Romeo and I are working out a morning routine. He has to stay in the house and out of trouble until we get back from our morning walk. When we open the door, he’s allowed to bolt out and head directly into his territorial defense mode. First, he heads under the house. Once he determines that it’s clear under there, he comes back out to leave his mark on certain important plants in front of the house, then follows the fence between our house and the nearest neighbor, a house that is now home to another family of cats. One of them, we just refer to him as “black cat,” has had a series of running skirmishes with Romeo, leading to a series of vet visits for the aforementioned cat. Once the fence is checked, Romeo proceeds across the back of the yard, inspecting all the plants and potential spots where a cat might stop to nap. At this point, of not before, I usually intervene and bring Romeo back inside, telling him all the while, “mission accomplished. No black cat around.”

One morning this week, I found Romeo sitting upright along the side of our house, staring intently at the bushes along the fence about 15 feet away. I couldn’t see anything over there, so I picked Romeo up and we went to investigate. Sure enough, there was black cat hunkered down behind a dense bunch of torch ginger. That’s progress. Romeo hadn’t immediately gone into attack mode at first sighting. Thank goodness for small steps in this round of cat diplomacy.

–> See all of today’s Friday Felines!