One of Zeke’s favorite shows to watch is Fetch with Ruff Ruffman. It’s a cartoon dog talking to real kids. The kids learn things through competitions and at the end of the show, someone wins a prize. Zeke calls it Ruff Roman for reasons known only to him. My favorite show, however, is Fetch with Blaze Manry. I get to experience it live action every morning. Blaze takes the retriever part of his name very seriously. He fetches balls, ropes, sticks, dead birds, toys, crayons, and laundry items. One of his favorite retrieving activities occurs whenever he comes in from outside. He will dash over to the drying rack in the sunroom, grab a pair of my underwear, and bring them to me.
Patches has decided to make use of her kitty condo built by Gabe. She gets up on it by jumping from Abby’s stuffed animal basket to the top of the dresser and then onto the condo. She has slept on all levels except for in the hammock. I told Abby that she’ll sleep in the hammock when she is old and fat and can’t get up any higher. When my children were little, I would buy them elaborate toys. What they liked most was the cardboard box the toy came in. Now with the kitten I buy her this elaborate kitty condo, and just like my kids, she would be quite happy with a cardboard box.
I had grown weary of Blaze’s game of walk and sit, and the internet advice was getting me nowhere. So, I returned to the font of all Dog Knowledge, the Dog Whisperer. In two episodes where a dog was refusing to walk, the Dog Whisperer started at a different rate of speed. So, as Gabe told Dale, “Mom actually ran!” True, it is a very rare sight. Blaze was taken so by surprise that he never had time to pull back and sit his butt down. After a bit of dragging, he was with me. My running slowed after a bit, but every time I felt him pull back, I picked up my rate of speed. It worked. One other motivation for ending my unsuccessful attempts at coaxing, bribing, and tricking him into walking was that his amount of time as baby of the family was short lived. Patches took over the baby spot and in this family only the baby is spoiled. So, as with all my other children, Blaze had to toe the line. When all else fails, go with the old stand by: “Because I Said So!”
Today, we went and picked up Abby’s new kitty, Patches. The kitty is a Tortie Ragdoll, a mix of reddish cream, gray, and white. She will darken as she gets older. The stripe down her nose cracks me up. We purchased Patches from a cat lady who has cats, cats everywhere. Almost all her cats are big and sweet. She kept a runt once because no one wanted him. She named him fatso and he lived up to his name. We left with only one kitten. Although, she tried to convince me to buy two. Knowing my husband’s lack of fondness for cats, I decided it probably was best to only bring home one. The kids have been having fun watching Patches chase the feather wand and swat the ball in the track. When Patches got tired, she climbed up onto the bed next to Abby, started purring while Abby was petting her, and fell asleep. I think they’ll get along just fine.
Yesterday, Gabe ran in frantically from outside. “Blaze caught a mouse and he won’t let it go and it’s squeaking and I can’t catch him!” By the time I arrived outside plastic bag in hand, the mouse was dead. I scooped it up and threw it away before Blaze could eat it. Gabe was very upset and I calmly explained to him that dogs didn’t always have dog food, they had to hunt for their food. Blaze is born with the hunting instinct and if he can catch a small mammal or bird, he will kill it. Abby piped up with a lament for the “poor mouse”, and I informed her that the kitten she is getting tomorrow will hunt and kill mice as well. Being a Manry kitten, she may be called upon to kill a snake also. Years ago, in a tale that can only be true in Dale’s family, someone found a water moccasin (I believe) in the dresser. Not knowing what to do, they shut the door to the room and waited until Dale’s Daddy came home. Unknown to them, their small kitten was locked in the room with the snake. When Dale’s Daddy came home, he opened the door and the kitten walked proudly out. She had killed the snake. She was a true Manry pet. After years of living with Fruhliche, Czar and Sasha, I had become a bit numb to all the small animals they killed. However, there was one day when I was truly mortified. On a walk, Czar and Sasha had observed a fluffy white pet bunny that neighbors down the street allowed to hop around their yard inside a 3 foot high fence. They both lunged for it, but I was able to drag them off. I put them in the back yard, behind a 6 foot high wooden fence and then went to the store. As usual, I had greatly underestimated them. Sasha, being the brains of the operation, had Czar tear the fence boards off the posts so that they could get out. I returned to find them gone and the fence in tatters. I was standing in the driveway trying to calculate in which direction I should go look for them when they came trotting down the sidewalk with the dead fluffy white pet bunny dangling from Sasha’s mouth. I stared in horror. In my dog training classes, they had never taught the subject: “What to do when your dog kills a neighbor’s bunny.” This morning, as Blaze and I were periodically walking and not walking, a lazy fat wild rabbit bigger than Blaze hopped across our path. Blaze looked at it and I knew what he was thinking…”Just wait until I get bigger. When she’s not watching, you’re dinner.”
