Dog Blog Post

(Topic credit: Ruth Cox posted http://www.dogpawsitivetidbits.com/2014/10/my-foster-dog-waits-for-me.html .)

A dog blog post...now there's an interesting prompt for the Cat Sanctuary Blog. I usually like friends' dogs. I enjoy walking with dogs. I posted a Bubble about a neighbor's retriever, whom I'd never even petted before although it had probably sniffed the dogs who walked with me, who "rescued" me from pests in a public park.

That wasn't even the only dog who's ever done me a good turn--at least from a dog's point of view. A neighbor's police-type dog once jumped over the fence to "protect" me from a stray dog who seemed to be trying to steal the groceries I was carrying. Another neighbor's hound-collie mix (colors similar to Ruth Cox's dog Valentino, but smaller and, to my eyes, cuter) used to meet my brother and me at the bus stop after school.

Not all the Cat Sanctuary's dog stories are sad, either, although some of them are. I'd like to have a comfortable, secure place where lost dogs could stay comfortably, without bothering the cats, and wait for their humans to find them. I don't. After publicizing the anguish of not being able to keep the cutest puppy I've ever seen, here at this web site a few years ago, I have been able to network with people who can offer that, but...local lurkers, please read this very carefully: do not, ever, just dump any animal outside the Cat Sanctuary. Not even a cat. Not even a mouse! Sometimes I may know of a place where the animal can stay, and that place may be closer to where you are than my home is. Always call and ask first.

But I would like to share a cute, cheerful memory...one year, a hunter lost two beagles near the Cat Sanctuary. That was during the reign of our second Queen Cat, Minnie. Minnie was not a very sociable cat, nor was she much of a pet, but she was intelligent; she and her sister Pepper hunted as a team. Together they were able to herd other animals into the cage I called "Cat Jail." They had even figured out how to latch and unlatch the door. Once they called me to inspect and release a terrapin from Cat Jail, once it was the cutest and most lovable possum I ever saw, and once, when I'd been in the city all weekend, the cats called me to inspect these two beagles whom they'd trapped in Cat Jail. I wouldn't normally have bought a big greasy breakfast at a bus station restaurant; that day, for good and sufficient reasons, I had. So I had leftover food for the beagles. Then I made a few phone calls and, by truly astonishing luck, located their humans before lunchtime.

Years later, Mac and Polly also herded puppies...one into a raccoon trap, and then, when I saw that a smaller puppy was wandering about outside, I just happened to have a squirrel trap which I could set so the cats could herd the smaller puppy into it. Sadly, these were not pets who'd lost their human on a hunting trip; they were former pets who'd been abandoned. Happily, a visitor walked up the road with me while the cats persuaded the smaller puppy into the smaller trap, and was so impressed that he adopted the puppies. They were hound-type dogs, and after they were a little older, well kept, fed, and vetted, their human godfather reported that they'd been a good investment.

Could Heather, Irene, and Ivy rescue a stray dog? Would they? I don't know, and I don't want to find out. If you need to "re-home" a dog, please don't depend on cats to rescue your former pet, no matter how disappointed you feel with the dog. Call the dogcatcher. Call the vet. Call me if you can't reach them. There are people who will be kind to your dog, before it becomes a nuisance. But ask us.