In her 13 years with us, Fiona spent most of it exercising the art of camouflage. A tortoiseshell colored cat, she was able to blend into the background, the shadows, and even the blankets with remarkable ease. Shy of new people, visitors often didn’t realize we had a cat. But every night she’d come out to perch (yes, I said perch) on the highest point of John or me in bed. There she would lie, completely unfazed by any amount of wiggling, re-positioning or outright cat eviction. If anything moved her out of her spot she’d just regally reclaim her high point, never deigning to acknowledge us commoners below her.

Here is a prime example of Fiona perching – on Piper the Great Dane. This was not a one time occurrence.

She stole food off the table, never caught a mouse and put up with a modest amount of harassment from the kids but was generally outperformed by our old Great Dane in almost all cat duties. Except when it came to harassing dogs.

Fiona had perfected the “I’m the queen and you are going to get it if you chase me” saunter. When ever a dog would come to visit our normally shy cat would appear right in the midst of the action, pointedly ignoring everyone- to taunt the dog.  She occasionally got chased, never got hurt and twitched her tail in an extra smug fashion every time a dog got yelled at.

Her dog harassment hit it’s high point just a few months ago when Digby was visiting.

Digby being a Great Dane, Saint Bernard, Doberman mix, is rather – large, but he had been cowed by our little seven pound cat since he was a puppy. Digby was no longer fun to taunt and so Fiona was ignoring him, off doing her camo thing in another room as I walked across the living room.

Gyspy, the cat, was not.

I accidentally stepped on Gypsy’s tail and Gypsy let out a giant cat scream which had us both hitting the ceiling. Digby leapt off the couch, like only a giant gangely dog can leap, to see what sort of excitement was going on. By the time he crossed the ten feet to meet us, Gypsy was long gone and Fiona had appeared in her place. Fiona, who had come flying in from another room, assessed the situation and decided that the dog was to blame. She attacked him with her de-clawed front paws as Digby cowered in terror. I, helpfully, dissolved into laughter as I tried to “save” Digby and send him outside for his own protection. He willingly ran through the door as Fiona gave parting swats to his butt. Trip, not wanting to be left out sprang into the fun and got a nose full of swatting before I “saved” him as well. Dogs taken care of, Fiona ignored my laughter and stalked back off toward her sleeping spot.

Now that she’s gone the dogs may not miss her but the nights sure do feel a little colder without my old kitty perched atop me every night.