On dogs and cats
Some quick insight into how my mind works. (I know...be afraid...)
I'm standing at the kitchen sink, filling the coffee pot with water. Out in the back yard, I see a rabbit, starting to do what rabbits seem prone to do in our back yard. Dig. Specifically, dig a burrow in which to birth baby bunnies. For some reason our back yard is the preferred neighborhood bunny nursery. Makes no sense to me. We have a dog, the neighbors to the west have a dog, the neighbor to the east does not. Why don't the bunnies have their baby burrows in the yard to the east? I don't know. So I'm standing at the sink, thinking, "I should go get Jazz and she can chase that bunny out of the yard." Except Jazz is still upstairs, sleeping on the bed with my wife. Then I got to thinking, "If Jake was still around, HE would be up with me, making coffee. He'd go out there and protect the yard from those evil bunnies."
Then it hit me...Jake has been gone for over a year now. My wife made the comment a couple days ago that it was in late February 2016 that we had to put Jake down. Cancer, arthritis and a whole host of doggy ailments were just too much for that proud warrior.
So today, I'm going to write about Jake, Jazz and Cassie. Jake was a big dog. Rescue dog, from the ARL here in Des Moines. We had him a bit over 10 years or so. He seemed to be part German shepherd, part malamute, part Rott...and all about being your best buddy. He was big...80 pounds, lots of fur, and he looked and sounded ferocious. When my wife was still a "road warrior" for her job, she would sometimes take Jake on the road with her. She always got a kick out of having her "bodyguard" sitting in the front seat, co-piloting as she would travel around. Jake was one of those dogs that instinctively knew what was going on. He knew if you were sick, or tired, or scared, or lonely. Granted, when he was a puppy, he was nuts-o. He was a jumper, and a licker and we ended up resorting to some acupuncture and B-12 treatments to calm him down when he was a pup. But by the time he got out of puppyness (about 2-3 years old), he was that constant, stand-at-your-side companion. I like to think of myself as always "aware". But this dog made Radar O'Riley from MASH look slow. If Jake thought you needed to pay attention to something, he was always right. He was the first one up in the morning, and the last one to bed at night. He knew his job, and he took it seriously. He would be suspicious of people, but after he was introduced to them, and was told that they were "alright", he was their best bud, and wouldn't leave them alone until he had gotten what he thought was the proper amount of loving from them. It was a very sad time when Jake was sick, and we knew his time was short. Still brings tears to my eyes when I think about him. We both miss him very much.
Then there is Jazz. Now Jazz is my bunny chaser. This dog is greased lightning. She is also a rescue dog. We got Jazz because our friend, Steph, was working as a volunteer at the animal rescue shelter in Grinnell at the time. Jazz came into their shelter, and Steph was convinced that we needed a little "Jazz" in our lives. Jazz was/is the antithesis of Jake in many ways. Where Jake was boisterous, eager to meet people, not afraid of anything, Jazz is a bit timid, shy, and is scared to death of loud noises. She knows when it is going to rain, and will go and hide. Bathtub, closet, even in the basement behind the furnace. Thunder makes her shake uncontrollably. We've tried those "thunder shirts", we've tried wrapping her in blankets, we've tried holding her, we've tried doggy Quaaludes. Nothing. She simply falls apart when the weather changes for the worse. She won't go outside in the rain unless she absolutely HAS to. And then usually, one of us has to go out with her, umbrella in hand, and encourage her to take the time to actually take care of business.
But she is death on bunnies and squirrels. Simply mentioning those particular creatures out loud gets her ears to perk, and she heads for the back door, and starts pawing at it.
So Jazz is about 35 pounds, german shepherd markings, but a longer snout, and a leaner body. Her toes are webbed, like an otter. And she runs like a whippet. All stretched-out, low to the ground, and amazingly fast. And she loves to swim. She's almost as fast in the water as she is on the ground. I've seen her outswim labs and retrievers to get a ball that's been thrown in the water.
She gets on her "protector and guardian" attitude, but only when she is safely near us, or in her back yard. Then, the fur stands up, she gets all tough, and smack-talks anyone who will listen. She sleeps. A lot. She sleeps as much or more than the cat, I think. And she's a horrible watch-dog. When I was working retail, I'd come home late. Jazz wouldn't be the one meeting me at the back door to make sure I wasn't a burglar...the cat was always the one checking out the noise. Sometimes, I think Jazz has hung out with the cat way too much. On occasion, she wants some "lap time" or some snuggling, but for the most part, she's content to curl up someplace and chill.
