That lightbulb moment

Its funny how those light bulb moments happen, with me like I wrote about in the last blog it was a song. In the case of Cheyenne, it was yesterday evening when he was left dangling off a lot of boxes on one of his grand escape plans.

For those who can remember the cartoon pinky and brain, well Cheyenne is like a cross of those two characters. He is constantly on a mission to create mischief and mayhem, unfortunately due to the many lives he used up he isn't the strongest of cats and tonight he finally realised some of his best laid plans are not physically possible on 3 and a bit paws. But instead of learning from his experience, which actually added some humour to the night for me, he got angry with the person who tried to help him. This is no lion with a thorn in his paw story, he growled and growled till he alerted two sleeping dogs who would never have known he was in the room . Actually going by the snoring previously I would say these dogs were too busy in a land of slumber containing no cats ands plenty of pedigree chum. But no Cheyenne got so angry with himself and me for helping out of his moment of trouble he woke anyone in a 10 metre radius. That made the situation worse not because the dogs don't get on with him but because rocky tries to help. This ends up in an elephant and mouse situation with rocky being so big in personality as well as very bouncy, this can panic an upset cat. especially as rocky wants to check nothing is physically wrong with his cats he starts sniffing them for injury.Anyway after the chaos settled and Cheyenne was firmly placed somewhere where he was no danger to himself and others I went to bed.  A few hours later I was awoken again by an over excited dog ( and I wonder why I am not acquainted with much sleep?) Out of instinct I called Cheyenne away from the same escape route, only to find out it wasn't Cheyenne, but Phoenix trying out Cheyenne's failed plan. So far Cheyenne hasn't been near that route and has stuck firmly to using doors.

It is funny how similar certain animals can portray elements of human characteristics though. Both Cheyenne and Apache have been suffers of  trauma that has in cat terms left them disabled. One has a third of a tail which has a major affect on a cats balance and the other has restricted strength in one leg which limits jumping ability. But do either of them complain or moan, nope apart from the occasional need for pain killer in the later they get on and adjust. In both these cases it has actually made the two more lovely and family orientated. On the other hand when I was a kid we inherited a neighbours cat when she died, this cat had similar injuries and no tail, she also had the reputation of being the most evil creature walking the area. Snowball her name was, and she had already turned almost feral when I took her on. It took weeks of coaxing and gentle handling to get her to trust me enough to bring her into the house. Time and patience went a long way and she returned to near domesticated, but there was always that element of un trust and she was unpredictable in her behave to others, attempting to kill my violin teacher being one of her classic moments. She would wag her stump of a tail in anger as if the tail was still there. Most people would have given up on her and at her age had her put down she was 16 when I got her. But that cat repaid us all in one day, she actually saved the house from burning to the ground, its a long story but needless to say that was the light bulb moment for the rest of the house hold as to the value of this pet. But in that one unselfish act snowball repaid all the love and patience we had poured on her.

Animals aren't human and I don't even pretend they are, they can turn on you in and instant if you betray them, but some times they show us up for their drive to live is incredible and their light bulb moments are a lesson to us all.