I’m Genuinely Concerned for My Cat

We live in a delicate balance in our home, the dance between life and death ever turning. This fear is a constant companion for our days and nights, ever in the back of our minds like an unwanted house guest who has come to dwell within the medulla oblongata. It will catch us unawares if we drowse, vibrating through our spines at lightning speed as we spring into action to prevent a cataclysm.

See, we have both a cat and a dog, living together under one roof.

They are not friends.

Did I mention the dog is a bloodthirsty pit bull?

I mean, hey, sweetest dog alive, really – but unpredictable at best when it comes to cats. He was not friends with Mimi’s mama, Roxy, nor has he been friends with any of the neighborhood feline population (or opossum community), if you catch my drift.

Thus, I constantly live in a Looney Tunes cartoon, except with a dog-and-cat equivalent of Tweety and Sylvester. Or the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, except with more blood and fewer falling pianos.

Rusty has yet to attack Mimi, but he has attacked other animals. So yes, there has been blood. He’s a hunter, it’s what he was bred to do, and I don’t fault him for it.

Now please don’t hurt me, Rusty.

There is always the threat of attack looming in the house, though. Mimi will hiss at Russ if he gets too close (I mean, she was witness to some heavy fights between her mom and the dog, so she bears her own scars of the emotional variety), and at this point in the confrontation either Mike or I will leap in and intervene just so Rusty’s crazy isn’t activated.

We keep them separated as much as possible to avoid these incidents, but as of late…Mimi has been, well, curious. Instead of giving him a wide berth as she passes by on her way to the food dish, she’ll walk right beside him, sniff his tail, then leap away like a fluffy gazelle. As she hops her way up the coffee table to her perch on the back of the couch, she’ll poke her head down by his spot at our feet, as if to say, “Hey, whatchya doing?”

Basically, she’s tormenting us with adorablosity. We know that at any moment, his head will snap up and, like a transformer or other alien being, a green laser-like light will glow from his eyes and his jaws will turn into harbingers of death.

I don’t want to ever have to witness this. If Mimi dies, we all die. I will bring it. The death.

We aren’t sure exactly what to do about her new-found boldness. Neither of us are adept at giving Mimi orders, so we can’t very well explain the precariousness of her situation in a manner imparting the rationality of avoiding the damn dog. Neither can we simply plead with Rusty to shut off the mechanism in his brain that tells him chase after small critters, chase after small critters, now CRUSH small critters with my fangs.

We also can’t keep one of them outside all the time. That’s just cruel. Plus fleas. Also, Rusty barks if you leave him outside. Anyway, what’s the point of having pets if you can’t snuggle them and inhale deeply the scent of freshly washed kitten fur?

Rusty does have a muzzle, but that’s also mean (I can’t help but think of Lady and the Tramp when Lady has to wear the muzzle after getting unjustly blamed for attacking the baby). We only use the muzzle when he’s hanging out with other dogs and there’s a possibility he might go apeshit. It’s called responsible parenting, PETA.

I don’t want to go into the whole “well, why did you get two animals who couldn’t live together?” thing because I am aware that the whole “cat and dog living together” thing was a horrible idea and I will never do it again, okay? Anyway, don’t judge me. For now, we’re just forestalling tragedy, one day at a time. It’s like a frickin’ war zone.

So that’s where we are. Is there a way to force them to love each other? Should we make them hug it out? Or simply carry around a beat-down stick just in case?

If anyone wants a friendly pit bull for their children for Christmas email me privately and I’ll see what I can do. If it’s for the children, surely Mike won’t object? FOR THE CHILDREN, MIKE.