instinctive enemies?

I was very taken with this story about the snake who was given a hamster to eat, but decided to make friends with it instead. Ever since then I've been thinking about what might have been going on in the snake's head. Did it actually like the hamster? Was it lonely? Or was it one of those things where the hamster just looked overly fluffy and perhaps thus too big, intimidating the snake until he forgot that the hamster was also food? Does it bother the hamster when it watches its pal inevitably swallowing down other rodents whole?

Perhaps it was the hamster's inately bad temper. I've had hamsters before; I know about this first hand. Or perhaps it's their smell. Hamsters really don't smell all that good. Not nearly so good as, say, mice.

Anyway, these unlikely friendships do seem to occur among animals. I've been much impressed with the friendship between my rowdy little corgi and my bad tempered elderly cat. The cat has always been a loner; when we tried to introduce other cats into the mix, for example, she'd nastily chase them up and down the hall and then box their ears for them. When I met my husband, my bad-tempered cat was obliged to live in harmony with his sweet (though powerfully empty-minded) old Persian. My cat lived upstairs in the closet for two whole years while we had that Persian, coming downstairs only to use her catbox, glower at the other cat, and then return to her hidey-hole.

I regret to say that the day of the Persian's death (from old age) was one of the happiest of my cat's life. She came downstairs in her usual sulky way, paused at the bottom of the steps, took a good sniff and had a look around, and chirked up immediately.

"Wowwow," she said.

And she never returned to that closet again.

But she's quite fond of the corgi. I don't get this. They sit cozily next to each other on the sofa; they jostle comfortably against each other as they walk down the hall; the corgi even periodically washes my cat's ears for her. I really don't get it. Sometimes my grouchy cat even purrs for the corgi.

Of course, it's clear in this relationship who's boss. Maybe that's the secret.