9 Lives X 4 Cats is Oh Help Us

This blog is specifically about Libby and technically about the two dogs. I say technically about the two dogs not because I think they are not dogs. I am pretty certain Libby is and I will grant you that Meeko looks like a dog. No, I mean technically about the dogs because I do not want to talk about the dogs this time.

I want to talk about the cats. I want to but I am afraid they might find out. You see cats were once worshiped as gods in ancient Egypt. Do not think for a moment that cats have forgotten or that they take kindly to their loss of status.  We have four cats or, possibly, four cats have us; it’s nip and tuck day to day.

The first cat we had was named Captain. It was given to Katherine by a friend of Connie’s to replace a lost pet. The second cat we have Connie and I named Bookworm for her affinity for sitting, sleeping, lounging, creeping and licking herself on my books. She was given to us by an unknown Tom cat that got to Captain before we could get her to the vet. The third cat came with the house. When we moved in Marshmallow was there looking up as if to say, “’bout time Butt Wipe, now where’s the food?” The final cat was a little gift given to us through Bookworm by way of another itinerant mouser. Katherine named this one Adora. I call it Arrhythmia the whys of that will be explained later.

The cat Baby Boom is now over. Once things settled we got everyone “fixed”: a euphemism I never understood. Biologically the problem is that they worked just fine. We got them “busted”.

Captain, the first cat, was fine with me. Every once in a while she rubbed my leg, equally as rarely I scratched her chin, her habit of chewing head hair did not bother me (see picture of author’s head) and she never went potty on my personals. Also she had a tendency to take long walks, a month was not uncommon, who can ask more of a cat.

Bookworm seems to like me. We have the same taste in reading. However, as she has gotten older she has been afflicted by a chronic case of the heebie jeebies. Ever seen those cartoons where a cat flies in all different directions at once and looks like somebody attached jumper cables to it? Who knew that was true. Also she finds my taste in music boring.

Marshmallow is….. well… Marshmallow’s breed is…. I think his father was a basset hound and his mother escaped from Area 51. But I am not really certain. One day he is Einstein the next day he can’t figure out how his feet work. One day he is a tiger on the hunt the next day he runs away from a flying leaf. Everyone has baggage, Marshmallow has trunks.

That leaves Arrhythmia, oh I meant Adora. I will say all I have to say about Adora with a question, do they make Kitty Lithium? I would say she is as crazy as a stripped ape but stripped apes would picket me.

So that is our little family of cats and Katherine LOVES everyone one of them. Connie is an avowed animal lover and will see no harm come to any animal except, possibly, this author. So I am stuck with them.

The converse of that problem is (mu ha ha ha) they are stuck with me too.

Possum Hunting

I’m running a little behind. We were in Vacation Bible School all week, and then spent yesterday playing house cleaning catch-up.


Where ever you are, I hope you are getting cool temperatures and rain. We are getting neither. If you are in the midst of a drought/heat wave like we are, and you are reading this blog, I probably don’t need to tell you to look out for the four-legged members of your family. This heat is hard on them too. Three of the four cats usually come in long enough to eat this time of year, and head right back out. This last week they’ve spent more time indoors.

The dogs, however, seem to be having the opposite reaction. Here lately, they’ve barely given us enough time to put out fresh food and water. Particularly Libby, who comes in, checks out the scrap bowl to see if there is something she might be interested in eating, and goes right back out. Meeko, at least, wants to say hello to us too. Of course, if it’s in the scrap bowl, he’ll eat it. We’re not sure what’s going on out there that is so interesting in this heat, but we aren’t going to force them to stay in. They have plenty of shade and fresh water. Libby has dug herself a nice crater to lie in.

A few times a year, some unfortunate, or maybe just intellectually challenged, critter finds itself on the wrong side of the fence. We’ve found at least three raccoons and two ‘possums “treed”. When that happens, there is no doubt as to their interest in being outside. They let us know right away.

Meeko, who is two years old now, has developed a deep, beautiful, big dog voice. When he gets excited however, he still reverts to a puppy yip that travels for miles and has the same effect as nails on chalkboard. A few days last week, he was very interested in something under the dog house, and was yipping quite a bit. Ed went out to look from the outside of the fence, but didn’t see anything. Since Libby wasn’t interested in whatever it was, we really didn’t think much of it.

