without Tybalt

Before we had Tybalt, and the only other cat in the household was the late lumpish Pippin, Maia and I had a regular routine. Twice every day, after breakfast and after dinner, she would come into my room, as a signal that I was to follow her over to the bedroom and on to the bed for an extensive session of stroking and nuzzling, which mostly consisted of scritching various sides of her head. During this she would purr - a gravely sound, as an engine needing oil - constantly. This would last 10 or 15 minutes, after which she'd have enough and jump down from the bed.

But the advent of Tybalt threw a spanner into these works. Tybalt wants to be involved with everything, but Maia likes her primacy. Our nuzzling sessions are only occasional now, and have to take place while Tybalt is elsewhere. Even so, I've learned to close the bedroom door during them, because if he should appear in the doorway Maia presses the abort button and everything stops. She huddles up on the clothes hamper and growls at him. The ever-eager Tybalt is oblivious and knows not what this growling sound means.

Just this morning, I had a Maia by my side, and we headed out of my room, but she stopped dead in the doorway because Tybalt was there, out in the hall. I walked past him and motioned her along. Tybalt knew what this meant and dashed over to the bedroom doorway. Eventually Maia peeked out but turned the other way, over to B.'s room and hopped on to her sewing table, which I've known from before is Maia's second choice nuzzling spot. I shut the door and we had our session. Tybalt, foiled again.

Now, how to foil him from his insistence on jumping up onto the kitchen counter or the dining table whenever there's anything involving food going on. Waving the spray bottle at him is fairly dissuasive - he knows by now what that means - but he just keeps coming back. Dropping 15 or 20 cats on the floor while fixing one dinner is normal now.