E.B. has a new friend next door in my neighbor’s cat, whose name I don’t know. He calls her fat ass because she likes to eat his food and Vienna sausages. She also has a temper.
Being a puppy, E.B. gets excited easily by all sorts of things. When he starts barking, sometimes I’ll try to shush him before the neighbor comes out. Most of the time, it’s too late. As soon as I hear his storm door open, I will watch E.B. run his little legs off to go next door from the back yard. It takes him a few seconds, being a squat creature, but he trots up the steps of his front stoop and my neighbor will grab him.
“You want to go inside and play with my kitty?” the neighbor says, egging E.B. on even more. I’m then obligated to go inside as well and sit on the couch while E.B. and the cat chase one another around his apartment, laid out much like my own.
The cat isn’t trying to hurt E.B., and my puppy likewise with the cat. Instead, it is more like a dance around the room, the cat swatting her paw while E.B. tries to sniff her from behind. They go back and forth until eventually the claws come out and E.B. gets scared and comes running for me.
“She hates his guts,” the neighbor says. “But I think she likes to play with him. She was meowing when y’all left last time.”
“Next time I come over here, I need to bring my camera,” I said before leaving yesterday afternoon.
I will give E.B. this: he likes cats a heck of a lot more than I do.
