Sir Ziggy, the Tender Hearted

Sir Ziggy, the Tender Hearted, is the 4-year old male cat in
whose domain I have rented a room this past year in Cupar,
Scotland. He is the most gentle cat I have ever met. Ziggy
has a very mild-mannered disposition. When it comes to fight-
ing other cats, Ziggy is a pacifist. When aggressive cats ad-
vance on him, he slowly backs away into a protective place. I
have never witnessed Ziggy take offensive action against any
cat.

Nor have I seen Ziggy pounce on a mouse, although he did try
to sneak a dead one past me into the house some time ago. I
think the mouse might have died of fright because Ziggy likes
to play with mice, but he never takes any action to harm them.
Unfortunately I don't think the poor mouse experienced it that
way. It probably died of fright having this big scary creature
hounding it any time it moved. I have watched Ziggy play with
a mouse and then go off in search of other fun things to do, allow-
ing the mouse to flee if it wasn't paralyzed with fear. But Ziggy is
so tender hearted that it probably never entered his cat mind
that he was frightening the mice he played with.

Since the beginning of summer I have noticed that Ziggy is in a
serious conflictive relationship with another cat. The other cat
is a scrawny male Siamese cat who exhibits a bad attitude. He
takes every opportunity to bully tender hearted Ziggy. I have
seen Ziggy seemingly as paralyzed with fear as the mice he
plays with. I mean this Siamese cat is lean and mean, the epi-
tome of an ornery bully cat. I don't like him at all. I have tried to
exhort Sir Ziggy to stand up to the mean cat, but what do I
know? It seems Ziggy is pretty frightened and there is nothing
I can do about it.

I think, though, that Ziggy has come up with a plan. He no-
tices that the mean cat has a curfew, and can't be out past
6 PM. Furthermore, the other cat's human doesn't let him
out of the house until 8 AM. Thus Ziggy has identified a win-
dow of opportunity when he can roam to his heart's content
and not have to contend with that mean old cat. He usually
has his tea (dinner) around 5:30, waits until 6, and then
makes it known he wants to go out. Ziggy camps out at the
back door, meows, and waits for a human to open the door
to let him out. He either meows at the kitchen window to be
let in at 10 or 11, or stays out all night until the early morning.
I tend to get up before 6:15 and find him waiting for me at
the kitchen window to let him in.

Ziggy has studied me since I moved in a year ago, and cor-
rectly recognized that I am a softie and that I am a sucker
for a sweet meow, even at 5:15 AM. Down the hall Margar-
et, Ziggy's primary human and my landlady, is smart and
thus is able to sleep through anything, especially when she
has her hearing aids out. So he comes down to my bedroom
door, meows, and paws at the closed door. Ziggy knows that
I will respond, softie that I am, regardless of the time. Some-
times he will rustle around in my dark room for a while or
take a little catnap, but most of the time Ziggy wants to go
outside for a couple of hours while the mean ol' Siamese cat
is in confinement.

During the day while the mean Siamese cat is at play, Sir Zig-
gy stays indoors and sleeps. He sleeps on Margaret's bed. He
sleeps on the sofa in the living room. He likes to perch on the
inside ledge of the living room picture window with its com-
manding field of vision of the crossroads nearby. From there
he can safely monitor the movement of all cats in the neigh-
borhood. Ziggy also sleeps on my bed or in the leather chair
of my desk. He had mistakenly thought that all he had to do
to keep me from throwing him out was to sleep and look cute.
But he has been cured of that idea. I am happy to report that
I have regained my proper place as lord of my bedroom and
that Ziggy has assumed his place as a guest in my room. I am
not as tender hearted as Sir Ziggy, the Tender Hearted Cat.