Their only interactions were on opposite sides of the screen door — contemptuous staring matches that would have been much uglier had a barrier not separated them.
Inside the house was Casey, a tabby cat who had been his owner’s only feline until Sweetie arrived on the scene. Sweetie was on the outside, where she had been since her earliest days of life, when her mother dropped her and three littermates in Gordon Dyker’s carport in 1997.