We’ve decided, after much research and thought, that the part of Libby that is not Lab is probably Husky, or something close to that. Although, she too, has a big dog bark, when she gets excited, the sounds coming from her sound like nothing any dog should make… ever. The first time I heard it, I thought she was dying. Have you ever seen the Husky saying “I love you” on YouTube? It’s kind of like that…at least parts of it is. Because it’s not an all the time thing for her, when she starts making that noise, we investigate. Normally, its buzzards flying too close for her comfort (she REALLY has a thing about birds), or someone riding an ATV (she hates them) or something like that. A few days after Meeko started yipping at the dog house, Libby started making that noise. I went out where I could see the back of the dog house. They were both trying to dig their way in. I went to get Ed.

We made the dogs come inside and then we went out. You have to understand, the navigable space behind the dog house is about five square feet…maybe. Not really enough room to lie down in, which is what we needed to do to see. Neither one of us was crazy about sticking our face in there either. We were both thinking it might be a snake. Anyway, Ed finally managed to get himself where he could see (this is how we found out the electric fence is off…as long as the dogs don’t know), and I got myself where I could hold the flashlight where it would do some good.

It was a ‘possum. Ok so how are we going to get him out? Ed got a stick and tried to shove him out (remember the maneuverability issue?) After some grunting, groaning, and mild cursing, Ed got the stick in behind the critter, which ran out the other side. It was a baby, probably about the same size as a four month old kitten. If a ‘possum can be cute, this one was!

The little thing scampered up the hill, up a tree, and across the fence to freedom, as Ed and I tried to extricate ourselves from behind the dog house. He had better luck than we did, but we finally managed to get up and out too.

I think the dogs were a little annoyed. About ten minutes after we let them back out, we checked on them. They were both sitting there looking at us, like “What did you do with it? Ed, did you eat our ‘possum?”

At least it’s quiet…for now.

Of Murder and Meeko

I tend to be a long suffering man who can keep a firm grip upon his own angers, frustrations, disappointments and negative feelings. Then, of course, there is Meeko.  There is a rumor that Meeko is a dog. You are welcome to believe that if you wish and I admit he looks like a dog but I am personally convinced he is demonic.

First, how we got Meeko. The neighbors had a Lab mix pup they could not keep. He was, essentially, a black tornado with feet. Kyle, Connie’s 2^nd son, age 18 at the time, said the awful words. “Mom, can I have him?” Connie’s great and wonderful soft heart just melted and she approached me, dog beside her.

I am an old soldier and a pragmatist through and through. We needed another dog like a local Democrat needs an Obama endorsement. There was just no way we could possibly keep another animal. I was going to tell her that. I looked into my lady’s soft, brown loving eyes. “Okay,” I mumbled, “but Kyle has to be responsible for him.” I swear the damned dog winked at me.

We live in a house about the size of a saltine cracker box. At the time there were four humans occupying the dwelling with three cats and, during the evenings, Libby, who like to eat golf-ball sized holes in any piece of my clothing she could get her mouth on. Meeko was one dog too far.

I decided to build a fenced-in yard in the back. Fencing is expensive and putting up fencing is hard work but there was a long fence running parallel to the house in just the right place so all I would have to do is patch it, raise it to the five feet height I desired, move the dog house inside the fence line and close the two ends.

By this time Kyle, being a young man, had moved out. We note he did not take Meeko. So the main part of the job was on me. A word about the dog house. This dog house was a hand-me-down from Connie’s mother who had it built at some expense for a large dog. No matter the expense, I do not believe the builder made any profit. Everything went for materials. The dog house weighs, plus or minus, four hundred pounds. It is built to specifications that would shame a bomb shelter. It is about as easy to move as one of the great pyramids.

Having finished all but the point at which I planned to push, pull, drag and curse the dog house through and having used Connie’s good offices to get Kyle (who I nicknamed Bam Bam after the Flintstone character) over, we began the process of moving the dog house the couple hundred feet to its new home. To finish this job we enlisted David and his four-wheeler but finally got the dog house into place.

All right, dog house is in place and I finish putting up the last of the fence. I am standing outside the fence, observing, and Connie lets Meeko and Libby out the back door into their new yard. Within seconds Libby is standing beside me, outside the fence, looking in at Meeko. Being observant, it looked to me like Libby had ran through the fence at a point twenty feet or so up the hill. The fact was she had went under it in a spot that would confound a rabbit.

That was the start, Libby would be the under-dog. What we did not know is that, sometime in the future, Meeko would distinguish himself as the over, around, through, between, atop and multi-dimensional dog. (Sometimes I had no idea how he had gotten out).

After Libby’s one trip out the tiny place, and our closing it off, the dogs seemed content with their new home. Who wouldn’t be? They had shade, running room, a house, food, water and all the weird stuff they could find to chew up. Then Meeko discovered the roof. Since Connie talked about this, I will not dwell on it. Suffice it to say this was my first inkling that the dog was possibly a demonic spirit. Why would a dog climb a house?

