by Debbie Robus

Created on: July 21, 2009

Believe it or not, cats have a very keen sense of territory. They may not protect their yard like a dog would - although some do just this - but house cats can be extremely territorial with regard to both real estate, objects, and people!

Take our cats, Mabel and Lucy, for instance. Mabel is very much our "upstairs" cat. She spends most of her time upstairs each day with my husband in his office. Wherever he is, that is where Mabel will be. When he comes downstairs, she follows. If we are watching a movie, she lies on the ottoman near his feet. At night, Mabel sleeps upon or beside my husband's legs.

Lucy, on the other hand, has adopted ME. She sleeps beside me each night. If I pile up pillows and crawl into bed to read, Lucy comes running and makes her nest right next to me. Nearly every day, she commandeers my office chair for much of the day, having a hissy fit if I make her move. It is HER chair, and she has even nibbled on my rear end while I sat in it as if to say, "Move out, woman! That's MY chair!" In winter, I resorted to creating another chair space for her, complete with an enticing heating pad set to the lowest setting. However, as the weather warmed, this trickery didn't work so well, and many mornings I get "the nibble" - or I get up for another cup of coffee and return to find my chair is no longer available!

While each cat seems to have her person, all bets are off when company comes to visit. Mabel, especially, has become very protective of us around others, and she stakes her claim wherever we are and guards each of us... hissing and spitting at anyone who challenges her. If she thinks someone is getting too close to us, she will hiss, spit or growl at them. And often, she finds a female guest's purse and "marks" it by rubbing over and around it with her face - and even lying atop the purse, at times. She and Lucy both love leather, and they rubbed on my mother-in-law's purse so much and so often that one day, she asked for a grocery sack and dumped the contents of her purse into it and left the leather bag for the cats. We bought a second leather purse, and now both "girls" can often be found "shopping" on their purses.

Once while I was nursing a broken ankle, neighborhood friends came to visit, and one of the neighbors sat next to me - and on Mabel's favorite stool. Mabel watched her for about an hour, and then she made her move, charging toward the woman and swiping her with her front paws while hissing. Thankfully,

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