Lulu’s a beauty. Why is she defective again? The herding instinct obviously works.

Our surly little cat Krugman sees a Can Opener and evil no-fun Step Can Opener. I bought her the comfy fur bialy-thing in which she spends twenty-three hours a day, the cardboard scratch pad on which she plays concertos of dissatisfaction, the laser mouse (yawn), the Love Glove (honest to God, it’s a grooming glove. The little rubber nubblies pick up the, pick up, um,  the….hmmmmmmmm. Nah, it’s a grooming device) and bags and bags of nice fresh Herb.

Yet, when I come into a room, she makes the “Oh, her” face, and leaves.

Lulu’s ears do not do the perky little up thing, as Sheltie ears should, and her coat is of uneven lengths.  Also she is congenitally blind in her left eye (although you would never know it).  But calling her “defective” is mostly just spite over her habit of treating us like we’re mentally on a level with the sheep she was born to herd.

We have a cat (14 years old) who routinely looks at us as though she’s never seen us before in her life and runs away.

Mine don’t herd they guard, in other words when I am in the bathroom for instance the two boxers feel the need to sit by the door and make sure no one enters until Cueball (90lb pure white boxer) gets bored, shoulder charges the door open and comes in to see what is taking so long.  I have 12 cats, all of whom treat me with utter distain until dinner time at which point I am the goddess of the cans of cat food.  My two senior citizens Lari the cat and Lucky the lab/cocker mix (looks like a miniature lab) both 13 have executive privileges and are allowed to sleep in the bedroom with us at night.

As a former Sheltie companion who now has two asthmatic kids (so no fur-frenzy dogs anymore), I just have to say awhowcute.

I bought her the comfy fur bialy-thing in which she spends twenty-three hours a day,

Hey, at least she (Krugwoman?) doesn’t just ignore it and go on sleeping on your pillow during the day.  A cat that sleeps where you mean it to deserves some sort of prize.

Just in case anyone missed it, here’s Gin the dancing border collie:

I do too. They have wonderfully delicate, graceful footwork, even when they’re not discoing.

They need something to interest them like the intensive training Gin underwent, because a bored border collie will develop her own to-do list.

In New York, there are a lot of poor sad bored dogs in solitary, waiting for their half-hour on the outside. I used to be a dogwalker, and I would come in on amazing scenes of canine devastation. I knew a little Brittany who ate a Barcalounger. All but the springs. (Do not attempt springer spaniel joke without donning protective gear)

I saw an article a few months ago about a women in southern CA who had a farm with sheep on it and ran a very lucrative gig having city people, who had unthinkingly bought dogs like border collies without any knowledge of how much energy these dogs have, bring their dogs out a couple of days a week to let them herd the sheep around and generally get some exercise.

Shelties are the same way.  Luckily Lulu has 3 cats and us to boss around.  Plus an older, bigger dog who does his best to ignore her.

I have two cats, a male and a female. To give you an idea of their respective personalities, I very nearly renamed them “Mitch and Micky” in honor of the characters in Christopher Guest’s A Mighty Wind.

Sounds like Lulu has plenty of stimulation, you should pardon the expression.

Is anybody familiar with a poem called “For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffry”? Here’s a bit I like:

For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.
For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.
For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.
For he is of the tribe of Tiger.

Actually, it’s a fragment of a long, surreal poem/diary/hymn called “Jubilate Agno”. It was written by Christopher Smart, a friend of Samuel Johnson’s, while Smart was confined to an asylum, suffering from what was termed “religious mania”. He was allowed to keep Jeoffry, and obviously drew great comfort and delight from him.

If he’d had Krugman, I doubt he’d have produced more than a limerick.

despite having much love for my giant orange tabby, Bop, I would prefer it if she refrained from waking me 4 times in the night (wee hours of the morning) so I could open the outside door for her (she hates her litter box and will only use it if there’s at least a foot of snow on the ground).
I’m sure she’s part border collie.

(Do not attempt springer spaniel joke without donning protective gear)

My springer used to be terrible eating anything in her path.  I still have yet to replace the kitchen cabinet that she managed to eat a corner off of.

When she hit about 18 months it just all stopped…I think she heard me telling my husband, “fine! Get rid of her!”

