Dominance vs Playtime

I am constantly fighting for the position of pack leader in my home. My cat, Lady, seems to believe that he is the pack leader. He bullies the dog and the other cats and is constantly trying to prove his dominance. However, he has yet to prove the dominance over me. I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth this morning and, as usual, Emmys was at my feet waiting on me to finish. When Lady walked into the bathroom, Emmys immediately lowered down and slowly backed out of the bathroom before being swatted at by Lady. She knows Lady is the dominant one. All of my cats are aware of this dominance.

Aspen, however, finds Lady's dominance somewhat humoring. When Aspen passes Lady, Lady will growl and hiss at her as if to say, "step another step closer and you'll be eating claws for lunch!" Aspen will not listen though. When she sees Lady in this type of mood, Aspen will playfully lie down on the floor, wag her tail, and begin barking at her. Lady's so-called dominance over Aspen is nothing but mere play time to her.

Aspen understands that, hands down, I'm the pack leader. Therefore, Lady trying to be dominant over Aspen has no effect on her. Aspen will jump around Lady and bark as if to say, "OK! You wanna wrestle? Then lets wrestle!" This frustrates Lady to no end. Lady becomes even more aggressive after a while, but Aspen still will not listen. Aspen knows I'm the pack leader and she knows there's no way Lady is going to win that position. It's funny watching the two of them go back and forth. There's never any actual injuries. It's all threats. However, seeing Aspen view this as playtime is very humorous.

I can't help but wonder what Lady's reaction will be when she realizes she cannot dominate Aspen. Hmmm, maybe that's a blog for another day...