2 Tomcats Stage A High Noon Affair In Our Yard.

Proof that our feral cat is a female after all?

At first I thought our Tigger wasn't happy with her food. All I heard was exaggerated miaowing outside the front door. Intrigued and secretly pleased that she would finally use social skills, I opened the door.

Well, no sign of Tigger but I did see two well known neighbourhood scoundrels, slinking through our front gate and making a racket of note. Upon my baby-toned enquiry of what in the world was going on, they stopped for a second to give me a glare but then moved on. They were spoiling for a fight. A fight of note by the sounds of it. Geez-a-lou, I had never heard anything like it.

Murphy's law, the phone rang as I was calling out to Bob:

" Quick, come and see this! "

. Then, I had to multi-task: Concentrating on the phone call while at the same time keeping a beady eye out for the duelists and appraising Bob of the situation with hand signals.

Just before I ended the call, I saw Bob running after the duo at high speed, chasing them with a bucket of water. Brave or stupid? These two tomcats were at each others throats and formed a perfect circle as they careened down the yard. The howling they gave out was just plain awful. The only thing left for me to do, was to run for the camera...

I managed to get in on the action at the finish but I had to hold back Bob and his tray of water. In a way it was rather comical because the two would do their standoff and when I did my cat-language impersonation, they both turned towards me and gave me a look that could only be interpreted as... ' what on earth? '.

This was my first Tomcat fight and I don't know what the usual outcome is. In this fight, the black & white coloured cat ( aptly named Chechov ) seemed to win. No blood shed, only egos bruised. Curiously, the whole time they were going for it, old Tigger was hiding in her hidey hole watching the action. Five minutes after the two suitors had cleared off, she ambled out of her domain and carried on eating her dinner. Typical female. Two men fighting over her and she acknowledges neither...

This week has been a week of cats for us. On Tuesday we went to cat-sit or rather feed a friends bevy of cats. All feral but much more friendly than our bunch. Yesterday, before we had our own in-house cat fight, we encountered another cat. It was outside our English class and this cat was so cute and cuddly. Isn't it the best when they press their body into the side of your leg? Rather a change!

Biggi

What a stand-off, what an earsplitting noise! Chechov is on the right.
Our old wagon wheel really makes it a High Noon Affair.

Bob trying to get them to stop!

Here is the nice cat from earlier in the afternoon. Bob's only carrying our chair, because all the chairs at the class are being seconded to the local theater!

How cute is this cat waiting for us to put her food out? Tuesday's affair.

One was a bit hesitant about us.