My Brother's Birthday

[queerbychoice]

My brother turned 26 today. My present for him (The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus) was delivered to me in the mail mere minutes before I had to wrap it and drive to my parents' house to give it to him. More interestingly, however, I had also been invited to bring Stardust along, so that my family members - and my parents' cat, Molly - could meet her. This is how Stardust's meeting with Molly proceeded:

Molly: *hisses, growls, arches back*
Stardust: *arches back slightly for a moment but is silent, then jumps happily forward and tries to make friends*
All the humans in the room: *gape in terror that Molly will eat tiny little Stardust alive*
Molly: *backs up, hissing and growling more*
Stardust: *advances, still trying to make friends*
Molly: *runs and hides under the furniture*
Stardust: *loses interest in Molly and spends the rest of the evening happily playing with all Molly's toys, while Molly glowers and growls from under the furniture but stays a safe distance away*

Yes, that's right: A full-grown cat spent the whole evening cowering in terror of my tiny little three-and-a-half-month-old kitten. This was all the more astonishing because Molly has always previously seemed to be utterly without fear of anything whatsoever, and my parents' extremely large dog (German shepherd mix) is always cowering in terror of Molly, not vice versa. And Stardust wasn't even trying to scare Molly. She never hissed or growled at all - in fact, I've never heard her hiss or growl ever; I'm not sure she even knows how to hiss or growl. The most I've ever seen her do is silently arch her back when she's afraid.

Anyway, Stardust had a great time playing with Molly's toys, particularly a round plastic thing with a ball trapped inside it that rolls around, with holes that cats can reach through to bat the ball around, although there's no way of ever getting the ball out. Stardust was fascinated with this for hours. My parents said that Molly had hardly played much with that toy at all even when she was a kitten, and that now that Molly's grown up, Molly hasn't even touched that toy at all for over a year. So my parents told me to take that toy home with me, since it'll get a lot more use with Stardust around.  Stardust is thrilled with her new toy. I think Stardust would have liked to take Molly home with her too, but it was obvious that Molly would not have liked that at all.

Comments

[rhekarid.livejournal.com]

A lot of animals can be iffy when it comes to babies, of any species. Incurring a mother's wrath is widely considered a bad idea in nature. Molly might have been threatened by the new cat, but also sensed that others were defensive of her, and instead chose to avoid contact entirely instead of risking danger.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

I think Molly could have avoided outright attacking Stardust without going so far as to actually back away and hide, though. Especially when we left them alone out of sight of us the whole time we were eating dinner - we knew they were being silent, because they weren't out of hearing range, but we would never have known if Molly had backed Stardust silently into a corner or vice versa. When we finished dinner and went to look for them, it turned out that Molly was still cowering from Stardust, and Stardust wasn't even trying to scare Molly. It was like if an adult human cowered in a corner in terror while a kindergartener played in the middle of the room - not even a kindergartener throwing a temper tantrum, but just a kindergartener playing quietly by itself. You'd think the adult would feel free to stop cowering and go about its normal adult business.

[beraht.livejournal.com]

That sounds pretty typical, actually. It's happened a lot in the past with animals I've had, both as the owner of the cat and the kitten. Almost invariably, the older one will back down after voicing its displeasure no matter how dominant it generally is.

And our new-ish cat, Ariel, has one of those balls and seems quite fond of it but only seems to play with it at 2:00 in the morning when I am either trying to sleep or watch my DVDs before bed. I think she does it intentionally.