I went up to the loo earlier today, then wandered into the bedroom to lie down on the bed with Charlie. The sun was streaming in, and as I laid down I said to him, "this was a terrible mistake." He came up and snuggled by my arm and I was just settling into giving him a sleepy stroke and a cuddle when we were both startled by the most horrific caterwauling. For a moment I wondered if I hadn't accidentally flushed a random interloper cat down the loo. Then I remembered I had the window open at the top of the stairs so I could hear what was going on on the pavement at the side of the house.
This noise carried on, so I went out the front door and there were 2 cats right going at it, fur literally flying everywhere. I broke up the fight and they shot off, one of them leaving a collar behind (no address tag) and a ridiculous amount of fur. I saw no blood, which is a good thing I suppose. One of the cats lurked around a car across the road for a while and I swear it looked like its back had been shaved - there was so much fur missing.
I took the collar (in case any 'missing' posters spring up in the next few days) and went inside, and poor old Charlie was sat at the top of the stairs looking down utterly terrified. I offered him the collar to sniff, and he gingerly came down and investigated it. Then he sat at the bottom of the stairs, wanting to go back up again, but being scared silly thinking that there were cats up there. So I had to go up with him, one step at a time, while I reassured him that nothing was going to attack him, and he sniffed each step. We got to the top and he cautiously went into the bathroom, thinking maybe it was in there. Eventually he joined me back on the bed for a while again.
He's mostly fine now, but he keeps casting a wary glance around when wandering from room to room, just in case.
I haven't heard the scrapping cats since. I hope they're okay.
