Actually, when it comes to dogs, the truest heir to Kitten Little's throne was the late great Yamamoto, She Who Was Measured With Seismographs. See, Malice is standing her ground here, but she's still scared. Nimitz, the Terror of the Underbrush, was far too canny to ever be cornered by a dog, which is much the path that Vice (Working title: Anxiety Incarnate) tends to go: he simply does not exist when there might be a bigger predator around.
But Kitten Little, First and Fiercest, was just too curmudgeonly to experience fear. She would square up with dogs without even the pretense of hesitation, because fear never occurred to her. She was Cat, poofy and terrible, and in her fluffy grey hands was the absolute knowledge that nothing that walked the earth, dog or no, could dare stand in her flouncy grumpy path.
Yamamoto, on the other hand, was one of the least Cat cats I've ever known. Biologically, Yamamoto had more in common with the Hindenburg than a housecat, and her primary activities were flopping belly-up in the middle of groups of conversing humans, lounging atop a heap of cat beds like the Princess and the Pea, and being carried about like a toddler. In the totem pole of household cats with Nim at the top, Yama was underground.
But. But. Yamamoto had within her a single shining instinct of primordial Cat.
See, to say this was Bear's first interaction with a cat is not strictly accurate. Bear has seen cats before. When Bear was a little over a year old, only about a hundred and twenty pounds, she came to visit. She wandered about the living room, sniffing things, while the humans chatted.
And at some point, Yamamoto, who had been sleeping behind the couch, woke up and strolled out. She didn't realize Bear was there until she'd already fully emerged into the open, and then all at once she realized that the Great Behemoth, Dog, had her in her sights. Bear, excited to come make new friends, began to bound forwards, slavering jaws wide.
And Yamamoto, who had occasionally been known to waddle at speed away from particularly frightening plastic bags, looked down at a hundred and twenty pounds of excited dog, with a mouth bigger than her head, and Squared The Fuck Up.
Yamamoto did not back down. Yamamoto, sixteen years old, twenty-odd pounds of blubber, did not even turn sideways to present her intimidating broadside to the charging beast. Yamamoto, without hesitation or an instant of fear, stanced up and began to charge at Bear.
Death is coming--death is coming. Yamamoto knew this and decided, in that moment, in the middle of the living room, to die with honor.
She let loose a wailing yowl and barreled towards the gleeful maw of Death.
That was the point where I tackled Bear.
It takes some doing, stopping a hundred and twenty pounds of charging dog, but it's safer than trying to pick up an angry cat.
This was mostly for Bear's own safety. I had no idea what Yama planned to do when she impacted, but Bear at that age had NO idea how big she was, and had never met an animal that didn't like her (or was, at least, afraid of her.) Yamamoto was swooped up before she could get any further, and death was staved off for another day.
But for a brief, shining moment, Yamamoto was the most Cat cat in the house, and the true heir to Kitten Little.
snowghoul
stormborns
tangentwithtanner
gummygunk
izzy806
theartofmadeline
pixelskylines
kaledo-art
discoholicmusic
