Critters Behaving Badly, or at Least Mine Do!

All critter owners, and those who just like to observe, are acquainted with badly behaving critters. Who hasn’t had a dog that will eat all its owner’s socks, or the couch, or the house plants? Who hasn’t had a horse, or cow, or pig who knew how to escape, and had to be wildly chased and returned home?

But why are mine being so obnoxious this year? We’ll start with the wild critters.

First, there’s the deer, who are eating all the pears off my beautiful, old pear tree. If I go out to confront them, those doe diners simply stomp their feet, snort, and apparently dare me to do anything about their thievery. I turn tail and go back to the house.

Then there’s the mysterious night raider who is eating all Darling Daughter’s horse feed. This must be a wily one, because feed is in metal garbage can with tight-fitting lid. Darling Daughter has tried numerous deterrents, such as piling rocks on top of lid. But it didn’t work. That mischievous midnight raider (we’ve never seen it) just pushed the rocks off, lifted lid and dug in again. Darling Daughter told me this week that she wired the lid shut with old bailing wire. We’re on watch now, and hope the rascal can’t figure out wired-tight lids. If it does, I’m never going out there again. I think it’s the squirrels. I’ve seen them hanging out. Daughter said squirrels are not smart enough. She thinks its raccoons. But if this keeps up, I’m blaming Big Foot. Whatever it is, it’s eating well.

Then there’s my crow family. First found them hanging out when I decided leftovers shouldn’t go in the garbage, they should be composting in my future flower bed. Crows decided to dig in and feast on the leftovers. I didn’t mind. I love watching them, and happy to report that the three that visited the first time have become seven, meaning mom and pop raised a few more this summer. But one day when enjoying my semi-retirement on the back porch, my crow family started squawking loudly, very loudly. Since bird watching has become one of my new semi-retirement hobbies, I decided to just sit, observe, and discover the problem. The problem was one of the stray cats that have suddenly taken up residence in our neighborhood. Don’t know why, but I’ve seen four of them. Apparently the crows have learned how to bombard stray cats. That poor little black and white tom cat had to slink away under the weeds in the woods because all seven crows were on the attack, and I mean physically attack by dive bombing. It looked like something out of Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” movie. EEK!

But that tom cat came back. Cats are not dumb you know. And he brings me back into my home, where I live with two cats, the obnoxious Nutter and Holly Golightly, named so cause she is pretty and reminds me of Audrey Hepburn in the movie “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” She thinks she’s pretty too, but all cats need to have positive self-esteem, which Holly has mountains of and which she demonstrated just last week. She is usually parked next to my on the sofa, but this particular evening, she was not. Didn’t bother me, cats wander. No problem. Until I heard the awful caterwauling. Caterwaul is defined on the internet as howl, wail, bawl, yell, scream, screech, yowl, etc. I’ve never heard such a loud horrible noise.

I jumped up. Was one of my cats dying!?! That’s what it sounded like. I began a frantic hunt. Couldn’t find Holly or her obnoxious companion Nuts, my other cat. I was sure something horrible had happened. Ran for a flashlight to do a search of my home’s darker corners, wondering the whole time if I could find a veterinarian at 10 p.m. at night. Everything became quite clear when I happened to point my flashlight at my front windows. That’s where that same black-and-white tom cat, recently trounced by a flock of crows, was trying to flirt with my pretty Holly, who is also black and white. Tom Cat (he is now named – OH OH) was on the outside ledge of my picture window, and Holly was voicing her opinion of him from the inside window ledge. Apparently he wasn’t passing muster. Apparently his appearance was worse than that. Apparently Holly was not in a singles-bar-pickup kind of mood. I breathed a sigh of relief, and wondered what would have happened to Tom Cat if he and Holly had been nose to nose. Poor little feller. Nothing good I’m sure. Tried to tell him all my critters are spayed and neutered. He didn’t stand a chance with my pretty little Holly.

And all that just goes to show that we don’t need to watch TV soap operas for a little entertainment. Just watch the critters. They are sure to get your attention.