 Once David and I cut off easy access to the top of the house things seemed to settle down. Then the Ankle Biters showed up. We got a new neighbor with two dogs.  Well at least one of them was a dog, the other was possibly a very vocal rat. The neighbor was having trouble keeping his two dogs penned up, they had a knack for slipping their collars and escaping.

“Escaping,” thought Meeko, “now there is an idea.” If my memory serves, Meeko’s first attempt was over the old portion of the fence. It was successful beyond his wildest dreams. He was so proud of himself he came to the front door of the house to tell us about it. Connie, having a well developed sense of the absurd, which she needs because she lives with me, laughed.

I was not nearly as impressed.

I patched and re-enforced the section of fence that Meeko had pushed down. His next attempt was a little more direct. He chose a square in this welded wire fencing and pushed his head through it. Yes, as a matter of fact, I did say he pushed his head through a six inch section of welded wire fence popping the welds. Next came his shoulders then his paws and out he was. This time Libby, not to be outdone, followed him. This little jaunt cost our long suffering friend David a chicken, and me more exercise than I wanted, but oh was Meeko proud! No ankle bitter mutt was going to out-do him.

I fixed the break. David suggested electric fencing but I was not to be outdone by a dog. Over the next month or so Meeko went over, yes under, he learned from Libby, and through my fence at a dozen places. The fence began to look like the boundary fence for Area 51.

It has barbed wire around the top, a rocks lined along the bottom, heavy duty fencing up to three feet and various wire patches laced through it. Through the whole production David continued mildly suggesting an electric fence. By now it was the principle of the thing, right?

One morning, having came home the night before and fixed the fence in the dark, I went out to find Meeko playing in the side yard, cavorting as proud of himself as only a Lab who broke fence can be.  I have been a soldier and a cop, and I will tell you never has murder entered my heart until that day.

I took the sixty odd pound dog by his collar, picked him up and the intent of my heart of hearts was to break his ornery, recalcitrant, stubborn, unrelenting, devious neck like a pencil. I would kill him and that would be that. I called down on that dog every curse, insult and disparaging phrase twenty-two years of military service and an active imagination could devise. His life span shrunk to milliseconds. I was going to murder him.

Then he looked up at me with that happy-happy lab look and tried to lick my face.

I flung the hound from me and staggered in the house where I flopped in my chair taking great gasping breaths. Murder, once established in your heart, is not an easy thing to let go of. Connie got up and found me like that, shaking like a hippy in a honky-tonk. She put the dog back, and put me down for a nap. She called Kyle and the two of them fixed the latest break in my fence.

Let me say two words to you about Houdini dogs, those dogs that no barrier seems able to dissuade or contain: electric fence. Thanks David.

Long Time, No Write

Wow! I didn't realize I hadn't written here in nearly two years. Time sure does fly!  It would simply take too long to explain "where" I've been so I won't bore you with the details.

I'll do my best to catch up and then keep up.

The current count is two dogs (Libby and Meeko) and four cats (Marshmallow, Captain, Bookworm, and Adora [Bookworm's baby]) Other than the normal flea and tick problems, everyone is doing well.

We enclosed about a half acre at the rear of our house. The dogs stay out there most of the time. Meeko, who now weighs nearly 70 pounds no longer fits in the crate so we had to look at other options, particularly since housebreaking never completely "took" with him. We had to make changes with Libby too. Letting her have the run of the house during the night led her to making her own fun (yes we did have toys for her) like pulling books off the bookshelves and chewing the corners! Eventually, we decided  to just bring them in for a little while every day, so that we could spend time with them, and then we put them back out. We also bought "Gentle Leader" head harnesses for both of them and take them out for long walks when we can.

For nearly a year, the dogs seemed to enjoy their new "kennel". The only problem we had was their roof climbing. Because the dog house is so big, there was only one place to put it where it would be level, and that was right up next to the house.  The dogs discovered they could get on top of the dog house and then get on the roof. From inside, the noise was like the proverbial herd of buffaloes! Neither one of them ever tried to jump off the other side, but they sure looked like they were considering it. For a while, our house was known as the one with the dogs on the roof!

                                               Meeko on the roof!

 Ed and our landlord fixed things finally so that the dogs couldn't get on top of the dog house, and for awhile at least, all was peaceful.

Then people moved into the house up the hill (as the crow flies) from us. They have dogs too, and they get loose on occasion. Seeing other dogs running about when he was confined made Meeko crazy. At least that is what we think happened. In the next blog, I'll let Ed tell you about last fall when Meeko became a canine Houdini!

Connie