I just had to share this story from one of my Aby lists…
How are your Christmas decorations holding up?
Since we have a two story living room we have a 9 ft (artificial) tree. Last year this time, we had two little 4-month-old Aby boys who did try to climb the Christmas tree (we tied it to a nearby bannister so it would not fall over), but they only played with unbreakable ornaments within 2-3 feet. No activity we did not expect and we thought they were such nicely behaved kittens! This year’s Christmas card has a photo of Hobbes in last year’s tree.
This year they are 9.5 lbs and think they can jump over the moon. Louie regularly jumps 10 feet from the dining room through a bannister down to the living room floor even after I moved a chair there to make the jump shorter.
So I moved anything I did not want them to have up to the top 2-3 feet of the tree. Things like fake cardinals and some delicate lace ornaments we got in the Philippines. And my Basenji angel that goes on top.
The first day they lulled us into thinking that they again would be happy to play with stuff in the first 2-3 feet and maybe trying climbing a little.
The second night I woke up to some fierce growling near the bottom of the bed. Had a wildcat invaded the house? Kind of scary to hear such fierce sounds in your bedroom in the middle of the night. Turned on the light and
there was Hobbes hunkered down with a 7-inch cardinal ornament in his mouth, ears back and serious growls coming out with each breath. Slinking across the bed was Louie in stalk mode ready to take that prey away. If only I
kept a camera next to the bed!
As I moved to rescue the bird, Hobbes took off and ran with it into our closet where Louie grabbed it and got it as far at the staircase before I could catch him. This is not a little bird! Looks very oversized in a Aby mouth as they cannot get their teeth around the body but have to carry it by its tail. How on earth he could get it up two flights of stairs with his brother after him? Made me curious.
I went down to check out the tree and found a few ornaments knocked down but all the other cardinals were still up on top. I fastened the poor bird (not a feather out of place) up as far as I could reach and sat down on the
couch. The brothers paced around the tree. Within about 7 minutes Louie went to an end table about 3-4 feet from the tree…and then launched himself from there to another cardinal about 6-7 feet off the ground. He missed the
bird and sort of slid down the tree; this was when I noticed that where he slid there were no ornaments.. That’s where the pile on the floor had come from.
As he headed back for his next try I decided we really don’t need birds on the Christmas tree or cat Olympics at night. Made sure the boys watched me take them all off and put them in a box and I sat them outside the sliding
doors in the solarium. They watched those birds intently.
I think they may have connected a male cardinal who likes to dash himself against our master bath window with the ones on the tree. Finally he must have come inside. This morning when the cardinal was bonking against the
window they were more attentive than ever.
Merry Christmas everyone!
I guess I’m lucky that all Jacoby wants to do is chew on the tree! Although, I do wonder if he’d be more interested in the tree if he had been a kitten during Christmas, as his brother Gun-Hee and the two stars of this story were.
