Ever wonder where the term “catty” came from. It came from cats.

A friend has three cats. Two males and one female. The female named Libby is petite and precocious. One of the males, named Winston, is the senior cat in the house with the middle male, Clovis, having been adopted as a playmate for Winston. All the kitties have been spay or neutered.

Winston and Clovis are best friends and both very calm gentle giants and bed buddies for their “mom.” Because Clovis was gaining weight and becoming less active at only 2 years old, his mom decided Libby, his younger sister from the same litter, might be a good addition to add more activity to everyone’s life.

Libby was a welcome addition to the house. Clovis seemed to remember his sibling and Winston loves everyone. Libby played and integrated well behaving like a kitten pouncing and playing with everyone. With Libby’s gregarious personality she quickly became the alpha female and head of the house. Often, she would ambush a sleeping Clovis or Winston. The much larger males continue to live up to their gentle giant status never being rough with little Libby.

Winston and Clovis closed ranks and would sleep together in solidarity and defend each other from random pounce attacks by the playful Libby. Libby, as the alpha feline, would steal food from the boys and make her dominance known at every opportunity and the boys went along with the new house dynamics.

As the weather turned from Winter, to Spring and finally the hazy lazy days of Summer the kitties were given more and more opportunity to go outside on the deck of the third floor apartment. Libby quickly figured out how to go from one deck to another and escaped, but turned up at the front door a few days later. Possibly through a neighbor’s apartment. Clovis and Winston made less frequent forays to neighboring decks and stayed close to home. Mom had to do a head count before closing the sliding glass door to prevent losing a kitty.

On one occasion Mom accidentally closed Clovis outside with Winston and Libby inside. Winston loudly announced and alerted to the deck door so that Mom finally figured that someone was missing. Outside was little Clovis happy to come back in. Obviously that made Mom very happy that Winston “told” her that one of the babies had been left outside, but it also made her try to recall if a similar alert was made when Libby was outside.

Not recalling an alert from Winston or Clovis when Libby was left outside, Mom decided to do a little experiment. Libby was “accidentally” left outside and Mom watched the behavior of Clovis and Winston. The boys said nothing. She made sure that they knew Libby was outside and they acted like nothing was wrong. The boys had obviously formed an alliance and were keeping their little secret.

When mom let Libby in, Libby seemed to actively admonish the boys with vigorous swats and pounces as if to say, “you left me out there on purpose.” Libby is still boss, but the boys seem to know how to hang together.