Then there's Cassie, the cat. I've never seen a cat quite like this one. She is talkative, she is attentive, she likes to be close, she likes to be held, she likes to sit on your lap, and if you're not paying enough attention to her, she will gently reach out with a paw and touch you on the face to get your attention. Now that Jake is gone, I think Cassie has taken over the "guard duties" that Jake used to do. Seriously. If you want to know if you should pay attention to something, watch the cat. If she's asleep, you've nothing to worry about. If she's staring out the window, there is SOMEthing out there. Ears are perked, tail is twitching. Intense concentration. The dog? Asleep at the wheel. The cat? Mean, lean guarding machine. And sociable. I know...you're thinking, "A cat? Sociable?" But she is. Even when we have company over, she'll take about 20 minutes to get comfortable, then she'll make her presence known, and usually she will want some attention from the visitor(s). She also knows the people who really don't particularly care for cats, as she sees it has her mission to change their mind. My dad? Not a huge cat person. They're ok, but he's never been a huge cat person. So, Cassie makes a point of getting into my dad's lap. My mother would LOVE to have the cat come sit in her lap, but Cassie heads to my dad. Cassie gets up with me first thing in the morning, makes coffee with me, usually talking to me the whole time, and generally hangs out with me. Then, when she sees that I'm headed to the basement office area to work on the computer, she goes "on patrol" around the house. The dog? Still asleep upstairs with my wife.
OK, I just went upstairs, refilled my coffee, and saw a squirrel on the back fence. It's late enough now that it's time to get the rest of the household (i.e., my wife) up and rolling so we can get to church on time. So I took a cup of coffee upstairs for my wife, and told Jazz there was a squirrel in her back yard. As soon as I said the magic word, her head came up, the fur on her back came up, and she was off the bed and head down the stairs. I let her out, and she took off like a shot toward the back fence (where the squirrels usually hang out), barking her head off, looking around everywhere for the evil tree rodent.
I smile to myself a lot. I love our household. Obviously, I love my wife more than life itself. But sitting here writing this morning, I'm struck by how richly God has blessed me...blessed us. We have good jobs...I finally have a job that has better hours, better pay and less stress. We have a great home, we have good health, our parents and siblings are all alive and doing well, our daughter, son-in-law and grandsons are doing well and following God's path for their lives. We have food on the table, we have clothes on our backs, we have a roof over our heads. And we have fur-babies that are our companions and make our house even that much more enjoyable.
Do we have dog and cat fur everywhere? Of course we do. Every time I pull some piece of fur off of whatever I'm wearing, I smile. In our household, pet fur is a condiment.
Maybe tomorrow, I'll write about Spring Cleaning, since today is the last day of Winter.
Thanks for listening.
My two cents worth today.
I'm standing at the kitchen sink, filling the coffee pot with water. Out in the back yard, I see a rabbit, starting to do what rabbits seem prone to do in our back yard. Dig. Specifically, dig a burrow in which to birth baby bunnies. For some reason our back yard is the preferred neighborhood bunny nursery. Makes no sense to me. We have a dog, the neighbors to the west have a dog, the neighbor to the east does not. Why don't the bunnies have their baby burrows in the yard to the east? I don't know. So I'm standing at the sink, thinking, "I should go get Jazz and she can chase that bunny out of the yard." Except Jazz is still upstairs, sleeping on the bed with my wife. Then I got to thinking, "If Jake was still around, HE would be up with me, making coffee. He'd go out there and protect the yard from those evil bunnies."
Then it hit me...Jake has been gone for over a year now. My wife made the comment a couple days ago that it was in late February 2016 that we had to put Jake down. Cancer, arthritis and a whole host of doggy ailments were just too much for that proud warrior.
So today, I'm going to write about Jake, Jazz and Cassie. Jake was a big dog. Rescue dog, from the ARL here in Des Moines. We had him a bit over 10 years or so. He seemed to be part German shepherd, part malamute, part Rott...and all about being your best buddy. He was big...80 pounds, lots of fur, and he looked and sounded ferocious. When my wife was still a "road warrior" for her job, she would sometimes take Jake on the road with her. She always got a kick out of having her "bodyguard" sitting in the front seat, co-piloting as she would travel around. Jake was one of those dogs that instinctively knew what was going on. He knew if you were sick, or tired, or scared, or lonely. Granted, when he was a puppy, he was nuts-o. He was a jumper, and a licker and we ended up resorting to some acupuncture and B-12 treatments to calm him down when he was a pup. But by the time he got out of puppyness (about 2-3 years old), he was that constant, stand-at-your-side companion. I like to think of myself as always "aware". But this dog made Radar O'Riley from MASH look slow. If Jake thought you needed to pay attention to something, he was always right. He was the first one up in the morning, and the last one to bed at night. He knew his job, and he took it seriously. He would be suspicious of people, but after he was introduced to them, and was told that they were "alright", he was their best bud, and wouldn't leave them alone until he had gotten what he thought was the proper amount of loving from them. It was a very sad time when Jake was sick, and we knew his time was short. Still brings tears to my eyes when I think about him. We both miss him very much.
