Thunder Unleashed

It was a bad scene. My dad had just gotten home from his travels and greeted his dog. I was sitting in the dining room talking on the phone. I hung up, and Dad came over to see me. The dining room table belongs to Thunder. It is where he eats, sleeps and hunts by watching out the picture window. He has a blanket with his heated snuggle safe under to keep his paws warm. He wasn’t on the table, so my dad patted his snuggle safe to see if it was warm.




A moment later, the dog was on the dining room table. (I can’t believe she could jump that high from a standstill.) She thought Dad was signaling her to jump up. I grabbed her before she could find his food and put her on the floor.



This is where the scene gets really ugly. Thunder saw what she did, charged over and started smacking her—all claws out. He chased her under the table to the other side and cornered her. I grabbed her and pulled her out of the way. He came after her and continued to pummel her. I urged her out of the room to safety.



He was livid. A few minutes later, she ventured back to the dining room. Thunder walked up to her and sniffed her nose. I thought all was fine until he walked over to her side and started to pummel her again. She tried to get out of the way, but he pinned her to my dad’s legs and kept up. Dad moved and she ran off.



After that, he kept an eye on her and attacked her every time he saw her for about an hour. She quit coming to his side of the house until evening, and right before bed, he chased her out of the living room and guarded the door to keep her from coming back.



I brought him upstairs to bed, and he settled down.



I am glad to say that he did a good job with dog training. I left his food on the table, and it was still there this morning. She didn’t go up there on her own and eat it. He just ignored her this morning. I think the crisis is over.



I am wondering if he was returned to the cat shelter by his previous adopters—not because he wouldn’t use the litter box as they told me, but because he was terrorizing the rest of the animals in the house!