All Things Great And Small
I recently had the joy of looking after my neighbours’ furkids for a week. Anyone who says that animals don’t have unique characters and personalities is beyond ignorant, in my view.
The matriarch of the clan (although this fact is hotly disputed by the cats) is a gentle old soul call Tessa. Tessa is a Rhodesian Ridgeback with lots of lovely, wise, grey fur on her face.
Tessa has two personal henchmen: Max, a very puzzled Rhodesian Ridgeback (details to follow) and Dusty, an Australian Shepherd (I think) crossed with a shaggy rug.
The three littlest furries consist of Brolie (aka Fat Cat), a charcoal and white stripy boy, Hayley, a teeny ginger ballerina of a kitty and Pikachoo (no idea how to spell his name), a handsome ginger and white cat.
Now certainly the most colourful character would be Dusty. EVERYthing he does is big, over the top and loud. He jumps about like he has ants in his pants and demands non-stop games. And if I ignore him he will dash up to one of the other furkids and try to bite or lick a little game out of them. And he never talks quietly. Dusty can only shout ... VERY loudly. Each time I arrived at the house he would yell “AUNTY LYNDA, YAY! THANK HEAVENS YOU’RE HERE. WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN FOR THE LAST THREE WEEKS?” Dusty doesn’t have much sense of timing and likes to believe that a few hours are actually a few weeks. Dusty also likes to shout at anyone who walks past his house. And he could be a very formidable picture if he didn’t wave his tail as hard as he did. But thank goodness for his waggy tail otherwise you might not see him. You see Dusty is an extremely skinny dude despite the fact that he eats like a small herd of buffalo. So if Dusty stands facing you and doesn’t wave at you with his tail you might not see him at all. In fact, when he lies in the sun on his side he looks just like road-kill. But pop past any time of the day and you will find Dusty standing at the gate waving at you with his tail. Approach the gate and he’ll shout “YAY! ARE YOU COMING TO PLAY WITH ME?”
Now Dame Tessie-Tootle, as I like to call her, has a rare ability to fool you. Tessa is built like an American aircraft carrier. I kid you not, you could probably have a game of chess of her back and none of the pieces would fall off. But catch her eye and smack your hands on your knees and Game On! This corpulent canine turns into a bouncing, bounding puppy who forgets how much she weighs when she nearly bumps you over the garden wall. She LOVES to play! But when she’s tired she will put her massive head into your lap and somehow manages to stick to you like a burr to a jersey. She loves having soppy, hugs. Now and then she chooses bed over breakfast but is completely open to bribery (a beeno or a small handful of cat food) in order to move her huge body off the bed and outside.
Let’s turn now to Max, the Puzzled-Terrier. A few years ago Max ate some poison which made him VERY sick. It took many weeks for him to recover but it left Max with a long lasting reminder: his head tilts slightly giving him a rather comical puzzled expression. Before Max became ill he wasn’t the brightest school child. Don’t get me wrong. Max is incredibly handsome but it’s clear that God gave him looks instead of brains. Poor, POOR Max. Now every night when I arrived to put the doggies to bed I would open the door and they would all rush inside as though it were more a rare treat than a daily occurrence. Max would head for the cat food (he’s clever enough to figure out that he can jump over the shin-high barrier) while Tessa would head for Max’s bed. Max sleeps in the first bedroom and he even allows Melissa (his human) to sleep on the bed too ... sometimes. But by the time Max had polished off the cat food he would return to find his earthly bed full of someone else: Tessa. Oh, the woe! Oh, the dejection! He would push against me and then put his saddest eyes on and lift his head as high as he could and wail “Aunty Lyn, Tessa’s in my bed, make her get out.” He even tried to squeeze out some real tears. Now I don’t believe for one second that I could have moved Tessa off that bed, even with a front loader. So poor, POOR Max would have to choose another bed to sleep on.
Each time I opened the front door I was treated to the sight of three cats perched on the edge of a table, one behind the other, like they might if they were on a bus. But as soon as they realised I was laughing at them they would leap off and pretend that they hadn’t just done that. Cats can be quite clever. But not always.
