Herding Cats!

Greetings Muleteers!  The Mini here, I need to tell you about a feline problem that we're experiencing.

For those of you that don't know us mules have been equipped with fantastic dog defenders (aka hooves) - dainty and beautiful in my case :-), anyway I digress...  We have a natural dislike of strange cats and dogs that try to muscle in on owning our humans.  They are owned by us long ears and NO ONE else!  My distaste for the humans' dogs was already enough but at least they stay far away from us on the other side of the fence, female human warned man human that we don't mix, he thought it was funny until I made a beeline for his prized lurcher, hehehe.  So imagine my fury when they decided that we would be sharing our living quarters with a CAT, aaarghhh it makes me angry just talking about it.  So the day arrived when a small ball of fluff arrived from a lovely lady who looks after rescued animals (I wonder if she has any long ears??)

Cute I DO NOT think!

I listened carefully to what was said with my ear antennae and heard the humans talking about the ball of fluff being crazy, energetic, fearless and possibly semi feral - huh feral I'll show her!  So ball of fluff was coming stay with us.  Naturally I was most upset but then I heard that she would be living in a large cage in the tack room until she got used to where she was, "not long" said the nice lady "just long enough so that she knows it's home".  HOME???? It couldn't be, surely not?  I don't like cats!

So time went by and cute ball of fluff grew and started to protest loudly at being kept inside, female human thought she was ready to come outside. Hah!  Now was my chance to show this strange creature this is not her home too, only long ears allowed!  I had seen her from afar curled up in human's arms (wish I could do that, I do try to sit on my human's lap when she sits down but she protests loudly whilst scratching my tail, mixed messages or what???), she looked small enough for me to chase away.  The time came, the cage door was opened and female human stood watching carefully as the ball of fluff came out and strutted right in front of me!

I'm looking cute so she won't notice my true intentions.

Time to go in for a closer inspection of this creature!  Over I crept looking at my cutest so cat would not suspect that I was going to see her off......

This is a brave kitty, she seems to appreciate my handsomeness.

Would you believe it!  She had the cheek to come right up to my nose and bat me with her paw!  Human chuckled and told me this kitty might be as fearless as me - not possible, I am the bold, brave one of these lands (except for when mule doctor appears with the needle and then I quiver a bit :-(

Even my angry ears don't work

So this continued with kitty cat setting up home in MY kingdom.  She has now been here nearly 6 months and nothing I do seems to scare her away.  I have tried lots of techniques, a swift shove with the dog defenders (she is always too darn quick!), a charge with my ears back at top speed - no good she just runs under the fence, a swish of my angriest tail - nope she thinks it's a toy to play with and chases it, I've even tried deafening her with my loudest bray-neigh, even this doesn't work.

She is oblivious to my attempts at de-catting

I'm all out of ideas.







Nothing shifts this kitty cat called Diesel, she seems very happy here climbing on the humans and taunting me and then running away.... She even seems to have managed to ingratiate herself with Dragon who seems to like her and spends hours sniffing her and even licks her sometimes (must be a girl thing, yuck!)

Even my human seems to have decided that my attempts at de-catting us are in vain, she says that I deserve a friend who is as mischievous as me, she says I can play at a favourite game, it's called 'Herding Cats', apparently there's irony in there somewhere?  So fellow muleteers I've decided if I can't beat her she might as well join us as the final member of the crew.  My human says that her favourite cartoon as a kid was Dogtanian and the Three Muskahounds http://www.muskehounds.com/ so I've decided that Diesel can become Catanian and can join the Muleteers in some of our adventures.... now where is that pesky kitty cat?  I do secretly enjoy playing with her when the humans aren't looking......

I guess she'll have to join us.... We'll call her Catanian!