Tuesday and Katie and Tiffany

Tuesday is my day off.  I want to  use this day to sleep in, to search for a new job, to take my car in for routine maintenance, to do laundry, to rendezvous with someone, to lay in bed and play Reversi and chat with strangers, to give quality time to my feline companion. (Before the hurricanes, I had two cats.   Not that they got along, but at least they had each other to torment.  I had to have the older of the two "put to sleep" between Frances and Jeanne. I'm not sure of her age but we had her for 17 years.)

I have had dogs all my life and I love them as much as cats, but Katie came to our backyard and somehow stayed.  The first time I saw her, she was playing with her food... a field mouse.

She proved to be friendly and somehow became a member of the family.  It was my Dad who decided that we would not take her to the pound.  "They just end up putting cats to sleep," he noted.   She rewarded him later by having five kittens under his bed.

She was tick bitten and wormy at first, but with care and veterinary help, she became a beautiful friend and a good mother as well.

We had a dog, a shepherd/collie mix, also a once-in-a-lifetime pet, that was acutely interested in the kittens.  Poor Katie couldn't settle her brood in one place to long because the dog  would find them and stick her cold nose into the squirming mass.

I do think the dog and cat like each other, or at least gave each other obeisance.  They seemed to have an understanding and would pause to turn nose-to-nose sometimes.  The cat knew the dog wouldn't hurt her and they both watched warily when a bobcat would pass through the yard.

The cat would sound the alert with a deep growl and bristling fur from her place on a window ledge.  The dog would move to the screen, and I... would move to the dog to keep her steady and quiet.

The dog (Tiffany was the name she had when we brought her home from the pound: she acquired other appelations as our fondness for her grew.) started growing her legend almost as soon as she came to live with us. It began when she alerted my mother's nurse to a rattlesnake crossing by her car by barking and virtually hopping up and down on the ramp into the house.  We didn't understand why the dog was freaking out until a slanty head slid from under a ring of lantana and grew longer and longer.  Anancient rattler, very long, slipped menacingly across the sandy drive and slowly vanished into a stand of wild ginger.

The nurse and the dog became fast friends.

My Dad went and got his pistol which was loaded with snake shot, and fired into the plants.  I can almost see the snake rolling its narrow eyes.