Random shots of my dog taking charge in the aftermath of the recent snowstorms:
On the 10th of this month, the man from the exterminators came to do their quarterly service to keep down the ants, inside and out. It was a different rep than usual, so it was the first time he'd met any of my four-legged dependents.
He came into the backyard just as I finished clearing the leaves from the woodpile, and of course Llewellyn was all over him. New hooman! Joy, joy!
"What a great dog! Boy, I could just take this dog home with me, couldn't I, boy?"
Then Rhadwen sidled up, wanting a piece of the action.
"Gosh, what a big cat! How much does she weigh?"
"A little less than eleven pounds," I said apologetically. "Actually, she's not that big. A lot of it's fur . . . "
"How old is she?"
"She's eleven years old. Actually, I got her eleven years ago tomorrow, on Veterans' Day 1998."
"Gosh!" said the bug man. "I've had cats for a long time, but they never get much over five or six pounds! And they never seem to live more than five years or so! Gosh. Eleven years old. That's really amazing!"
Me, I didn't think it was amazing at all. The strange thing to me is why anybody's pet kitteh would peg out after only five years. Rhadwen, I am determined, will live to be eighteen. At least. And phooey on the bug man's attitude that there is something odd in that.
That night, Rhadwen snuggled next to me in bed. I settled into her furry warmth, deliberately appreciating it, thinking of the conversation in the back yard that morning. Unbidden, a memory came into my head of my late terrier-mix dog Maddie, and how she'd only lived with me five years after we rescued her from the park in Kansas City, and how I'd expected to have her so much longer . . . Maddie's buried in the back yard, under the Mary Magdalene rose bush . . . when Rhadwen goes, will I put her near there, too . . . ? But what was I thinking? Rhadwen will be with me a long, long time. Snuggle closer and go to sleep . . .
The next day, Rhadwen begged to go outside, as usual. Eventually I gave into the nagging and let her out. Then I went upstairs and started working on the computer.
After about four hours, around 7:30 PM, Llewellyn prevailed upon me to take him outside for his evening constitutional. I figured my calico kitteh would be out on the back porch, waiting to come in for supper.
But she wasn't.
After Llewellyn did his business in the alley, we came back into the yard and I looked around for my No. 1 Cat. No sign of her-- Not in the bushes, not on the porch, nowhere, nothing.
Nothing-- but the front gate to the back yard gaping open.
I knew it was shut when I let her out earlier. Sure as sunrise, one of the neighborhood five-year-olds must've lost a ball over the fence and let himself in without asking, to retrieve it. And neglected to latch the gate after he left.
That would have been at least two, two-and-a-half hours before, when it was still light. When had Rhadwen found the gap? How long had she been gone?
I had to find her. I love Gwenith and Huw, but Rhadwen's my best friend kitteh. She's been with me through three dwellings and two moves and several jobs. She couldn't be gone. She just couldn't.
I rang neighbors' doorbells and asked them to keep an eye out. I took a flashlight and combed all the bushes in my yard and everyone else's. I looked in the front of the houses and back in the alley. I looked under the back porch to see if she'd ducked under there. Repeatedly, I came out and searched and called and searched again.
"Rhadwen! Rhadwen!! Wennie!!! Please, come, please! Rhadwen!"
Nothing.
The night was getting colder. The forecast was 31°. A lot of the cover where she'd taken refuge on previous forays afield is gone with the summer. Where could she possibly be?
But I kept looking. Late at night, heart leaden with thoughts of the worst, I turned my steps to the busy street a long block away, in case-- God forbid-- she'd wandered over there and gotten--
There was no sign of her there. Thank God, but where was she?
Still later, after 1:00 in the morning, I hitched Llewellyn to the leash and took him through the alley in the next block down. Maybe he could sniff out his old friend. Maybe she'd come to him, if she wouldn't to me?
Nothing. No sign.
Is this what I got for being so proud of my big healthy senior cat? To lose her, now, on the very anniversary of my adopting her? Is that what I was going to have to get used to?
No way I could just go to bed and sleep. The temperature was dropping and Rhadwen couldn't get back in if I didn't open the door for her. I had to work in the morning, so I couldn't stay up all night holding vigil.
