The Dance of the Cat and the Border Terrier I own a Border Terrier named Max. Most people, not even those fairly well versed in breeds, would know a Border Terrier if they saw one. The breeders are very particular as to where they are placed, and there just is not that many of them around. Now Max is “my boy” but despite the prejudice that implies, I am told a particularly good example of the feisty breed. You might add a few more adjectives such as courageous, incessant, bold and determined to even begin a description. I run a seasonal business that allows me the freedom of visiting first one sister and four nephews in Rockville Maryland for Thanksgiving, then plugging in a 20 hour Stephen King novel, and transversing the American country side at my will and pleasure, to visit sister number two in a suburb outside of Denver Colorado. My sister, nephew and brother-in-law just moved into a lovely little house in a nice little sub-division. I was pleased to find outside the sliding glass door stood a deck and a completely enclosed back yard. The yard was surrounded by a six-foot high stockade fence. The type that has the pointed slats nailed to two by fours top, middle, and bottom, the eight-foot sections separated by round poles secured in the ground. It was a beautiful sun lit day in Denver. I was cleaning up from a most excellent broccoli, cheese, onion, and tenderloin, breakfast omelet, when I saw Max stiffen at the slider. I glanced out the window and saw the neighbor’s five-year-old orange Tomcat slinking across the deck. Not just any Tom Cat, but one in his prime, that inaudibly screamed his lineage with every smooth movement of his sinewy muscle. If one could view his pedigree, it would trace back to the Saber Tooth Tiger, Lion, Cheetah, Bobcat and Lynx. Domesticated yes, however this ancient pedigree dictated his movement, will for survival, and fighting spirit. Not that Max was without a respectable lineage himself. One that traced back to the Wild Dog of the Serengeti, The Dingo of Australia, thousands of years of natural selection coupled with hundreds of years of human selective breeding. His was a race selected to run for hours with the horses on the hunt, to “go to ground”, burrowing deep into the earth, for any of the class called “vermin”. With a bark so shrill and loud, it could be heard ten feet under the ground, his was as respectable as the cats if not more so, the very dispute of which dictated that these two would never, could never be friends. Age-old enemies perched nose to nose, three inches apart, separated by an impervious plate of glass. Tom Cat viewed Border Terrier, Border viewed Tom, Cat flicking his tail in disdainful circles high over his head, Border in the sitting position muscles trembling, as if thousands of tiny springs were tightly compressed, waiting, holding, straining to be released. This stand off continued for minutes that seemed much longer, Cat tail flicking, head cocking from side to side as Max’s muscles continued to twitch in increasing violent spasms, much as a mans arms would start shaking if he were to hold a spring that took all his strength, pushed closed by both arms in front of his belly. The cat moved, Max unloaded the pent up flood of his muscles and pawed at the window, that shrill bark piercing my ears, yip-yip-yip, yip-yip-yip. The Cat strode back and forth his domestication knowing the glass would hold, and Max became increasingly excited as his pent up energy begat more energy as his forays to the clear yet impermeable barrier continued. Now Max knows what a cat is, not by heredity alone, but because in his travels with me, there has been several occasions where he has come into contact. My neighbors at home, on the other side of the fence have a cat, my sister in Maryland has a cat who was outside whenever Max was around, and this sister in Denver has a cat out in the garage to name a few. But these cats have always been forbidden fruit, always separated by those human barriers, doors, fences, and glass. It was then I decided this was an excellent opportunity for Max to gain a healthy respect for this apparition on the other side. It was time for him to learn that this nemesis was one worthy of respect. I held his collar as he struggled, barked, and strained. I reached up to slide the door. He became increasingly agitated, the cat slinked across the deck and jumped up on the railing, four feet off the deck. I slid the remaining screen to the side and let my fingers slide out of his collar. Max shook waiting for the word that would release him through the doorway. “Okay!” I said, and he was through the door like a shot, up on his back legs, pawing at the empty air, in front of the hissing, arched cat perched on the rail. The cat reached down from his four foot elevation advantage, and swiped a taloned hand at the yipping fury in front of him. The claw stretched paws fell short of their mark, but the mere body language and hissing verbosities demanded that he take a step back, and the dance began. Max stepped back, crouched, growled, and continued to yip-yip-yip, that loud, intense, shrill, bark filling the neighborhood with its ferocious splendor. He wheeled on his haunches to the right, ran down the three steps to the snow strewn lawn and ran the ten feet along the rail where the cat stood, this time a good eight feet below, crouching, growling, and barking. He bounced on his front feet from side to side, pivoting on his back legs. The cat’s arch relaxed as the need for defense of his position decreased, the three steps adding elevation to his vantage point. Max wheeled now to the left ran up the stairs and began his back-footed dance. The cat hissed but did not arch so violently as the boundaries of that spot became more defined. Back and forth, back and forth, until both knew, the Border Terrier was not going to get up on the rail, and the cat was not going to jump down on the deck. After what must have been twenty-five, maybe thirty forays up and down the steps, the cat sat and looked away in indifference as Max’s yips decreased in fervor. It was much the way a bullfighter turns from the bull in a show of superiority, as the bull in frustration lowers his head and paws at the ground. Max seized the lull to increase his assault and jump up at the cat with new vigor, as the cat instinctively wheeled around to meet his renewed advance. On and on they went in an age-old ballet of ancient foes, seemingly choreographed, yet unquestionably improvised, at every lunge, snarl, and move. I continued to watch, fascinated, like a coliseum patron of old, as the drama continued to unfold. I stood mesmerized at the window. All of a sudden I was knocked from the scene on the deck by the doorbell, I shook my head and reluctantly tore myself away, to answer the door...