Our house is a very, very, very fine house.

Did you know I like cats?  Yep, I do!! I like kitties and they usually like me, too.  

I don't have a cat of my own, but there are lots of kitties outside here.  Mom feeds them.  

Some of them come around all the time, so I get to know them.  One little guy gets pets and stuff from Mom.  We rub noses.  They aren't afraid of me.  Well, some of them aren't afraid of me, anyway.

Mom calls the friendliest one "Scruff."  Sometimes he even comes into my courtyard.  I don't mind that.  But things are getting scary now.  Now my little room that I flew over the ocean in is in the courtyard.  I think that my pack wants the kitties to sleep in there.  It is pretty nice - nice and big and comfy inside.  I hope that is all they want because I like my beds and I don't want to share them.  I like kitties, but they can't have my beds.  Nope.  

Sadly in this hill town there is no program for stray cats or dogs.  It breaks my heart to see animals without a home.

One of the street cats had kittens last spring and I began handling the little ones early on.  Scruff, Ink (Incubo) and Pirate.  Pirate, as a baby kitten, got into a fight with a big cat and had a serious eye injury.  It proved fatal in the long run.

Ink and Scruff trusted  me more.  In fact, Scruff also had an eye problem, some sort of infection, and I was able to help him recover by getting antibiotic drops into his eyes. With that, he began trusting me more.  I can handle him and I get schmoozes and purrs.

Now the whole family comes, usually for dinner - Mamma, Sib (from a previous litter), Scruff and Ink.  There are others who show up but not on a regular basis.

The plan is to get as many of them as possible to the veterinarian and have them neutered.  We hope to make a tiny dent in the problem of homeless street cats.  Now I try to coax them into coming in for the night to sleep in Harry's kennel.  No success yet, but we will keep trying.

It's a most unusual day...

I had a very strange, sort of awful, kind of scary, really, really bad day.  It was a while ago and I'm just fine now.  

It started out sort of fun. It was really nice out, warm and sunny and my whole pack was going for a walk and I just love it when we all go out together!  And we went by my store where we get my kibble and the nice people inside came to say "hello" to me!  But that is when things started to go wrong.  

All of a sudden there was another dog, just a little dog, too, but she was awful!  She wanted to pick a fight!  I don't know why!!  She was yelling all over and she BIT me!  My lip was bleeding!  Everything was kind of crazy so I don't really remember what happened after that, but when my mouth was not bleeding anymore we kept walking.

We went down this road I have been on before...oh, yeah...the dogtor.  I remembered him.  Mostly dogtors don't hurt me, but he did.  It was real fast but it hurt!  I was not liking this day at all.  Not one little bit.

Then I started feeling very funny.  I could not even keep my eyes open.  

I woke up and Mom was there....I was on a table.  I don't remember getting up on that table.  And I still felt weird and all I wanted was to go HOME!!!  I didn't like this day!  I wanted to go home and sleep in my bed.  But I couldn't walk right.  I was all wobbly.  Then a man in a car came by and Dad put me in the back of the car and...yay!...we did go home.

I felt awful.  Mom wanted me to drink some water but I didn't want it.  I didn't want to eat, either, even though I didn't have my breakfast.  I didn't want to stay awake and I didn't want to sleep, either.  I felt terrible!  

I think I went to sleep for a while.  Whenever I opened my eyes, Mom was there with me.  That was good.  So I went to sleep some more.  

It was a totally terrible, pretty awful,  really bad day.  

The next morning I felt all ok again.  And I was thirsty and hungry, too!  My arm hurt and had a bandage on it....but it wasn't that bad.  

I'm really glad most days aren't like THAT one!

Harry had a mole on his arm that decided to grow so it had to be removed and biopsied.  He was out of sorts the entire day and we watched and worried, but gradually his breathing became more normal and he would accept a few licks of an ice cube.  

The pathology came back "benign."  I am relieved about that and about the many totally terrific days we have had together since then.  Carry on, Mr. Spotter.