Lulu is adorable. Great post. Very funny.

On that note, Jenni the springer spaniel is now a productive, loving member of our family.  She even sleeps with the cat.

Is anybody familiar with a poem called “For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffry”?

I remember reading that ages ago. The line that stuck in my head went something like this: “For he has the hissing of a serpent but out of goodness suppresses it.”

Thought of this…

Lulu is just the cutest thing ever.

Betty:

1. Those are some mighty cute Boxers. The younger one is a ringer for a boxer mix friend of my Mr. Dog. Her name was Juno, and she had a curious white toothbrush-tipped tail.
2. “Lipstick”—Poor old Mr. D. could not help himself when there were blonde dogs around. Yellow Labs in particular. He always looked rather rueful about it, too. It also appeared when he was apprehensive, so every Christmas card picture we ever had him in, there it was. He hated having his picutre taken.
3. More Jeoffry:

For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.

For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.

Gimme: Mr. Dog never stopped snarfing up anything that didn’t run faster than he did:

a bag of birdseed.
hair scrunchies.
a classical pianist’s lucky silk performance socks.

Luckily, he didn’t run very fast. And he tried never to run at all. He believed in conserving energy.

ts, yes, that is what I was thinking of too!  Really miss the Far Side.

“Actually, it’s a fragment of a long, surreal poem/diary/hymn called “Jubilate Agno”. It was written by Christopher Smart, a friend of Samuel Johnson’s, while Smart was confined to an asylum, suffering from what was termed “religious mania”. He was allowed to keep Jeoffry, and obviously drew great comfort and delight from him.”

O, I love this piece! A dear friend sent me the entire thing when our first cat died. It’s such a remarkable poem and one that I pull out and reread from time to time.

I got a new cell phone last week and left the cardboard shipping box out on the dining room table. It’s now a prized cozy bed for the cats, but only one can fit in at a time and it’s a tight squeeze at that. They do love their tight spaces.

We have 3 animals currently at Pet Death central.

Nothing around here dies of natural causes.

Causes of death: cat by car, ferret escape followed by: eaten by pit-bull, run over by car, waundering off (they aren’t very good at navigating)  Cat murdered by pitbull. Ferret crushed in folding couch/bed -very traumatic. Ferret crawling into a gym sock and just dying for no reason, didn’t find him till me was a mummy. And one kitten who was likely carried off by a hawk, as we found hawk feathers and kitty fur in the back yard.

One male cat that we didn’t get around to fixing just moved out, we see him around the hood now and then.

Natural selection is big around here. The current non-primates in the house seem to be good survivors. Two cats who made it to adulthood: ‘Overton’, the male, and ‘kitty’ or ‘the white cat’, which is a retarded female, but high functioning.
They are all past the two year mark, formerly achieved only once by our first ferret many years ago.

The current ferret, Marilyn,  is a runt female, very small, but by far the most aggressive, rambunctious, and clever ferret we’ve owned, and also biggest pain in the ass..

For our entertainment, we ensure a constant state of low intensity warfare between the cats, and the ferret, by providing only one food and water bowl.

Ferrets are anti-cat, and cats have some sort of genetic warning system against Mustelids(which include badgers, weasels and wolverines) so the cats will flee from a ferret charge, which is always an hysterical site to behold. Think elephant running from dalmation for appropriate scale.

But usually it is a more subtle game of stalking, hiding, ambush, posturing, claw rattling, punctuated by rare moments of detente or boredom.

Occasionally the ferret will jump a cat from behind, grabbing it around the neck, and hop a ride across the room.

Usually it is simple relentlessness on the part of the ferret which perseveres, as it refuses to react to battering, it only moves forward, and comes in low to attack from underneath, causing the felines to retreat in confused panic.

Marilyn, outweighed 40 to 1, and out-numbered, 2 to 1, dominates the field, and controls all the natural resources.

Luckily for the cats, she typically sleeps 20 hours a day.

I will forward pics of the cats when I find them, they are both quite stunning, epecially the albino persian.

Now that is a tasty weasel.

I noticed there’s a weasel war in the YouTube comments. That’s my new favorite war after the Ukulele conflict of ‘08 and the Washington Square Dog Run Association, Incorporated, Dog Bowl Grudge Feud of the late nineties.