets - let alone dogs, who, I understand, are wheedling, needy critters who smell after four days without a bath.

My human kept me as an indoor cat, so her front door was shut all the time to stop me running away - not that this was bad, because I came to take their 900-sq-ft apartment as my kingdom, my world.

There used to be a dog living on the top [fourth] floor of the block. Bud, his name was, and he was a collie. His nail would click all the way downstairs from his home upstairs as he went on his daily walk, and then click all the way up after.

I would put my nose at the crack at the foot of my human's front door each time he passed by, so I know exactly how he smelled, even if I didn't know how he looked.

Then came The Day I Went Face To Face with him. The front door was open and my human was at the metal gate, saying "hi" to Bud and his owner. I stood at my human's feet and stared. And stared.

He was a massive blob of brown-and-white long fur and he had a really pointy face softened by the bangs that hung on either side of it. He stared back. He didn't bark and I didn't raise my hackles. Neither of us knew what to do. Maybe it was his first meeting with an un-dog.

Now that I live with Auntie S, I know Lucky and Godbless [that's them in the pictures in this post, Lucky is the black one] as the Animals Who Live Beyond The Door. They hang around Auntie S' living room and even watch TV. They are the welcome party for visitors. They bark when visitors show up, but it's more a welcome bark than a "Keep Away" one.

They seem to get along with Auntie S' cats, which holds out hope for cat-dog peace. That's why I think the movie The Truth About Cats And Dogs is unnecessarily pessimistic.

I really don't mind them, these un-cats.