Byron’s over a year old now, which means he’s offi­cial­ly an adult in kit­ty years. I’ve giv­en up on my dream of hav­ing anoth­er big cat to cud­dle, as he’s retained stocky limbs and long tail, but grown into a small and slen­der body.

Dolly more than makes up for that though, even though she’s still a lit­tle sore at me for bring­ing him home. She’s nowhere near as tol­er­ant to my teas­ing as before, but she’s still social and still nes­tles against my chest when she’s in the mood (usu­al­ly dur­ing naps, nev­er at night nowa­days).

Disguised in this inno­cent yawn is a silent roar from the killer with­in.

My rela­tion­ship with Byron is very dif­fer­ent from the one I share with Dolly. She’s a cat who appre­ci­ates the love and atten­tion I give her, and she shows me this with every nuz­zle and purr.

Byron, on the oth­er hand, is more of a pet; a cat who’s nice to have around, but who does­n’t inter­act with me on the same lev­el. He has a few social habits — hang­ing out with me when he knows it’ll soon be meal time, or jump­ing on me for a nice rub­down when he hears me stir­ring in bed as I’m wak­ing up — but that’s usu­al­ly as far as it goes. I’ve tried to nour­ish a stronger bond with him by prac­tic­ing con­trolled feed­ing and mak­ing sure I pick him up sev­er­al times a day, but he’s always remained a kit­ty of his own.