Last night I got home late and was hurriedly preparing dinner for my cats. As I was doing so both Simon, my boy cat, and I heard a familiar rumbling under the house. It was the coonies for sure. I carried on with making them dinner and forgot about the banditos. A bit later as I was getting ready for bed I heard a pitiful cat cry. I raced out of the house as fast as I could, intentionally being noisy in hopes of scaring the coonies away. As soon as I thuded onto the porch I heard them scramble thru the back fence and scamper away. Simon immediately popped out from under the porch seemingly unharmed though with a big ol puffed out tail. I quickly searched the house for my other, elderly cat, Liza but couldn't find her. My heart sank. I went back outside with a light and looked under the house, her normal spot, but saw nothing. She is almost deaf now so I knew the only way i could locate her was with the light. I went to the back of the house and soon enough i heard a very guttural growling. The only thing i could see were blackberry brambles but the growling continued. I started to pull the blackberries back a bit and there sat Liza with eyeballs as big as saucers and she was mad, mad, mad. I tried to pick her up but there were too many blackberries attached to her fur so I put her back down, ran to get my clippers and returned to begin clipping away around her. Even though I'd let her smell my hands so she knew it was me, she was still frightened and raked her claws hard across my hand. Fortunately, I had leather gloves on but her claws made it through and I got some good piercings!
Slowly, slowly I cut out all the blackberries and was finally able to pick her up and take her back in the house. I set her down on the floor and although she couldn't put all her weight on one of her rear paws, she went directly to her food bowl! That helped me know that she was basically ok. Eventually, she got up on the bed and made herself comfortable though it took an extra few circles for her to settle in. Soon after, Simon came up on the bed. I could tell he was still shaken from the experience. And I sincerely believe he wanted to check on Liza. He very gingerly and respectfully walked closer to her and began sniffing (she had pee'd her pantalones so there was definitely a urine odor.) Just as I was thinking what a sweet moment they were having she hauled off and smacked him in the head! He responded this time not by engaging in a scuffle but by jumping off the bed and leaving her alone. I had to laugh and was encouraged that Liza felt good enough to throw a punch!!!