Take Brolie, for example. He’s got plenty of street suss but just sometimes he pushes his luck. From time to time I will find him swaggering up and down on the pavement jiggling his tail at my bull terriers. Now if my bullies weren’t as staunchly porky as they are they would squeeze through the palisade and see off every last one of the Brolie’s nine lives in a matter of seconds. But he loves to tease, does the Brolie-Cat. And then he takes it one step further. I have, more than once, arrived home at night to find Brolie sitting in the middle of my lawn. He assumes that my bullies are inside at night and won’t come out to greet me. I’m awfully concerned that young Brolie might learn the hard way that assumption is the mother of all *%#!-ups.
I suspect that Pikachoo might have caught whatever Max has. He’s doesn’t rate high in the intelligence stakes. Some mornings when I let the doggies out to “visit the fairies” he would leap up onto the counter next to the back door. “For the love of all things holy, woman, would you open that door faster. I’ve got to pee!!” Then he’d rush off to a patch of sand and do his thing. Why he didn’t just go out of one of the thousand-odd windows that remain open for the cats 24 hours a day, I will never know. He also has a very bad memory. Every morning while I was preparing the cat food he would walk up to Brolie and put his paw on Brolie’s back: “Morning, Brolie, old pal.” In a flash Brolie, who is twice Pikachoo’s size, would have him pinned to the floor screaming like a girl. And yet the next morning he’d try the same trick. There’s no accounting for what blows some folks’ hair back.
And last, but not least, there’s the dainty little Hayley-Girl. She pretends to be scared of Dusty and Max sometimes but I think it’s just because she’s concerned they may stand on her. She’s very much a homebody and you don’t often see her outside of the walls but she does like to sit in the driveway with Dusty and gaze out into the world. Like any little girl she is really picky with her food. She’ll whine about how hungry she is. So you tell her to finish what is left in her bowl: “But I want fresh food. This food is old and it has a black speck in it (imaginary, of course) and besides Max may have licked it.” So you give her some fresh food in a gravy-type sauce. “But I want dry food. I don’t like wet food.” So you give her dry food. “But it’s too dry. I want some milk to drink afterwards.” But she purrs the loudest and snuggles so nicely.
And my point to all of this? Don’t ever dare tell me that your pets are “just animals who belong outside”. These creatures are living beings who want to be part of your life and give you love and smiles. Enjoy them while they’re still here.
The matriarch of the clan (although this fact is hotly disputed by the cats) is a gentle old soul call Tessa. Tessa is a Rhodesian Ridgeback with lots of lovely, wise, grey fur on her face.
Tessa has two personal henchmen: Max, a very puzzled Rhodesian Ridgeback (details to follow) and Dusty, an Australian Shepherd (I think) crossed with a shaggy rug.
The three littlest furries consist of Brolie (aka Fat Cat), a charcoal and white stripy boy, Hayley, a teeny ginger ballerina of a kitty and Pikachoo (no idea how to spell his name), a handsome ginger and white cat.
Now certainly the most colourful character would be Dusty. EVERYthing he does is big, over the top and loud. He jumps about like he has ants in his pants and demands non-stop games. And if I ignore him he will dash up to one of the other furkids and try to bite or lick a little game out of them. And he never talks quietly. Dusty can only shout ... VERY loudly. Each time I arrived at the house he would yell “AUNTY LYNDA, YAY! THANK HEAVENS YOU’RE HERE. WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN FOR THE LAST THREE WEEKS?” Dusty doesn’t have much sense of timing and likes to believe that a few hours are actually a few weeks. Dusty also likes to shout at anyone who walks past his house. And he could be a very formidable picture if he didn’t wave his tail as hard as he did. But thank goodness for his waggy tail otherwise you might not see him. You see Dusty is an extremely skinny dude despite the fact that he eats like a small herd of buffalo. So if Dusty stands facing you and doesn’t wave at you with his tail you might not see him at all. In fact, when he lies in the sun on his side he looks just like road-kill. But pop past any time of the day and you will find Dusty standing at the gate waving at you with his tail. Approach the gate and he’ll shout “YAY! ARE YOU COMING TO PLAY WITH ME?”
