Plant Your Feet & Hold Tight!

I am always amazed that it seems animals have a schedule that they are on daily. I guess you can argue that their schedules may be determined by humans having food, letting domestic pets out etc. When I used to live in Texas I saw cattle head in during the evening hours on my long 70 mile drive home from work. (Yeah 70 miles each way.)

But back to the point that I am meandering to. There is a cat in my neighborhood that must cross my yard at about 5 pm each evening. I know when he is passing from front yard to back yard, because it drives my dog CRAZY. The DOG starts whining, barking & pacing from the front door to the back patio door. He looks through the vertical blinds and he sees the cat so he is pretty frantic at that point.

Yesterday, I decided to check my mail and just take the dog out with me. So with slippers on my feet (at 3 pm) I put the leash on the dog and opened the door. Well I what I didn't know was that the cat has taken to laying in the shade under my car. The doggy realized this immediately and took off after the cat that bolted down the street. Fortunately my reflexes were good enough to let go of said leash rather quickly. Because my feet weren't planted and I could have easily been pulled along face first on the pavement, oh that would have hurt.

So now I have to put on real shoes & go find the dog. I grabbed a treat, I know rewarding the dog for running off is not a good thing. But I needed something to distract him from the cat. By the time I got it together and walked back out to the street, the dog was coming home panting. Great! And since there weren't any cat hairs around his mouth, I must assume the cat got away. LOL

So today when we went out for a walk I was ready just in case the cat was on a different schedule today. My feet were planted & I was holding on tight to the leash.