Durango and Malachi

Back before the wife and I married, I had a dog named Durango. He was going to be the wife’s dog but I ended up with him instead. My dog Roscoe had just passed away. Bruno, my remaining dog had grown up with Roscoe. They’d been packmates his entire life. Bruno took Roscoe’s passing very hard. He would get agitated to the point that I would have to put him in the car and drive around so he could look for Roscoe.

Durango was in the local shelter. The wife was going to adopt him but ended up in the hospital. She asked me to go visit Durango in the shelter. We got along well and it occurred to me that if he and Bruno got along, Durango might be a good companion for my grieving dog. In the end I adopted him and he and Bruno got along well enough.

Durango’s one great flaw was that he was very cat aggressive. When we went on walks, he would try to bolt after any cats he saw, usually with the intent of making them join the Choir Invisible. Since there were many strays in my neighborhood, this always made for interesting walks.

At the time, the wife had a Turkish Van cat named Malachi. Malachi was a great cat. Vey laid back. He liked water, which is strange for a cat. He thought he was a dog. The other dogs in the wife’s household at the time accepted Malachi as one of their own.

When we got married and merged households, we weren’t sure what would happen between Malachi and Durango. I was certain that Durango would maul Malachi the first time they saw each other. Malachi usually stayed upstairs in the wife’s house, while her dogs stayed downstairs.

As it turned out the first meeting between the two shocked me. Durango was lying in the middle of the living room floor. Malachi had come downstairs, probably to get some food or something, and proceeded to walk through the middle of the living room. As Malachi passed by, Durango lifted his head, watched Malachi pass, then laid back down. No jumping to his feet, grabbing Malachi with his teeth and shredding the cat. It seemed he’d accepted Malachi as just another dog in the house.

This went on for several months. I kept expecting something was going to happen and Durango would try to kill Malachi, but that moment didn’t come. Well, eventually it did.

One afternoon I was in the living room when I heard a commotion in the dining room. Durango was barking his head off and Malachi was hissing. I ran into the dining room to find Malachi on one of the chairs, mostly under the table, while Durango was busy trying to get at him. I grabbed Durango by the collar and pulled him away. Malachi took that opportunity to run out of the room and back upstairs. I suspect Durango got curious, went over to give Malachi a good sniffing, and Malachi took offense and swatted him on the nose. I don’t know for certain this is what happened but I suspect this to be true.

After that, it was war between them. The biggest problem is Durango convinced the other dogs that Malachi was someone to be attacked. Things were always uneasy when Malachi came downstairs. There was one time when Malachi went into the backyard. The dogs were outside and cornered him by the back fence. I had to go rescue Malachi from them.

I think Malachi finally reasserted his dominance not too long before Durango passed away. He got them inline so that he could come downstairs and get in his cat tower without incident.

Both Durango and Malachi are gone now. Durango crossed the Rainbow Bridge. Malachi was taken by a nasty lady working at the Best Western hotel in Murphy, NC during one of our migrations between Texas and our new area. They are both missed.

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