Wildlife: Heidi - Awaiting the Delivery, 1 by DreamOfSpring

DreamOfSpring wrote:
At one point tonight, the one that I think is probably Fraidy came down very briefly. Heidi won't let her join us, and even with Heidi as much as 20 ft away, she won't chance it. Once Heidi growls at her, she goes back over the fence where she came from. Sometimes she will come down one fence post and then in response to Heidi's threats will walk along hugging the fence for about 2 sections and then go back up a different fence post, but either way she always leaves.

Tonight she did surprise me though. I had taken some large whole wheat "wraps" (tortillas) out, torn the whole stack into 4 or 5 large multi-layer pieces and tossed them about on the ground. Trouble, who seems fond of the carbs, was eating them. This time before Fraidy ran back up the fence she made a most daring dash right out into the middle of the feeding area, grabbed a large chunk of the tortillas, and then ran back over the fence tortillas in tow. She didn't come back, but this time she did get a sizeable snack.

A little while later Juliet showed up - everyone made it to dinner tonight. By the time she showed up, Trouble was eating from station #1 and Heidi was at station #2 (where I've been putting a sizeable amount since she usually goes there and I know she doesn't like to join the crowd). Juliet doesn't eat with us every day. She must have been pretty hungry. She kept circling Trouble. She REALLY wanted that dish (and nobody's crazy enough to try to take Heidi's dish these days).

Finally, Juliet made her move to take the dish. What ensued was (once again) not at all what I would have expected. They "wrestled" over the dish for a little while, not with teeth and claws but with their bodies. They reminded me of 2 kids fighting over the same chair. As though there were some imaginary spot in front of the dish that signified ownership, their bodies met longways and each kept trying to push the other aside. In time the dish itself became a casualty of this shoving match, standing vertical between their faces and front paws at one point and flipped over the next.

With the dish thus emptied of its contents, the scuffle ended abrubtly, and Trouble came over to see what I might have for him. Luckily I had a handful of grapes left from the other night and a pack of peanuts I'd picked up from the vending machine at work today.