Prince Vlad always did have an air of royalty about him, even as a newly weaned, six-week-old kitten. And, he was a beautiful cat, even then. I was attracted to him because of his shiny black coat and those big dark eyes. He was the pick of the litter, no doubt about it. In those days he was so small that he fit easily into the palm of my hand, and when I picked him up, he just smiled at me and purred. Self-confidence was never a problem for Prince Vlad. He was a bit bigger and a bit stronger than his litter mates, and he was used to getting his way. But, then again, isn’t that true of all alpha males?

Vlad wore the mantle of royalty well, nobles oblige. For all of his physical prowess, he had a very gentle disposition. He could rough house with the best of them, especially as a young juvenile, but he was never mean or deliberately violent toward anyone, neither cat nor human. When he did rough house with Miles, the little gray cat that we had gotten as a playmate for him, Vlad would invariably come out on top. Miles did get in his shots, though. There was an awful lot of ear-biting and rolling around on the floor in one big gray and black ball. Miles did not admit defeat until he was completely exhausted. And, it wasn’t very long before he challenged Vlad once again.

I had a small counseling practice in those days, and I worked out of my home office at times. This allowed me to catch a short mid-noon nap on the living room couch, occasionally. These were important bonding experiences for me and the little prince. Vlad was also in need of a respite at that time of day after a morning of intense kitten training that involved not only the ear-biting and roller ball mentioned above, but also a non-stop game of tag that featured both cats leaping on and over couches and chairs, whether occupied or not.

I can’t remember exactly how it began, whether I picked him up or if crawled up on me. What eventually evolved was a siesta for two with me lying on my back and Vlad nestled in the center of my chest. I would stroke him and calm him down for a while and then drift off to sleep. When I awoke about a half an hour or so later, he would still be there. We shared this mutually pleasing ritual for about two months. By then he was no longer a kitten. He needed more room to stretch out his growing body.

Our relationship was not always idyllic. There were some very testy moments, like the time I first tried to put a flea collar on the six-month-old prince. I carried the scars from his claw marks for many months afterwards. Introducing cats to flea collars was not a new activity for me. I was a veteran. That was probably my undoing. I had too much confidence in my ability to get the job done, regardless of how much the cat resisted. In the end I was always successful, as I was with Vlad, but the rich, red blood oozing from a series of deep scratches on the back of both of my hands told me that this was at best a Pyrrhic victory. And, even that did not last long. Vlad never stopped trying to work free from the collar. He ended up with his lower jaw wedged under it. I reached for the scissors, snipped off the collar, and went to the medicine cabinet to begin tending to my wounds. We would have to find another solution to flea protection, but not today.

Then there was the moving experience. It turns out that royalty does not travel well, not even when heavily sedated. We had to move by car to another city about 135 miles away. It was a journey that would take two and a half excruciatingly long hours. Moaning, whining, crying. Moaning, whining, crying. Non-stop all the way. Somehow, Vlad managed to fight off the full effects of the powerful sedative that the vet had given him. He stayed conscious enough throughout the trip to let us know that he was not happy, every minute and every mile of the way. When we finally got to our new home and I opened his carrying case to let him out, he just disappeared and did not resurface for two whole days. We were afraid that he had run away. I guess he was just trying to teach us a lesson.

Vlad’s superior strength and endurance had a more humor-ous result the day we bought him “the cat toy that could not be broken”. It was made of a very strong plastic material. It had a ball that ran in a winding channel. No matter how hard the cat swatted at the ball, it just could not be dislodged from its rigid channel. The toy was an instant success with Vlad. He played with it for hours before I left for an appointment. He swatted; it ran in its channel. He bit at it; it just smiled back at him. Swat, bite, push, grab, pull. It did, indeed, seem indestructible. Imagine my surprise when I returned from my appointment and found the shell of the toy lying on the floor in the kitchen. The ball was no-where to be seen. Final score: PrinceVlad 1, IndestructibleToy 0! The prince had won again.

Being an alpha male does have its downside. It means that there is always some young gun waiting to take a shot at you. Vlad had this reality reinforced for him after Sparky came to live with us one Christmas Eve. Prince Vlad was a mature cat of three by then. He was everything a male cat could hope to be: beautiful-ly proportioned, shiny black fur from head to toe, with a supple power that allowed him to float up above his intended landing place and then just settle down softly on it. He was poetry in motion, and he knew it.

Sparky was a kitten when he first came to us, not more than ten or twelve weeks old. For the first month or so, life was rather calm and uneventful. That all changed as Sparky grew. Since there were no other kittens in the house, Sparky had to enlist one of the adult cats in his daily kitten training exercises. He chose Vlad.

Sparky had many ways of initiating these encounters, but his favorite game was “torpedo”. He would hide behind the couch and wait for an unsuspecting Vlad to come strolling by. As soon as he was in range, Sparky would rush out and hurl himself head-first into Vlad’s unsuspecting rib cage. It worked every time. Of course, when Vlad regained his bearings, things changed quickly. He ran Sparky down, pinned him to the rug, and rested his full weight on top of him. The Prince would reigned supreme for many years to come.