Yep, we've gone and done it one last time -- finally getting, we think, the cat we wanted in the first place (not that we're unhappy with Panther and Jennifur, just that -- well, we're very purr-ticular, I guess).

Glory is a full-blooded Bengal; a retired breeding queen who we got from JungleKatz Bengals. If you want to see what one of Glory's kittens looks like, check out this page and scroll down to "Cheetahro".

Until yesterday, we had never even seen a Bengal, and suddenly we have one! Here's JungleKatz Bengals' FAQ page, and here's a FAQ page from another site with some interesting photos of Asian Leopard Cats.

Glory is amazingly beautiful, incredibly soft, friendly, and moves faster than any cat we've ever seen. She's reputed to flip in midair and walk happily on a leash, and we can't wait to see that (update: she does!)! But the first challenge was getting her home, where we decided to keep her in our bedroom until she got to know us all and seemed ready to meet Panther and Jennifur. Of course, both our cats knew there was "someone else" in the house...probably before we even got out of the car.

It was Panther who first came sniffing around at the bedroom door and making little questioning noises. Glory heard this and, being a cat, went over to her side of the door and listened. After a while they were purring to each other through the door -- certainly a good sign.

However, Jennifur is not only territorial, but a bit jealous over me as well...and what's more, we've kept her out of our bedroom for weeks because of allergic reactions. So to see the newcomer, another female, being ushered into such a restricted area was a bit more than she could take.

She showed up at the door making odd noises, which definitely didn't sound friendly.

Glory went over, as before, and the next thing we heard sounded very much like Jennifur sticking her arm under the door to scratch at Glory. I called, "Hey!", to try to break up whatever was going on, and Glory came away from there. But Jennifur stayed just outside, making challenge noises. After a while, I went to the door myself, yanked it open quickly, and was rewarded by seeing Jennifur run away with a (slightly) guilty look on her face.

If that was all, it would have been OK.

Later, Glory came out from under our bed and slept next to us...something that neither of our other cats has done yet in all the months we've had them. It was very nice to have a warm female on either side of me, purring :-)

This bliss was interrupted several times by repeated loud noises which I interpreted as either a small Mongol horde with a battering ram, or Jennifur running full tilt into the bedroom door, leading with her head.

This did not bode well, and in fact sounded like jealous desperation. By morning, at the ungodly hour of 6:30 AM, Jennifur was yowling outside, banging on the door, and Glory was up and wary on the inside. Susan got up to see how serious things were getting, and told me later that Jennifur was hissing and spitting so fiercely that she could feel it coming underneath the door.

Jennifur was highly pissed off. She wasn't going to give up her position without a fight, and she was going on the offensive with all her feral instincts raised.

(To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure if the position referred to in the previous paragraph involves her on-again/off-again relationship with Panther or her cuddly one with me.)

Anyway, Susan was concerned over all this antagonism (and spittle) that was being sent at Glory, and she wanted to put an immediate stop to it. Knowing that Jennifur was just on the other side of the door and was ready to slip in at a moment's notice, I tried to warn Susan to fling the door open to scare Jennifur away. But she didn't hear it in time, or didn't "fling" with sufficient alacrity, because the next thing I heard was Susan saying, "Shit! Glory got out!"

This was the last thing I had expected, given Jennifur's aggressive behavior and Glory's general inclination to stay under the bed. But by the time I had leaped out of bed and made it out the door and into the hall, it was all over.

Susan was walking slowly back to our bedroom holding Glory cradled in her arms. For one terrible moment, I thought the worst: poor dear Glory hadn't even made it through 24 hours in our house before she had been clawed to death by our jealous little formerly-feral Jennifur.

But as Paul Harvey would say: now, the rest of the story (more or less as told to me by Susan).

Glory had launched herself from our bedroom like a cat out of hell, while letting out a fearful noise that can only be described as a war cry. Tearing down the hall, she chased a suddenly-scared-out-of-her-mind Jennifur all the way to the kitchen -- which is not only as far as the hall goes, but a place where Glory herself had never even been before. She then stopped, turned around, and majestically sauntered back to Susan, who picked her up and carried her back to the bedroom.

I got there just in time to see our original two cats, who suddenly had little word balloons over their heads. Panther, who was standing in the hall, still looking down towards the kitchen, was thinking, "Whoa! Who was that babe, anyway?" And poor little Jennifur was fearfully standing in my office, peering around the corner, as if to say, "Is she gone yet?"

She had been completely outclassed.

Our new, dainty, pedigreed Glory, mother to a hundred kittens, has an impeccable line of breeding going back eight generations. But one of those ancestors was a genuine, wild Asian leopard cat. And against that kind of ancestry, even feral Jennifur had absolutely no chance.

So without a single blow being struck, Glory had overturned the status quo in a matter of a few seconds.

Or as Susan said, "Jennifur was the only female around before, but Glory's a true queen."