So I did what I had to, and slept on the sofa bed in the front room. With kitty treats strewn on the front steps and on the windowsill by the front door, so that if she came back and nommed them (she'd missed two meals by now), I might see and hear and let her in.
And just in case, I left the front gate to the yard open, too. It might let in rabbits and raccoons and skunks, but it might also restore to me my lost calico kitteh.
Though by now, I feared I might never see her again.
This morning, the guy on the radio said the air temperature was seven-below-zero F.
Llewellyn and I went out to the alley so he could take care of his business. After he'd done his wee, he started looking around for the best place to deposit his poo. But before he'd made even one complete pass over the available ground, he was lifting up one paw, then another, then another. Then he tried to lift several up at once.
"Hurry up, Llellyn, hurry!"
He veered away from the snow-mounded grass strip by the fence and headed out into the ice-packed alley. It only made things worse. If my poor dog could have found a way to levitate, he would have.
That does it. No waiting for a No. 2 this trip! So I called him back inside the gate to return to the house. But he couldn't even walk the length of the backyard, his pads were so miserably cold.
Well. When I adopted Llewellyn, I was looking for a dog that would be a) big enough to hug, b) big enough to intimidate strangers who arrived with dubious intentions, and c) small enough for me to pick up and carry if it was ever ill. At 45 pounds I figured he fit all three criteria. Now, obviously, I'd have to test assumption No. 3.
So I picked my dog up and carried him back to the house. He wasn't as heavy as I'd expected. And as I carried him, he turned his head and looked into my face with relief in his big limpid red-brown eyes. If dogs can say Thank you, I think mine just had.
Kanz it B eetid?
Sumbuddy tored up teh skiiy.
Ai kan jummp doan dere. Wach mii!
There’s been snow on the ground the past week or so, hard, crusty snow that gets added to at irregular intervals.
Today’s addition was three inches of wet whipped cream, slushy and mixed with rain, falling in a temperature that hovered around 33 degrees . Your boots (tall ones, not the ankle kind) squelch through the gelid, pitted mixture, sploosh, sploosh, sploosh, even on the sidewalk you’ve attempted to shovel and then sprinkled with rock salt. It’s sloppier than Sandy Berger at the National Archives.
Well, I just took Llewellyn out for his night time constitutional. And between the old ice and the new semi-frozen puddles, I couldn’t get the back gate open more than 2"!
I pulled him up on the rock (and snow) covered mound next to the gate where my Norway maple is planted and convinced him it’s ok to pee there.
But he would not do his No. 2. Since October, he knows that’s done Outside. In the alley. He even went and sat down in the slush and looked expectantly out the gap.
So I tried taking him out and around to the alley via the side gate. And it’s frozen shut as well!
Okay, not totally. I could push it open enough for him to get out. And for me to get out, probably, too.
But I didn’t dare. I could see me not being able to squeeze back in. I could visualize impaling myself on the latch bolt. And the only unlocked door and the spare key are both at the back of the house, through that gate.
Gave up, pulled Llewellyn back in, and now I couldn’t shut the side gate, even to latch it!
Came back inside. But Llewellyn really needed to go. All right, I’d take him out and around the block by way of the basement door.
Oh, no, no! My dog wouldn’t let me do that! He knows he’s not allowed down the basement stairs! Not even I would be permitted to tempt him down them!
Oh, yeah. Right. Sorry, puppy.
So we went out the front door (the one that won’t latch), which meant using the key. Llewellyn was so thrilled with getting to go out front that he nearly forgot what the purpose of the trip was. As he hauled me splooshing along the futilely cleared sidewalks, I could just see him pulling me over and me falling down in a great frigid splash!
But we got past next door's house, and next door's to them, and along the side street, and around back with no more than wet paws and cold boots. Once he saw his usual strip of real estate between my fence and the alley, he did his business in short order.
And then waited to be let in through the back gate, as usual.
Not tonight, doggie. And if it freezes tonight as the forecasters say, not tomorrow morning, either.
Oh, joy.
