Thursday, November 17, 2005

A Tail of two kitties

A Tail of two kitties…November 17, 2005


Cody has always been fascinated with cats.

He doesn’t want to eat them; he just likes to chase them. But I’m jumping ahead of myself; let me start from the beginning.

It all started when the weather began to change, about a month ago. Anyone who lives in Texas knows about the wind. It gets very very windy some days, and it is incessant. My mother once told me a story about the pioneer women, coming over in covered wagons who were driven mad by the wind. Mom has always hated the wind here and agreed that if she were a pioneer woman in that wind all day, she too would shoot herself. I on the other hand, LOVE the wind. It was refreshing the day the wind came, after a long summer of near triple digit heat and I was out in that wind enjoying it.
Something was different though, outside of my fenced in backyard I began noticing creatures on the loose, wandering free. Dogs mostly, they must have gotten out of their yards because of the force of the wind blowing their gates open. One particular dog, a female beagle thought she was in heaven when she stepped into my front yard and Cody was quite happy with that. They did their little doggy dance up and down the perimeter of the yard, she in the front yard, and he in the backyard, separated by the fence. Eventually I had to shoo her away when Cody got too excited. She wandered off, but later that night I heard her yelping at the gate. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I just let her. When I awoke the next morning I found she had gone but she left a pretty big hole under my fence, grrr. I have done a pretty good job of hiding that hole from Cody, until this morning.
Every morning I have a routine. I wake up, and I take Cody downstairs for his breakfast and I open the sliding glass door for him to go out. When I return upstairs I always make sure I check to make sure the gate is not open and the boards I have placed over the hole that Mrs Beagle dug is still covered. This morning, I forgot to check, it had been windy. And he was off. I don’t know how long he had been out before I noticed that I couldn’t hear that familiar jingle of his collar. I went downstairs and then panic struck, I hadn’t checked the gate. Crap. Sure enough, the boards were flattened out on the ground and no large black dog in sight. I ran inside and put some shoes on, grabbed his leash and ran out the door.
I can remember only two times that Cody has escaped without me noticing. Both happened in Denver, and both times I found him staring down the claws of a ferocious tabby that lived around the corner. I have been afraid of this happening since I moved into this place, because of the busy streets and all of the kids that walk to school past our house. There is a school and a pretty little park across the street from our house, and Cody loves to take walks with me over there. Or maybe I should say he walks me, he likes to pull me on the leash; something I’ve never been able to train him out of. He enjoys the sights but mostly its all about the smells he finds on every tree and pole we pass.
I walked to his favorite spots calling his name and jingling his leash, but no Cody. I went behind the house, to a block I have never been and walked to the end of the street, no Cody. I walked for what it seemed like hours when on the way back past one of his most loved spots when I noticed something out of the side of my eye. It looked like a black streak, and was moving swiftly before it disappeared behind the end of the fence line. I decided to inspect the scene. On my way over there I heard a familiar sound, a whine and a jingle of dog tags, yay!
And there they were. Perched precariously on the corner of the fence were two enormous grey cats, tails whisking back and forth frantically. Like twin sphinxes staring down on something they were hypnotizing, it was my dog. He was puffed up like a wild boar, a streak of thick hair on his back was up on end, and his tongue was hanging out of one side of his mouth, drooling. He sat there staring at them with this intensity in his eyes that I have never seen before. It was as if he was worshiping them, high on their thrones looking down their little kitty noses at their prize. Who knows what evil doings the sphinxes had in store for him before I got there to rescue him from their trance. He didn’t want to leave them, but I insisted we go back home and I put his leash on him. The kitties lost interest and went on their way, off to tempt another poor doggie into peril I suppose. I took Cody home and he collapsed onto the floor, exhausted. I didn’t scold him; he had quite the adventure today I imagine.
I love that poor dumb dog. My life would be so boring without him.

(¯`v´¯)
`*.¸.*´
¸.•´¸.•*¨) ¸.•*¨)
(¸.•´ (¸.•´ .•´ ¸¸.•¨¯`•. jenni

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