Penelope - The Inappropriate Toucher

As I've mentioned before, I've never really been a cat person; however, our house now looks like the house from the movie "Sleepwalkers". We have two outdoor/indoor cats - Scratch and Mouser - so we usually keep some cat food outside for them. All this gourmet cat food in front of our house has attracted every other neighborhood (and stray) cat. We're like the cool parents on the street.

We give names to all the cats who visit our house, but most of them are pretty scared of people (and our big dog Molly) so they don't come inside. In the picture above, the cat closest to the door is Mouser (our cat), the orange cat eating is Penelope (but I call her Peenie) and the black cat standing on the grass/dirt is Sheba. There are a couple other cats that visit (not pictured) - including Wiki-Peenie (short for Wicked Penelope - because she's orange like Penelope, but looks EVIL) and Weenie (who is very tiny and cute, but hasn't been around in months).

Our cats interact with the outside cats on a daily basis and they have their own little pride hierarchy (I like to pretend that I'm the Jane Goodall of the domestic cat). Peenie (Liz hates this name, so I'll write it as often as I can) is like the "special" child in school. She (I don't even know if she is really a she) LOVES to rub up against all the other cats. She literally throws herself at them as though she's hugging them. The other cats respond to this affection by hissing and scratching at poor Peenie. Buttin and I feel badly for Peenie - all she wants is love, but she's like the kid in school who hugs everyone inappropriately all the time.

The strange thing is that Peenie does not like human attention. If I try to pet her - she runs away; however, whenever I'm outside taking Cartman out or putting food in the bowl - she bumps and grinds up against me like a desperate prostitute. I used to think that Peenie was the alpha cat and that this rubbing was a sign of dominance; however, after seeing how the other cats treat Peenie - I can tell she's just the unpopular one. Poor Peenie.