I had hoped that Norman Cat (13 going on 14) and Percy (Working Cocker, 3) would one day be friends.

I had assumed any issues they had would probably be caused by Percy.

Three years later I totally concede that I was wrong on both counts.

Percy is desperate to be friends with Norman.  He approaches very, very slowly, snoofing his way, and stops a fair distance for Norman to get used to his presence.  If I could have taught him how to approach without causing stress, this would be what I’d have done.  Norman will then do one of his many ‘I-may-be-old-but-I-still-have-the-ninja-moves’  on him, jumping and hissing towards him and scratching whatever he can get his claws into.

Percy now tends to go to his den for safety if they cross paths downstairs.

But now, things have escalated.  Norman rarely gets the chance to inflict bodily harm now,  so instead, he’s developed some mental games.  They started last week and it took us a while to work out quite what was happening.  It tuned out what was happening was this:

Norman has his space on the landing – his bed(s), scratching post and his toys:

(He has more toys, but they are liberally scattered under beds upstairs where he has played hunt with them.  He may be 13, but apparently he’s of the ‘age is just a number’ camp.)

So Norman’s mind games?  He’s taken to pushing his toys through the gaps in the stair rails and…

…into Percys den below.

We’re not sure if the goal is to hit Percy with them, scare him or if it could be an olive branch and an offer to play.  We strongly suspect it’s not the latter as frankly, Norms is the grumpiest bugger that was ever covered in fur, and the only Human he doesn’t attack is me.  And I suspect that is only because if he did he would be banned from sleeping on my right shoulder. Every night.

So the moral of this story is don’t ever assume it’s the bigger creature that has the upper hand.  And never trust the Norman. 🙂