Over the years I have had cats and cats and then those kinds of cats. Mini Cooper is as special as a cat can be. Maybe it is her tortitude. She is a true Cat-Dog (seems to have more characteristics of the dogs than the felines). Afraid of nothing and no one. Ever present, demanding, yet loving, licking, and sweet. Always at whatever door you are coming in or going out. And, always there to tell you that you are her most special friend.
I don’t really need a weather app on my phone to tell me a thunderstorm is coming. Here at DogDaz Storm Center, we have 2 main thunder warning systems – Louise and Sofie.
In the middle of the night last Monday, some how, Louise managed to unlock her kennel, by herself, and come upstairs and start breathing on my while I slept. Then Sofie, who rarely comes on my bed, pushed me away from my pillows and hunkered down in my spot. It sounded like a freight train coming through the house and the flash and clap were immediate. Amazingly, 15 minutes later an EF2 tornado touched down on the other shore of the Chesapeake Bay on Kent Island (I’m the Western Shore and that is called the Eastern Shore). It started as a waterspout and took full tornado strength (125 mph winds) quickly. Thankfully, though there was a lot of property damage, only 1 person was slightly hurt.
Who needs all those meteorologists when you have 2 dogs that can tell you at least 2 hours before something major happens that something is going to happen? Do you really need to know more than that? Get to cover!!!!
Lucky for me, Charlies seems fine through the storms and the cats don’t show me much anxiety. These 2 big babies take enough attention for the whole Zoo.
Foot note: They are both huddled under my desk as I type this because yet another storm is passing through. This is summer on the Chesapeake Bay. Oh, my!
Thinking about Miss Constance Kitty today (we called her Connie or Kitty). She was such a goofy girl. She loved Squashes tail and he would swing it here and there for her to play with. I can’t find that video of her flying in the air with it, but you get the idea.
We adopted Connie and Noel together in 2007 (Noel was 9 months old and Connie was maybe 10 weeks). Connie had congenital spinal and vertebral malformations at birth, so she always looked like a kitten. She was spunky and silly and never let her condition bother her until it did. She left us at 5 years young.
DogDaz friend, Jeanne Bellis, is doing outstanding work taking hard to place dogs and helping them socialize and reintegrate to new homes. Here is Part 3 of the Socializing Waylon series. Waylon, a catahoula-cattledog mix, was in a bind. His owner, a US Marine, was being deployed overseas and Waylon, a dog aggressive, fearful mess, had only one hope – Bellis Boot Camp. Follow Jeanne as she socializes Waylon with her pack. It’s amazing what patience, smarts, good training and love can do. This is the final episode of Waylon’s journey to socialization. Now he is ready for adoption. Let’s find him a new family to love.
We hope you enjoyed this little series. Do you find the “DogDaz Zoo: Loving Fearful Dogs” posts of interest? Would you like me to do more of them? Let me know in the comments. I am also glad to have guest posts on the topic. – Lorian, the Zoo Keeper
Cats sometimes pick the oddest things to sleep on. Here is Noel, in the newpaper box on the table (her recent favorite hangout), sleeping against a watermelon. It sure does not look comfortable to me. She is a funny girl, that Noel. You just have to love her.
A memorable moment from 2013 (above). Sofie was only 2 (Lu was 3) and it appears from this shot that her full coat had not come in yet (she looks adolescent from the back). Louise and Sofie always wait by the back door to go chase squirrels and birds.
And you can see that not a lot has changed at the back door in 4 years (Oh my, I just noticed that the curtains do look older). Louise and Sofie still wait to chase the squirrels and birds, except now Charles is with them. It is fun to compare how they looked then and now. Hope you have a wonderful, romping, Black and White Sunday!
I used to be part of the Black and White Sunday Blog Hop but Dachshund Nola has taken a break from blogging and Sugar jumped over the rainbow bridge and Golden Woofs, though still blogging, is no longer hosting the Hop. I can’t host Hops because of my infrastructure. Can you?
Because Stella lives in her own suite her at DogDaz Zoo, it is not often that I capture her in photos. Usually the rest of the crew is busy doing silly things and getting all the camera time. But Stella is a sweet beauty, she just needs to be alone. I guess you can say she is the truest of cats at DogDazCats2. Most of us think of cats as social animals, but the truth is, their DNA shows them to be more solitary then pack.
“The independence of cats is one of the features most admired by those of us who love them. Given their evolutionary history as solitary hunters, it is easily explained. Seeking their prey alone, cats – with the exception of lions and sometimes cheetahs – have not developed patterns of collective action and hierarchy of the kind found in dogs and other pack animals. ‘Herding cats’ is a metaphor based on fact: cats don’t live in herds.” – The New Statesman, philosopher John Gray
DogDaz friend, Jeanne Bellis, is doing outstanding work taking hard to place dogs and helping them socialize and reintegrate to new homes. Here is Part 2 of the Socializing Waylon series. Waylon, a catahoula-cattledog mix, was in a bind. His owner, a US Marine, was being deployed overseas and Waylon, a dog aggressive, fearful mess, had only one hope – Bellis Boot Camp. Follow Jeanne as she socializes Waylon with her pack. It’s amazing what patience, smarts, good training and love can do. This is part 2 of the series as Waylon learns how to make friends with other dogs.
DogDaz Zoo 