Butch vs the Black and White Kitty, the saga continues

[charliesmum]

Some of you might remember this post in which I described our cat Butch's run in with a black and white stray, and Charlie's reaction to it.

Well,since then Charlie has been talking about it quite a bit; I think it has been praying on his mind. He even told me this morning that he had a dream that the Black and White Kitty came into our house.

So, we were up in Charlie's room, I was coaxing him to get dressed, when we heard the yowl that is the feline equalivent to the starting bell, and I ran down stairs to rescue Butch from the porch once again. As I got outside I heard Charlie's fantic voice telling me to 'Get Butchie back inside!'. I do so, much more easily than usual, and I bring the cat upstairs so Charlie could see he is all right.

Butch's tail was still, as Charlie put it, 'poofy', and this upset the child, and suddenly he says, 'and my legs are all wobbly again because of that horrible sound!' and he starts to cry!

I felt so sad that it frightened him so, but I couldn't help but giggle a bit as I hugged him, both because he kept saying he wanted Butch's tail to stop being 'poofy' and because he used the word horrible. My poor baby.

Comments

[jandyle.livejournal.com]

Oh, Charlie! Poor guy. Cat fight/howling can indeed sound pretty scary.

[zoepaleologa.livejournal.com]

Aaah! Poor Charlie. My legs are all wobbly in sympathy!

[chaosdancer.livejournal.com]

I wonder if it would help if you could translate the yowls into people language...like tell Charlie that when the black-and-white kitty yowls, he's just bragging - "I'm the toughest cat in nine counties and when I make this noise, plants jump out of the ground and hide in the root cellar!" Something like that, but emphasize that it's just cat language for bragging. And that it's cat protocol for each cat to brag a while before they fight. There's rules and manners there. Butchie needs to defend his territory and the other cat wants some respect, which Butch doesn't want to give him.

I don't know - that might make things worse. Kieran seemed to feel better when I'd explain things like that to him, but other kids might wig out over it.

Kieran's of an age that he wants to know all kinds of disaster contingencies...what if the house fell down and our van didn't work and Daddy wasn't in Columbus so we couldn't go there, what would we do? I have to think of ways in which we'd be ok, like we'd take a greyhound bus to grandma's, since the greyhound stops right by our house. I hope I'm doing the right thing by telling him what we'd do, rather than by just shutting him down and saying none of it would ever happen.

[brownkitty.livejournal.com]

You're doing the right thing.

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

I did do that a bit. Charlie likes to have things explained, too. He likes to process things - he'll talk about it for days, as he's working through his feelings on the subject.

[crossbow1.livejournal.com]

Aw, poor Charlie! And that is a horrible sound.