Fun fact: The blue-eyed Siamese cat is one of the oldest breeds, treasured members of the Thai royal family, seen in ancient manuscripts as far back as 1350.
Long ago I lived in Vancouver with a Doberman named Sasha and a Siamese cat named Paxton. Now, Paxton was a great cat, tolerant of people in general and kids in particular, but he hated dogs. All dogs, any dogs, he made no distinction. The day we moved into our new home I remember a black Lab wandering across our front yard and hearing, later, some high pitched, dog-type yips. Shortly after a very irate dog owner showed up claiming my cat had chased his dog down the street and swiped its snout, which now sported some (relatively) minor gashes. Pax loved sitting at the end of our driveway hissing at the dogs walking by on leash. He didn’t discriminate: large or small, pure bred or mutt, if you were canine he hated you.
The only dog he tolerated was our Doberman Sasha, probably because she had been there first. He completely ignored her attempts at friendship, but they coexisted more or less peacefully. At least Sasha never turned up with her nose in shreds.
As Sasha aged she started to have trouble walking and controlling her bladder. I took her to a specialist. We learned she had a tumour wrapped around her spine. There was no treatment that would work so we just brought her home to let nature take its course.
Sasha deteriorated gradually, to the point that she became unsteady and sometimes had to be helped to stand. But it was summertime in Vancouver, which allowed for Sasha to be outside most of the day, slowly making the rounds of the back yard or basking in the shade. It was a good summer.
Toward the end of July I had left Sasha in the back yard and gone with the kids for the weekly grocery shop. I noticed, coming back to the driveway, that there seemed to be an inordinate number of ravens sitting on top of the fence that surrounded the yard, hopping on and off and calling incessantly. I knew instantly they were after Sasha.
My heart pounding, I ran to the back yard, but something beige whizzed past and beat me to it. There was Sasha, unable to get up, surrounded by a mob of ravens edging ever closer. The ravens, sensing an easy target, had gathered to defeat her by numbers. But the real action was happening a few feet away. Paxton literally had one raven by the leg, another by a wing, and was going for a third. They were attacking him but he wasn’t giving up.
Paxton drove the ravens off and they retreated to the top of the fence. The cat remained crouched, every hair on end, spitting and yowling in a way that would have made a wolf think twice. I’d never heard anything like it. After a couple of minutes the ravens dispersed.
Amazingly, neither Sasha nor Pax was really injured. Given the number of black feathers littering the yard I’m not sure the same could be said for the ravens.
Summer passed into a long, uncharacteristically warm and dry fall. I never again let Sasha into the yard unless I was home. But she loved lying in the grass, watching the bees and smelling the earth, so I did let her enjoy long periods of time outside. And ever after that day, she had a guardian. No matter where he was, within a few minutes of Sasha going outside, Pax would appear, sitting on the fence above wherever she lay, sharing the last warm rays of the season. Sometimes they would sleep together, dog on the grass, cat on the fence above, but the cat was always there. The dog was never alone again.
As the fall grew colder, Sasha reached the point where life was more pain than joy, and I let her go.
Some may say Pax was being territorial, defending what he saw as his own. Some may say he just figured Sasha was the best bird bait the cat goddess ever made. But after I put Sasha down, that cat sat on her bed for three days and, other than to relieve himself, did not move. So judge as you will.
Paxton lived to tolerate another dog in our family, a German Shepherd named Kia. As with Sasha, Pax seemed to barely stand her and spent a lot of time glaring at her down his very long Siamese nose. But he didn’t fool me, not for one second!
~Trish Featherstone
