Catfight

We've been in the new house for about a week. It's going well. Jackson loves chasing squeaky balls in his big new yard. He's starting to pee and poop there without too much pleading on our parts. He seems to like Gus, the pit mix next door. And the sidewalks of Bellevue are filled with dog walkers, so he, and we, enjoy the walks.

A couple of nights ago, I took Jackson into the yard late at night, for a bedtime pee. Suddenly he stiffened up. I pointed my flashlight where he was looking - a cat! A big tabby, in our yard, frozen in place.

Jackson was maybe 50 feet from the cat. I was at the halfway point between them. I should have gone to Jackson and brought him back into the house. Instead, I rushed the cat, figuring it would flee. It did. But as soon as it started moving, Jackson took off like Wile E. Coyote out of a cannon.

There's a wooden wall around the trash cans in the back of our yard. The cat ran to it and jumped up on the cans. Jackson got there a half-second later. The cat hissed. Jackson lunged at it.

No harm, no foul. I figured the cat would jump down behind the trash cans, ending up safely outside the yard. Instead, it decided to run all the way across the yard to the front gate. Jackson flew after it. I called him, but it had no effect, like trying to reason with a Glenn Beck fan. The cat escaped under the gate a step ahead of Jackson.

I'm hoping the cat decides our yard is now off-limits. I figure that, given more tries, Jackson will only get better at this. And, down the line, when we get the second dog...oy. Not a good place to be a cat.