Then there is Jazz. Now Jazz is my bunny chaser. This dog is greased lightning. She is also a rescue dog. We got Jazz because our friend, Steph, was working as a volunteer at the animal rescue shelter in Grinnell at the time. Jazz came into their shelter, and Steph was convinced that we needed a little "Jazz" in our lives. Jazz was/is the antithesis of Jake in many ways. Where Jake was boisterous, eager to meet people, not afraid of anything, Jazz is a bit timid, shy, and is scared to death of loud noises. She knows when it is going to rain, and will go and hide. Bathtub, closet, even in the basement behind the furnace. Thunder makes her shake uncontrollably. We've tried those "thunder shirts", we've tried wrapping her in blankets, we've tried holding her, we've tried doggy Quaaludes. Nothing. She simply falls apart when the weather changes for the worse. She won't go outside in the rain unless she absolutely HAS to. And then usually, one of us has to go out with her, umbrella in hand, and encourage her to take the time to actually take care of business.
But she is death on bunnies and squirrels. Simply mentioning those particular creatures out loud gets her ears to perk, and she heads for the back door, and starts pawing at it.
So Jazz is about 35 pounds, german shepherd markings, but a longer snout, and a leaner body. Her toes are webbed, like an otter. And she runs like a whippet. All stretched-out, low to the ground, and amazingly fast. And she loves to swim. She's almost as fast in the water as she is on the ground. I've seen her outswim labs and retrievers to get a ball that's been thrown in the water.
She gets on her "protector and guardian" attitude, but only when she is safely near us, or in her back yard. Then, the fur stands up, she gets all tough, and smack-talks anyone who will listen. She sleeps. A lot. She sleeps as much or more than the cat, I think. And she's a horrible watch-dog. When I was working retail, I'd come home late. Jazz wouldn't be the one meeting me at the back door to make sure I wasn't a burglar...the cat was always the one checking out the noise. Sometimes, I think Jazz has hung out with the cat way too much. On occasion, she wants some "lap time" or some snuggling, but for the most part, she's content to curl up someplace and chill.
Then there's Cassie, the cat. I've never seen a cat quite like this one. She is talkative, she is attentive, she likes to be close, she likes to be held, she likes to sit on your lap, and if you're not paying enough attention to her, she will gently reach out with a paw and touch you on the face to get your attention. Now that Jake is gone, I think Cassie has taken over the "guard duties" that Jake used to do. Seriously. If you want to know if you should pay attention to something, watch the cat. If she's asleep, you've nothing to worry about. If she's staring out the window, there is SOMEthing out there. Ears are perked, tail is twitching. Intense concentration. The dog? Asleep at the wheel. The cat? Mean, lean guarding machine. And sociable. I know...you're thinking, "A cat? Sociable?" But she is. Even when we have company over, she'll take about 20 minutes to get comfortable, then she'll make her presence known, and usually she will want some attention from the visitor(s). She also knows the people who really don't particularly care for cats, as she sees it has her mission to change their mind. My dad? Not a huge cat person. They're ok, but he's never been a huge cat person. So, Cassie makes a point of getting into my dad's lap. My mother would LOVE to have the cat come sit in her lap, but Cassie heads to my dad. Cassie gets up with me first thing in the morning, makes coffee with me, usually talking to me the whole time, and generally hangs out with me. Then, when she sees that I'm headed to the basement office area to work on the computer, she goes "on patrol" around the house. The dog? Still asleep upstairs with my wife.
OK, I just went upstairs, refilled my coffee, and saw a squirrel on the back fence. It's late enough now that it's time to get the rest of the household (i.e., my wife) up and rolling so we can get to church on time. So I took a cup of coffee upstairs for my wife, and told Jazz there was a squirrel in her back yard. As soon as I said the magic word, her head came up, the fur on her back came up, and she was off the bed and head down the stairs. I let her out, and she took off like a shot toward the back fence (where the squirrels usually hang out), barking her head off, looking around everywhere for the evil tree rodent.
I smile to myself a lot. I love our household. Obviously, I love my wife more than life itself. But sitting here writing this morning, I'm struck by how richly God has blessed me...blessed us. We have good jobs...I finally have a job that has better hours, better pay and less stress. We have a great home, we have good health, our parents and siblings are all alive and doing well, our daughter, son-in-law and grandsons are doing well and following God's path for their lives. We have food on the table, we have clothes on our backs, we have a roof over our heads. And we have fur-babies that are our companions and make our house even that much more enjoyable.
Do we have dog and cat fur everywhere? Of course we do. Every time I pull some piece of fur off of whatever I'm wearing, I smile. In our household, pet fur is a condiment.
Maybe tomorrow, I'll write about Spring Cleaning, since today is the last day of Winter.
Thanks for listening.
My two cents worth today.
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