Paybacks

We have a few four-legged critters in our family. The cats Sushi and Beau, whom we adopted from the Humane Society, and Mosier, our Collie/German Shepherd whom we adopted through Collie Rescue. All of our animals are very sweet and affectionate... with us anyways. The canine-feline dynamic is a bit of another story...

We have had Mosier for almost a year now. Beau could care less that there is a very big dog living in our house. Matter of fact, they often eat out of the same bowl and sleep in the same bed (or rather, Beau takes over Mo's bowl and bed). Poor Mo wants nothing more than to co-exist peacefully with the cats, but from Day 1 Sushi has had it out for him (must have had a bad experience with dogs during her street life). I think it began with a genuine fear of dogs, but when she realized that Mo was afraid of her, it became more of a game. Sushi will lurk around every corner for the sole purpose of scaring the living daylights out of Mo when he walks by.

Well, I think it is safe to say that Mo got back at her.

He treed her. Chased her into our neighbors yard... where there was another dog waiting - a friendly dog, although Sushi wouldn't know that since to her all dogs are evil.

And there she remained for most of the afternoon. We couldn't get a hold of our neighbors for awhile and the locked fence gate prevented us from going in there. But once inside the fence, we deliberated for over an hour about how to extract a cat from a tree.

Maybe a ladder? No, that just made her go higher (that blob near the top is Sushi, now 2 stories up). Could we encourage her to jump and catch her with that pink blanket? Nope, she wouldn't budge. Mr. Marty tried his deer stand thingy that he can somehow use to shimmy up the tree, but we abandoned that effort when it was determined that Sushi would likely scratch him to a pulp when he got a hold of her. We contemplated calling the fire department for advice, since that is what they do on TV. Of course, we didn't want to keep them from going to a real emergency. Maybe she just didn't want to come down? Her piteous howling convinced us otherwise. Finally, after much discussion of how cats could withstand such a fall, is was decided that a stream of water directed at just the right angle could perhaps encourage her downward.

Never a dull moment!