I did.

Our cat, former 20th cutest object in the universe, is an indoor cat. The apartments he ‘grew up’ in were not suitable for him visiting the outside world. Since we now live in a house, with a small yard, occasionally we let him wander outside for a bit to eat some grass and mostly just sniff everything in sight. This usually ends when he decides the yard is boring and he’d like to jump up and see what’s on the other side of that fence.

Since he now has a view of more ‘wild’ territory, occasionally he spys another animal, usually a cat or dog. His reaction to this is perfectly rational. For a cat. He screams.

MMmmmrraaaaarrrwwwwrrrraa!

Really loudly. Over and over again. It’s quite disturbing. If you get too close to him while he’s in this mood, he might just attack you. He took a chunk out of Anne the other day because she was just in the vicinity. His tail expands to the point where he looks like a racoon. I guess he figures if he can’t physically get to the animal to defend ‘his’ turf, he can at least yell at them loudly enough that they might go away. It doesn’t work.

So this morning there was a cat on the fence again and he started with his yelling. Walking around him carefully I went over to the back door and opened it. You wanna go out and fight, fine. Go ahead. I called him and he carefully slipped out the door, meowing as to say “Is this really OK??”.

I expected him to bolt for the fence and yell at the cat, but no. He completely forgot about the cat and just did laps around the yard, nervously sniffing everything that could be sniffed. The whole time the other cat was looking down on him from atop the fence, relaxed as could be.

I tried to show him the other cat, but it he just didn’t see him. Finally the other cat started moving around and Pixel spotted him once I held him up and pointed his head in the right direction. “Mwrrrrarrrrraraaarrraaaa!” But by this time the other cat was casually walking away and it was time for me to go to work. I shooshed the cat inside and he went without protest.

Stupid cat. Cute, but stupid.