Now Dame Tessie-Tootle, as I like to call her, has a rare ability to fool you. Tessa is built like an American aircraft carrier. I kid you not, you could probably have a game of chess of her back and none of the pieces would fall off. But catch her eye and smack your hands on your knees and Game On! This corpulent canine turns into a bouncing, bounding puppy who forgets how much she weighs when she nearly bumps you over the garden wall. She LOVES to play! But when she’s tired she will put her massive head into your lap and somehow manages to stick to you like a burr to a jersey. She loves having soppy, hugs. Now and then she chooses bed over breakfast but is completely open to bribery (a beeno or a small handful of cat food) in order to move her huge body off the bed and outside.
Let’s turn now to Max, the Puzzled-Terrier. A few years ago Max ate some poison which made him VERY sick. It took many weeks for him to recover but it left Max with a long lasting reminder: his head tilts slightly giving him a rather comical puzzled expression. Before Max became ill he wasn’t the brightest school child. Don’t get me wrong. Max is incredibly handsome but it’s clear that God gave him looks instead of brains. Poor, POOR Max. Now every night when I arrived to put the doggies to bed I would open the door and they would all rush inside as though it were more a rare treat than a daily occurrence. Max would head for the cat food (he’s clever enough to figure out that he can jump over the shin-high barrier) while Tessa would head for Max’s bed. Max sleeps in the first bedroom and he even allows Melissa (his human) to sleep on the bed too ... sometimes. But by the time Max had polished off the cat food he would return to find his earthly bed full of someone else: Tessa. Oh, the woe! Oh, the dejection! He would push against me and then put his saddest eyes on and lift his head as high as he could and wail “Aunty Lyn, Tessa’s in my bed, make her get out.” He even tried to squeeze out some real tears. Now I don’t believe for one second that I could have moved Tessa off that bed, even with a front loader. So poor, POOR Max would have to choose another bed to sleep on.
Each time I opened the front door I was treated to the sight of three cats perched on the edge of a table, one behind the other, like they might if they were on a bus. But as soon as they realised I was laughing at them they would leap off and pretend that they hadn’t just done that. Cats can be quite clever. But not always.
Take Brolie, for example. He’s got plenty of street suss but just sometimes he pushes his luck. From time to time I will find him swaggering up and down on the pavement jiggling his tail at my bull terriers. Now if my bullies weren’t as staunchly porky as they are they would squeeze through the palisade and see off every last one of the Brolie’s nine lives in a matter of seconds. But he loves to tease, does the Brolie-Cat. And then he takes it one step further. I have, more than once, arrived home at night to find Brolie sitting in the middle of my lawn. He assumes that my bullies are inside at night and won’t come out to greet me. I’m awfully concerned that young Brolie might learn the hard way that assumption is the mother of all *%#!-ups.
I suspect that Pikachoo might have caught whatever Max has. He’s doesn’t rate high in the intelligence stakes. Some mornings when I let the doggies out to “visit the fairies” he would leap up onto the counter next to the back door. “For the love of all things holy, woman, would you open that door faster. I’ve got to pee!!” Then he’d rush off to a patch of sand and do his thing. Why he didn’t just go out of one of the thousand-odd windows that remain open for the cats 24 hours a day, I will never know. He also has a very bad memory. Every morning while I was preparing the cat food he would walk up to Brolie and put his paw on Brolie’s back: “Morning, Brolie, old pal.” In a flash Brolie, who is twice Pikachoo’s size, would have him pinned to the floor screaming like a girl. And yet the next morning he’d try the same trick. There’s no accounting for what blows some folks’ hair back.
And last, but not least, there’s the dainty little Hayley-Girl. She pretends to be scared of Dusty and Max sometimes but I think it’s just because she’s concerned they may stand on her. She’s very much a homebody and you don’t often see her outside of the walls but she does like to sit in the driveway with Dusty and gaze out into the world. Like any little girl she is really picky with her food. She’ll whine about how hungry she is. So you tell her to finish what is left in her bowl: “But I want fresh food. This food is old and it has a black speck in it (imaginary, of course) and besides Max may have licked it.” So you give her some fresh food in a gravy-type sauce. “But I want dry food. I don’t like wet food.” So you give her dry food. “But it’s too dry. I want some milk to drink afterwards.” But she purrs the loudest and snuggles so nicely.
And my point to all of this? Don’t ever dare tell me that your pets are “just animals who belong outside”. These creatures are living beings who want to be part of your life and give you love and smiles. Enjoy them while they’re still here.
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