The Love/Hate Relationship of Skippy and Kitty: Skippy Loves - Kitty Hates

When my grandmother passed away four years ago my wife and I inherited her 5-year-old cat: a beautiful calico with the temperament of a reincarnated Cleopatra. Her name is Kitty and it did not take her very long at all to decide that she hated Jack Russell terriers. This might be a generalization on my part since she has not met any others. It could very well be that she only hates ours.What makes this situation all the more humourous is that Skippy is either completely unaware of this fact as if she could not comprehend the possibility that another creature, this new addition to the family, could dislike her, or she simply forgets that the cat hates her and therefore, approaches each new day assuming that they are best friends only to receive a paw across the face or become the object of vehement hissing reminding her that their relationship is one of distant toleration.

When the cat came, Skippy tried to make friends as best she knew how, having never been properly socialized with other animals. These repeated attempts employed the same tactic of frantically running up to Kitty's face and barking in it, then running away, then back again as if to scream, "I'm here! I'm here! We're playing now, right? Yes, we must be playing! Isn't life great!"

The cat responded as many of us would: "Dude, you're in my personal space and you have really bad breath. What, you're back again? I just told you that you're in my space! How old are you? Stop saying the same thing over and over again! I told you to get out of my face! If you do that again I'm going to slap you. And you're doing it again. Here-!" (slap) "And no, life isn't great because the old lady who fed me tuna and cream, is gone."

But the next day would bring with it a new sense of optimism for Skippy, or she simply had no recollection of their previous encounters and was therefore not able to learn from them. Kitty, though she clearly had no time for Skippy, soon caught on that something was amiss: there was definitely something not quite right with this dog and she was cunning enough to learn how to exploit it for her own sadistic enjoyment.

This is good general introduction to their relationship. I'll leave it here and continue with several episodes, labled with "Skippy" and "Kitty", and where we'll ask ourselves continually, "what's up with this Jack Russell?"

Is it me or does Skippy look slightly ill at ease?