Ivan the Cat and the Dreadful Doberman

Ivan was king of the neighborhood. An accomplished hunter, he was feared by every bird and small animal near our house. No mouse ever set up shop in our kitchen on Ivan's watch. Though we fed him, his steady diet of little pests kept his dry food intake to a minimum. It wasn't that he was a big, strong, kitty... Ivan was only about a foot long. There were squirrels in our area who were as big as the cat, but he took them down anyway.

The diminutive seal point Siamese had also dominated the other area cats, including those who were much larger than he was. Even most of the neighborhood's dogs, having felt the sting of his claws and the bite of his teeth, feared the tiny terror. More than once our household received phone calls from upset owners of wanting to know who was going to pay their dog's vet bills. Eventually, the dogs learned to avoid Ivan. At least one owner told us that when our cat walked across her fence, her little pug would shoot in through his doggy door like a sloppy, wet bullet. A friend told me her puppy had scratched up her back door trying to get in because of him. A lot of neighbors couldn't even walk their dogs on the sidewalk outside our yard, even though it was separated by a hill and a tall hedge. So feared was our Siamese Ninja Attack Cat that most pups would rather cross the street.

This tale is not about one of those dogs.

Tasha was a full grown Doberman Pincher. She wasn't very friendly, but that was probably because the kids she lived with didn't understand how to play with her. Instead of playing with her like she was a dog, they played with her like she was another kid, including her in their pirate and war games. To the kids, it was a game. To the dog, it was a torment, and she became very grouchy.
Ivan was smart enough to not chase this dog. Unlike many of the neighborhood's dogs, who merely sought to play, Tasha was constantly on guard. A direct approach was sure to result in a painful bite. Therefore, a weakness must be found and exploited if Ivan the Neighborhood Terror was going to beat her.

That weakness turned out to be fairly simple; the dog was on a chain. The chain had a finite length. All the cat had to do was find a point just beyond the chained dog's reach, and he could sit in all of his mighty superiority, driving Tasha insane while remaining perfectly safe.

Needless to say, Tasha was not the only individual who was bothered by this tactic. Imagine trying to take an afternoon nap, and just as you are about to nod off, you hear a loud, booming,
"BROW-WROW-WROW-WROW-WROW! BROW-WROW-WROW!"

Eventually, the culprit was identified, and that lead to more phone calls. Sure... it's the dog who is noisy, but let's blame the cat... or at least, that's what one neighbor did.
It didn't help that other cats soon joined in the game. After that, I guess it was only a matter of time before it happened. A dog can only take so much.

It was a warm day in autumn. Being too young to go to school, I was at home, playing in the back yard. I heard Tasha barking and glanced over to see my cat sitting in his favorite teasing spot, a few inches beyond the reach allowed by the dog's chain. No matter how many times I called him, he refused to give up the game, but instead sat calmly watching the doberman's canine meltdown. At the time, I thought Ivan was just being willful, but looking back, I doubt he could hear me over Tasha's tantrum. She growled and barked, threatened and whined, pranced and dug, jumped and shook, all to no avail, as she could not close that last couple of inches in front of the cat. Every so often, as the dog fell from a particularly high jump, Ivan would be so mean as to flick his tail into her space, giving her false hope so that she would jump again, snapping her teeth on the empty space where only a second ago had been tempting fur and bone. Furious, Tasha would launch into another series of canine cussing and double her efforts to get Ivan, nearly choking herself, and almost pulling the chain's anchor out of the ground. That was when she found it... the weakest link.

After weeks of stress, the chain to which Tasha's owner had tethered her broke, freeing her.

Suddenly, the game changed. The fence on which Ivan sat was no obstacle for a doberman. The dog jumped, and Ivan snapped into action, rocketing across the fence and sideways down the alley. I ran to the side steps to see if I could intercept and protect Ivan, but the animals were too fast for me. Having turned away from traffic and onto the sidewalk, they raced past the steps and around the corner, Ivan's blue eyes the size of saucers, his body stretched out like a rubber band, and Tasha an inch off of his perfectly straight tail, roaring with rage.

I ran into the house to get mom. At that age, I still believed that she could, and must, fix everything.
"Mom, Tasha's chasing Ivan, and she's gonna KILL HIM!"
"No she won't," came the calm reply from over by the sink.
Incredulous, I gaped at my mom.
"Ivan's a tough kitty. He can take care of himself." Mom went back to scrubbing.

Still worried, I ran back outside and listened to the sounds of the two pets' battle as it raged throughout the neighborhood... loud barking to the southeast, then further south, followed by a kitty yowl... more barking, back to the southeast, and then further north, almost directly to the East... another yowl... they seemed to be going up and down the other side of the block. In my mind's eye, I saw my helpless, battered, chewed-up kitty fleeing for his life, followed by one monstrous, angry dog. The barking seemed to become stuck at the southeast corner. There was a lot of growling. Mentally, I could see my poor little Ivan cornered, his back arched and his tale bushed, waiting as Tasha closed in for the kill, and then I heard it:

MEEEEYYYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWER!

At that instant, I didn't have time to assume she'd killed him, as that was instantly followed by the most human sounding scream I've ever heard from a dog. Then, Tasha's pained and terrified yelps rapidly approached my vantage point, but there were no more sounds from my cat. Had a human gotten involved? Was Ivan dead?

My answer came screeching (literally) around the corner, her nose badly scratched all along its entire length, even into the black. Her ears were down, and her body low, as she flew toward her house with my cat securely attached to her little stub of a tail, holding on tightly with his teeth. He had latched on, and he wasn't letting go! His front claws took big, hard swipes at her hide, leaving long scratches with each hit, and his rear claws raking down the backs of her thighs and doing the same. As she jumped the fence back into her own yard, Tasha finally managed to shake Ivan off of her now red-striped butt. She ran across the yard and dove into her doghouse. Ivan lighted on the fence and looked down at her one last time, as if to punctuate his win, and then he hoped down onto the grass and strutted home, his cat-hood firmly established. It was his last time teasing Tasha, but that is probably because the fun of it was gone. The fight had determined who was strongest; thereafter, whenever she saw him, Tasha hid in her house, and Ivan knew better than to attack her in there.