One day I was sitting by the window sewing when all of a sudden there was a major "eruption" in the persimmon tree just outside the window. I just caught a glimpse of two animals racing up the tree, but because they were moving so fast I didn't know exactly what I had seen.
As I went outside to look, I discovered that our cat had chased a young kitten up the tree. Then the cat jumped from the tree over onto the roof of the room where I had been sewing, and she was sitting there, just waiting and daring that kitten to come down. The poor kitten was scared and it wasn't moving.
I went back to my sewing, but then I had a humorous thought..... our dog's very favorite pastime was chasing cats. (He never did catch one, but he really loved the "chase"). I called upstairs to our two children to tell them about the kitten in the tree. I thought they might get a few laughs watching the dog's reaction if he saw a cat but couldn't chase it. I suggested they hold him up to the window, which was eye level with where the kitten sat in the tree, just to see what he would do.
They held him up to look, and immediately he let out a long barrage of barking, and his legs were flailing the air wildly..... he was "running in mid-air". Well, this had the desired effect on the kids. It was a funny, funny moment, and I could hear much laughter up there.
But I hadn't pre-thought the effect on the poor kitten. Even though the dog was inside the house, he was only a distance of about six feet away from the kitten. When he started barking I saw the kitten, with the cat very close behind, come down the tree faster than it went up. I'm sure the kitten had not expected to encounter a dog while up in the tree. Now he was really running.
I never saw that kitten in our yard again, and I couldn't blame him if he didn't come back. If he did, probably the dog would have chased him away. The surprise in all this was that our "gentle" cat was now acting like a watch-dog. We had not seen her chasing other cats before. Afterward I felt really guilty for causing the poor kitten more fright than he already had experienced.
© 2006 Arlene Schwartzkopf