It was early in August that Scrappy was attacked by Kamikaze Kat. Being the fearless terrier-terrier-terrier-something that my eleven-year-old “pound-dog” rescue designer canine is, I figured he would quickly rebound from the trauma and be his normal “Happy Scrappy” self. After calling Local Police and Condo Association, Kamikaze Kat’s owner must have gotten the message, because that big, bad beast is now invisible. If he’s terrorizing anything, it’s his owner’s home.

Like all victims of cat violence, the scars on the inside take longer to heal than the disfigured shreds of flesh on the outside. Scrappy, I’m sad to report, is among the legions of FIPTSD sufferers (Feline-Induced Post-Tramautic Stress Discombobulation). He has one major symptom: he lunges at any inanimate garden or porch ornament that is cat-sized and might launch an unprovoked attack (if, all of a sudden, it became animate).

I thought his loony behavior would go away if:

  1. I let him attack each inanimate object and he “won.” We are no longer welcome in many of our neighbors’ yards.
  2. I explained to him the “in” part of inanimate. He listened carefully then burped in my face.
  3. I approached the Condo Association asking for a ban on all cat-shaped or cat-sized or animalish-looking garden/porch ornaments, arguing that they just provoke highly sensitive pet companions. I didn’t really want to serve on any of their stupid committees anyway.

Nothing has worked so far. Scrappy seems permanently cursed with memories of Kamikaze Kat (a.k.a. Grumpy) setting his blood-thirsty sights on him, hissing, fitting, flying at him, and finally delivering the stinging swipe on his nose. My “Happy Scrappy” is now the neighborhood vigilante. No garden or porch decoration that resembles a cat is safe.

Here are some of the suspicious characters on Scrappy’s “Watch List”: a tan cat figurine with a polka dot collar, a small family of fake raccoons, the same cat figurine in pink (there must have been a sale at the Dollar Store), a round, flat stone with the head of a siamese cat with eerie blue eyes painted on the face of it, and a small DYI crafted scarecrow on the corner of someone’s lawn.

I always give Scrappy a nice treat after our neighborhood surveillance walk. He seems to revert back to the courageous, self-assured, carefree guy I knew before that early August day. He even shows me his skills at rounding up threats inside our compound condo…