This weekend we were invited to dinner by Oscar the dog’s folks.

When we lived at Le Palais, Louis Catorze used to take a “Ta maison est ma maison” approach: if we were invited to dinner by neighbours he would hop over the fence and join us. (Yes, he would actually come INTO the house and have a good old explore as we dined.) We were curious to see what would happen if our hosts had a pet, and suspected it would go one way or the other. In this case it was the other.

This is how the first part of our evening panned out:

19:50 – Arrive
19:51 – Drinks in garden
19:52 – Oscar spots Louis Catorze through the fence and the barking starts
19:54 – Louis Catorze spots us, has a brief ” … the hell are you doing THERE?” moment, then continues to stare at Oscar, who continues to bark
19:55 – Dog Daddy hauls Oscar’s arse into the house
20:00 – Louis Catorze seizes his chance and crosses the border
20:01 to 20:15 – Lots of meowing, rolling and nuzzling as Louis Catorze can’t quite believe his luck: not only has he taken control of enemy territory and banished his foe, but he has succeeded in getting his foe’s humans to stroke him
20:16 – Louis Catorze climbs onto the roof of Oscar’s folks’ summer house
20:17 – With Catorze safely out of reach, Dog Mamma and Dog Daddy let Oscar back out again
20:18 to 20:23 – 5 minutes of Oscar frantically searching every inch of the garden like a truffling pig, utterly flummoxed as to how he could smell a cat yet not see it, whilst Louis Catorze observes him from his lofty perch (see photo)
20:24 – Idiot Catorze meows and gives away his hiding place
20:24 plus 1 second – Upon hearing the meow, Oscar’s head whips round like one of the velociraptors from Jurassic Park
20:24 plus 2 seconds – All hell breaks loose with Oscar, now white-hot with rage, bouncing up and down in an attempt to reach Le Roi
20:25 – Dog Daddy hauls Oscar’s arse back into the house and, at the same time, the mighty Sun King, ruler of nations and commander of armies, realises he can’t get down from the roof, so he is plucked to safety by Cat Daddy and tossed undignifiedly back over the fence to his rightful side of the border
20:26 – Peace

It did get better after the separation of the warring factions. But the jury is still out as to whether we will be invited back.