Our family has had some amazing cats over the years, but I think Tanita takes pride of place. The name Tanita is an abbreviation of the Portuguese words taõ bonita – meaning ‘so pretty’. And she was a very pretty short haired tabby. However, as will be revealed she was, shall we say, rather eccentric. Whether she was slightly deranged I am not sure but she had two aversions – dogs and visitors at night. In this regard she was a wonderful ‘watch cat’.
As soon as darkness descended her defence mechanism would click in. If she heard someone approaching the house she would emit a ferocious growl, almost a snarl, an astonishingly loud noise from such a relatively small animal. She would approach the window or the door, from which she had first heard the sound, with hackles raised and measured step. In 99% of cases it was someone we knew. Even so she would approach the person very cautiously before returning to her resting place.
Dogs, on the other hand, she considered fair game, and it didn’t matter the size of the dog.
We had, at this time, a house with a driveway that dipped quite steeply down from the initial road access. Tanita’s favourite place was to position herself just below the point where the driveway started to dip. She positioned herself there because she could lie in the sun on the warm concrete, not in mid-summer of course, but at most times of the year and it was a good vantage place. It was also a perfect ambush position – just like anti-tank gunners position their weapons just over the brow of a rise in the terrain, waiting for an enemy tank.
Local dogs, painfully aware of her capabilities always gave our property a wide birth. It was the odd, unattached, strange dog that drew her ire.
I have seen Tanita raise her head, ears flattened, so she could just peep over the lip of the driveway, without being seen herself. She would wait until her target had just passed directly in front of her. She would change position, tense up and then launch herself at the unsuspecting animal and latch herself onto its hind quarters with all claws extended.
The poor creatures never knew what hit them. They would take off down the road, at full stretch, yelping all the while. A few minutes later Tanita would be seen back at her post, as if nothing had happened.
The absolute classic occasion was one my wife witnessed, while I was at work. She had asked a tradesman for a quote to do some repair work to our pergola. Tanita had been disturbed by the arrival of the tradesman’s van and had retreated to another favourite spot – on top of the pergola. Now this tradesman had a dog, a fox terrier type mongrel, smallish, but much bigger than Tanita.
As this man was walking around, inspecting the work to be done, his dog walked with him. My wife warned him that he should be careful as we had a cat. Without a glance, he gave an obviously standard response, “Its ok. My dog doesn’t chase cats.” Well, my wife had seen Tanita, on the pergola, staring down at this interloper, invading her carefully guarded premises, and sensed that some untoward event was about to unfold.
Before she could explain to the tradesman that it was actually his dog that was in danger, Tanita dropped with perfect precision, like an avenging angel, on to the back of the hapless hound. Quite a commotion ensued.
The dog was eventually found hiding under the tradesman’s van, from which place of refuge he refused to budge, until the engine was started and the vehicle began to move.
What capped off the whole incident, as far as my wife was concerned, was the tradesman’s outrage and offended sense of propriety, “Bloody stupid dog – being chased by a cat!!!”
He had been warned.
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