Monica Kochelee

I went grocery shopping yesterday and decided to buy a couple of new dog toys for our dogs.  They have squeakers in them, but are largish in size; they remind me of the stuffed animal toys I had as a kid.  Anyway, I had heard that dogs can see a few colors; they gravitate towards blue, so I bought two blue teddy bear squeaky toys.  When I got home with the groceries and had put all the food away, I gave the toys to the dogs.  What fun they have had playing with the toys!  Our big dog has pretty effectively ripped most of the stuffing out of one already in her desperate attempt to kill the squeaky part.  What a mess!  Now I wish I hadn’t bothered to vacuum yesterday!  I’m going to have to vacuum again tomorrow!

Well, both the dog and cat survived their ordeals at the vet.  We were surprised how much of the cat got shaved to remove his tumor; the vet said that they were surprised how big the tumor actually was when they opened him up, it was much much larger than they expected.

And our little dog survived just fine.  I was a little bit nervous that he might have a heart condition that would complicate surgery, but they said he had no problems at all.

So the pets are back, and the first day they were here they were a little bit quieter than normal, but extra lovey.  Now they are back to their regular selves.  It’s good to have them home again.

The house is awfully quiet without them; the dog needed to be neutered, and the cat needed his teeth cleaned and a tumor removed.  It is going to cost a huge amount of money, but it needed to be done.  The dog had some kind of strange medical condition that could lead to prostate cancer if we didn’t have him neutered soon.  And, I remember how nuts he went the last time the neighbor’s dog went into heat; the poor guy was going crazy trying to go be with her!

We have a second dog, who is still here in the house with us.  She doesn’t quite know what to make of the house being all hers for a change!  I think she’s a little bit anxious.  I’ll be glad when the other two are back home again.  The vet said we can bring them home tomorrow.

I have noticed something a little bit weird lately at my house.  I have two dogs and a cat, and they get along very well.

Every day, however, I see that for no apparent reason the cat starts to run from the dogs.  Of course, the dogs give chase!  Nothing weird about that….

However, I’ve noticed that the cat (lazy guy) only runs for about ten feet, and the dogs don’t ever seem to close the gap between them and the cat - if they started out five feet away, they stay five feet away.  And when the cat stops running, the dogs just stop chasing - still five feet away!  They never even TRY to catch him!

Very weird, if you ask me!