Bandit the Attack Cat

By Howard W. Gabriel III

One morning as I was loading my car for work, suddenly, out of nowhere, a large pit bull appeared at my feet. It seemed friendly enough, so I asked, “Where do you live?”

Then the dog put its nose upward. “The cat!” I shouted as Bandit, my blue eyed Himalayan, is usually under my car before I start it.

As the dog sniffed, it headed towards the front of the car. Bandit started making strange loud sounds intended to scare the pit bull away.

I grabbed the dog’s choke chain collar and tried to steer it away. This didn’t work well as the dog did not like being choked. One time the collar came off! I was able to put it back on the dog’s neck. Another time one of my fingers got tangled in the choke chain collar. Anyhow, I kept taking the dog from the front of the car to the back of the car. This went on and on forever… Finally, I held the dog with one hand and opened the garage door with the other. As I pulled the dog away from the car, I yelled for the cat to run into the garage.

There was no sign of Bandit moving from underneath the car. The dog dragged me toward the car and I pulled it back. Sometimes there was a growl. On and on this continued. There was no one around to help. I finally started to yell the cat’s name—insisting that she help out. I shouted, “Bandit, you must help me.”

Then it happened. Bandit crawled from beneath the left front tire fender and was looking at us with her hair straight up. Her four legs were somehow bowed.

She had a twisted face and looked like a bulldog. Then she began heading toward the dog like some kind of lurid robot. Her two left legs went up high at the same time. When they came down the right ones went up together. She was telling the dog in her way that it was “High Noon!” Slowly she marched to the dog. I was spellbound.

Finally I spoke, “Bandit, that’s not what I meant by help. Go to the garage.”
She stopped and stood her ground for a few minutes as I continued to plead with her while I struggled with the dog. She then backed up ever so slowly with her strange two legged piston motion.

Whew! It was over. I wasn’t sure where she had gone, but the dog had a change of mind and trotted down the street, perhaps in search of more adventure.

I will always remember that morning event.