Pecking Order

As I’m headed down the road to being a crazy cat lady anyway, I may as well post pictures of my animals avoiding the cold by taking over our home.   

Jenny is our nod to a cat, but she’s more wolfish than either of the dogs.  She is nothing like our gentle old kitty we buried a year or so ago.  She’s what our vet calls a real tortie – a regular finicky, unpredictable, tease of a cat- but on crack.     

She climbs more (ladders, curtains, and such), hunts more (bugs and such, all night) talks more (to the bugs and such), avoids affection more, and extends her claws more deeply into us when she plays.   She can be found perched in the highest vantage point of any given room in our house, with a pair of plastic circular knitting needles hanging out of her mouth like her kill (or a little pink mustache.)

I’m gentling her, though.  Really, she will nap next to me for a few minutes at a time and can’t resist when I call her.  Plus now when she wants off of the loft bed, she meows with her front paws on the top rung of the ladder and waits, trusting I’ll come lower her like her own personal elevator.  The fact that this behavior only increases my affection for her is what marks me as a cat person.

(on my Flickr)

Then there’s Moses.  He’s our old man, and truly a perfect dog.  He’s never wet in the house, never begs,   and has been so patient with little boys and little puppies.   He reveres the housecat, lays on the floor by my side of the bed at night, and makes us feel better in an iffy neighborhood.    He’s the kind of dog that men in Texas make a big deal about (“How much does that dog weigh?”  “Are you walking him or is he walking you…yuck, yuck,yuck…”) He knows how “egg” is spelled and what “walk” and “Daddy” mean.  He loves Daddy, but I think he knows where his bread is really buttered…

(on my Flickr)

I guess God knew we needed sweet cat, because He let us inherit Spotticus.   He is the one who curls on my lap anytime I sit.  He’s the one who respects the nap.  He lays down on the bed and doesn’t move ’til I get up.  He’s Jenny’s insane playmate and Mo’s “eyes”.   He’s also kind of my shadow.

 (big boy bed, day 22)