There are three cats in this yurt-house. Xena is a calico Persian who spends daylight hours stalking birds. She's usually aloof, but sometimes visits me while I'm at the computer and digs her claws into my legs. Oww!

Corky is a gorgeous half-white, half-tabby Persian who looks like the musketeer cat on the old Chicken of the Sea cat food can. Corky is an amazing physical specimen. When he stretches at the door asking to be let out, his paws reach to the doorknob. I have not yet seen how he mounts the ladder to the cupola, but I find him up there when I climb up. I guess that he takes a flying leap, then makes another pivoting leap from one of the rungs. I cannot visualize him climbing rung after rung. This Schwarzenegger-of-a-cat comes around in the evenings when I'm on the armchair. He is determined to lounge on my lap, even when the skipperke is in the way. He will plunk himself onto half my lap and gradually crowd the skipperke off. The skipperke makes a grunt of disapproval and jumps down. It is a luxury to pet this cat with its long soft fur and steely muscles.

The dogs generally get along with the cats, but once every couple of hours they jump up simultaneously and run barking crazily around the stairwell. They do this for one of two reasons:

1. They like to surprise a cat who is ambling toward the stairwell.



2. Since this also happens when no cats are around, I think the skipperke is making a mad dash for the hound's empty food dish. This rouses the hound, because she doesn't want the skipperke to get there first. The funny thing is, during dinnertime, the hound doesn't mind if the skipperke slips between her legs and nibbles some food. For the skipperke, it's not a complete meal unless she can get a little bit of the hound's food to vary her own.

I said that the dogs usually get along with the cats. However, they relish the idea of surprising a cat before it gets to the stairwell. I sometimes see the skipperke run across the room and pounce on Corky. Corky does not bare his claws or hiss to deal with this: he just looks put upon, as if to say, "What is this," and then twists away. The hound doesn't seem motivated to do anything to Corky, but she likes to join in the chase. Overall peace in the house is probably due to the division of space. The cats are allowed upstairs, but the dogs are not. The dogs can readily run up stairs at the beach, but within the house they seem unable to negotiate stairs. I hope this rule continues to be observed when no human is at home!

Another common game happens when I take the dogs out for their evening constitutional. The cats are not supposed to be out at night, therefore we have to go through a song and dance, telling the cats to stand back while escorting the dogs out the doorway. The cats treat this as a challenge, like dashing through an opening in a football line. They have excellent timing, and have to be begged to come back in. It is laughable to see them lounging out of reach, pretending awhile to ignore our calls.

Are we going against their roving natures? No, they are really homebody cats. The runaway game only happens occasionally, and they meow at the door soon afterward.

The third cat is a ghostly-grey feral cat, Nata, who stays in the study and dives under a blanket when anyone enters. If I lift the blanket she hisses and hides under furniture. In the evening after I climb into my loft, up that forecastle ladder that digs into my tender feet, I sometimes see Nata come out. She comes out to eat and play with a toy mouse. If I sit still I can watch her. If I make a move, she dives under the recliner. After I settle down awhile, she comes out again.

Nata was caught in a humane trap, along with her kitten child, in the trees behind Leonard Schwarz' house. The mother and kitten had been seen in the neighborhood and were so beautiful that Leonard hoped to civilize them.

The kitten was tamable, but the mother behaved like a wild thing in Leonard's house. Leonard got scratches on his arms. So Nancy brought a live trap and trapped it again. She brought Nata home to her study and it has been there for three months. Nata does not relate well to the other cats, and she no longer tries to leave the study.

I am fascinated by this cat's psyche. How can it stay alive and healthy when it so radically denies contact with other creatures? Now it allows me rub it through the blanket a little, like an autistic child. It even lets me peek at it under the blanket. But it has a hissy-fit when I lift the blanket further. I guess the cat could get acclimated through more exposure, but I relish the strangeness, and I don't feel like taking time to make gradual overtures.

One of Nancy's friends is interested in radical immersion therapy for Nata. She volunteered to come over and hug the cat within a blanket and speak softly until it accepts contact with a human. Nancy doesn't really want that, because she doesn't want to force anything on the cat. Roger wants to teach the cat with gradual overtures, but so far he's been busy with work and his thesis-writing project.

I have largely figured out their behavioral profile, but they come up with antics that surprise me. When I clasp the hound's leash and then turn around to put on my shoes, she picks up her own leash and looks ready to take herself for a walk.

I'm sure that the dogs would show a fuller behavioral repertoire if they could run free more often. I let them run free on the beach sometimes, when I'm in the mood for a run. The chances of the hound running off are zero, because she has a perfect "running-dog mentality." But I have to be careful about the skipperke because she runs a mile down the beach, then runs up people's steps. Last time just by luck I saw which steps she ran up. I called myself blue in the face from down below, but she didn't come. I ran up to find her and I saw signs: "Beware of dog." I found her after meandering through someone's back yard. I feel responsible, and now I'm considering only walking her with a leash. I already found a couple of nice trails through tree farms. But because I have heard the guns of hunters several times in this area, I don't much relish going too deep into those tree farms.

Such are the silly dynamics of dealing with five animals. These are innocent creatures and they help me not to take myself too seriously.