Ever since she came to us three years ago, our fearful dog Faith has had trouble finding a playmate. For the longest time she tried to get our cats, Caesar and Princess, to play with her. But she wanted them to play like dogs — and they wanted no part of that.
When Lisa and I adopted Mac, we thought that Faith would finally have a playmate. But no dice. Mac had no interest in playing with her. The frustrating thing — for us, anyway — was that Mac would play with Charlie whenever he came over for a long-term slumber party.
Charlie belongs to Kim, who pet sits for us when we go away for more than a day by staying in our house. Faith loves Kim and follows her around constantly — which is good since Mac plays with Charlie constantly.
Then we adopted Mattie the one eyed cat. From the very first, Mattie and Mac hit it off. The reason for that is probably because Mattie enjoys playing like a dog. Sometimes she and Mac chase each other. Other times they groom each other. And still other times Mattie plays with Mac’s tail and bites it. (Mac draws the line at tail biting, though, and quickly tells her to stop.)
At first Faith was afraid of Mattie. She’s an in-your-face cat who does weird things such as make sudden moves, bat at you from a chair as you walk by, play with your tail or bite it, and lick your face. Gradually, though, Faith learned not to be afraid of Mattie until the two of them finally became friends and playmates.
Mattie has made a big difference in Faith’s life by opening up a whole new dimension of play to her. I imagine it was quite frustrating to Faith to want to play but not not to have anyone to play with. Faith has also learned that Mattie’s rapid actions and other weird behaviors are normal (for Mattie, anyway).
In short, Mattie has helped Faith develop some of the socialization skills she didn’t learn in her first couple of months as a pup.
A couple of nights ago I spent twenty minutes watching Faith and Mattie play together in the living room. Mattie has some really weird-but-cute antics. While I watched them, I wished I could make a video of them at play, but Faith has an aversion to cameras.
So instead, I made a short video of Mattie’s weird antics with humans — playing with my foot. (As the video begins, you can see Faith leaving the room because I’m holding a camera.)
Tags: Fearful Dogs