The Battleground

Our home is a serene place to be, beautiful gardens, the adults here live in harmony, all appears normal on the surface.

But, we live in the midst of a war. Its confession time - our home is a battleground.

Pictured above are our cats. We have three. Roxi, the grey and white tabby, is the matriarch. At 19 years old she is in good health for her age and has a loving personality. Jonty her son, the black and white cat, is around 17 years old. He has rather an abrasive and demanding nature, often trying desperately to get our attention and above all he loves to be snuggled up inside the house somewhere, preferably at our feet. He has lived here all his life, Roxi came here as a tiny kitten.

And then there is Melvin. He is the black cat with brilliant green eyes. We do not own Melvin. I do realise no one ever 'owns' a cat - they just decide to take up residence! He is our son's cat. He came as a kitten to live with our son about 12 years ago when W was a student flatting in Auckland. For North Americans - 'flatting' means living in an apartment with room mates away from home.

Melvin led an exciting life - he would follow W up the street to the pubs in Parnell, enjoyed the life of Riley and had the attention of W's student friends. He shifted with W from flat to flat, then flew with him to Wellington for a six month stint getting to know the streets of our capital. Then it was off to Melbourne Australia where he became an Aussie cat for four years. He enjoyed it there too - different wildlife to explore, different streets to roam, more friends to make.

From Melbourne it was back to Auckland NZ for a year then W did the unforgivable - he shifted to England and the streets of London were not deemed suitable for an alley cat from New Zealand.

So Melvin came to live here three years ago. Into a house with an already established little cat family of two, a mother and her son, Roxi and Jonty.

It was instant dislike from the very start. I thought that I had done all the right things - I read all about how to introduce a new adult cat to a household. I kept him locked up for several days, introduced him little by little to the two others, used the same grooming brush for all three etc.

Melvin's first move was to banish the other two, by force, from the house. Not just from one or two rooms - the whole house! Literally we have had skin and hair flying! A cat is a mean fighting machine when it means business. For a while there Jonty had a permanently scratched nose and the odd chunk of skin missing. Poor Jonty is the gentlest of cats, has never even caught a bird or mouse in his life.

Three years later there has been some progress, but only on the surface. Roxi has made friends with the neighbours and spends a lot of her time there. When she does come inside she is nervous and ill at ease. Jonty very bravely does slink in from time to time. We make a special effort to keep Melvin out of range.

We have a carefully managed system of giving them 'turns' to be in our company and be inside. They have slowly worked out a territory for themselves and in the main they stick to it.

So now it is only occasionally that we have an all out claws fight with skin and hair flying. But its still not the happiest of households - in the cat department anyway. An uneasy truce prevails.

Luckily the adult people in the house get on well!

In spite of all the above, Melvin is a lovable cat. He follows me everywhere and especially likes going for a walk up to the letterbox and along the street. Perhaps it reminds him of his student days when he roamed the streets of Auckland and Melbourne with his owner visiting the pubs and clubs!