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Dogs and Cats

Dogs and Cats

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Over a fun dinner out last night, a conversation about cats and dogs. Celia, who adores our canine Copper, still prefers cats because she’s never met two that are alike, she says. Dogs, on the other hand, are always the same. Panting, licking, looking for love.

I can’t say that she isn’t on to something, but given how much attitude I have to accept in people,  I’m looking for something a little less complicated in pets. Loyalty. Obedience. Unconditional love. Or at least two of the three.

Above, a cat with attitude and a loyal, loving (but disobedient) dog.

Channeling Mr. McGregor

Channeling Mr. McGregor

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One sign that you have grown up: When you start identifying not with Peter Rabbit, but with Mr. McGregor. If it’s been a while since you read  Beatrix Potter, this is the man whose garden Peter plunders, who chases Peter with a hoe after the errant rabbit sneaks under the fence and snarfs down lettuce, radishes and French beans.

When I read this book to the children, we identified with Peter, of course. Mr. McGregor was the villain, even though it was his garden that Peter ransacked. Peter, on the other hand, was devilish but brave. Willing to take on the world. And definitely a locavore.

It’s not a rabbit but deer that have turned me into Mr. McGregor. The herd of deer who have watched and waited until our day lily buds are full to bursting and then moved in for the kill. The deer who have eluded the stinky Invisible Fence that we’ve doused our flowers with.

Now I know how Mr. McGregor feels. We looked forward to the day lilies all spring long.  We transplanted, fertilized and nurtured them. And then, just when we were preparing to enjoy them, the deer snapped them up.

It’s not just disappointment I feel. It’s humiliation: Deer 1, Anne 0.

Photo: Project Gutenberg

Left Behind

Left Behind

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A dawn chorus draws me outside. Bird song, crow caw, the rat-a-tat-tat of the woodpecker. I walk without earphones, content with the music of the morning.

On my way I spot a herd of deer. Three leap across the road in front of me, but with that finally honed sense of suburban wildlife presence, I have a feeling there are more. And soon I spot another herd, five or six of the little guys, grazing on new plants and leaves.

As the two groups merge and bound into the woods, I spot one little fellow who’s been left behind. Forlorn and nervous, he paws the ground with his small hoof. I realize suddenly that I’m the one who’s cut him off from his kin, that he can’t get to the others because I stand in his way.

I pick up my pace so he can catch up with the others. So that I no longer have to see him surrounded by basketball hoops and mulch bags, a creature as out of place as I am.

The Call of the Wild

The Call of the Wild

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We live in a tame world that is full of wild things. Deer run and play and graze in herds of a dozen or more. They scamper away when they sense us nearby — but not before they have taken all the blooms off our lilies or hostas. Bears have been spotted as close in as Falls Church and as close by as Loudoun County, a few miles west.

Sometimes at night we hear a fox. The sound is piercing, unnerving, otherworldly. Easily mistaken for a riled up cat or any animal on its deathbed.

We heard it a few nights ago, a keening cry that made Copper bark and me leap out of bed. It took a few minutes of waking up and orienting myself before I realized what had caused the ruckus.

Ah, it’s a fox, I said to myself. That which was once alien and unknowable is now familiar — in a wild sort of way.

For Celia

For Celia

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Today is Celia’s birthday, my brother Drew’s too. They are in good company. Winston Churchill was born on this day, as was Mark Twain, Jonathan Swift and Lucy Maud Montgomery, who wrote Anne of Green Gables.

Reading up on Twain a bit this morning, I learn that he loved cats. Celia is an animal lover in general and a cat lover in particular. So in her honor, here are some of Twain’s thoughts on cats:

When a man loves cats, I am his friend and comrade, without further introduction.
-“An Incident,” Who Is Mark Twain?

A cat is more intelligent than people believe, and can be taught any crime.
-Notebook, 1895

Ignorant people think it’s the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain’t so; it’s the sickening grammar they use.
– A Tramp Abroad

Of all God’s creatures there is only one that cannot be made the slave of the lash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat.
– Notebook, 1894


Mark Twain’s cats
photo by Elmira photographer
Elisha M. VanAken, 1887
[Photo from the Dave Thomson collection]

One Hour

One Hour

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Today, thanks to our springtime sacrifice, we receive an extra hour — the gift of time. It’s still early enough in the day that I can contemplate how to spend it:

Sixty more minutes to read the Sunday paper? Two walks today instead of one? An extra-long phone call with friend or family? Cleaning the fridge? Snapping photos of autumn gold? Reading and writing? Putting the garden to bed? Making beef stew? Practicing “Sheep May Safely Graze” on the piano?

Or, how the day is starting to shape up: Letting the dog out, letting the dog in; letting the dog out, letting the dog in.

Has a certain mantraesque quality to it, no?

Back to Barriers

Back to Barriers

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I write today, as I often do, with Copper curled beside me. Like many dogs, he likes to lie with his back against a barrier. The barrier might be a couch cushion, a bookcase, a cool metal filing cabinet or, in this case, my lap.

There is probably an entire literature on canine sleeping habits, the desire for warmth and closeness bred in pack animals. But from where I sit, it’s simple: I have his back. There is something solid behind him. He will not drop off into the void.

In this context, then, having one’s back against the wall does not mean a lack of choices, a last stand. It means backing, support and protection.

I think about my family, house and neighborhood — the bulwarks I’ve built, the people and places that stand behind me; the people and places I stand behind, too. They are my guard rails, my talisman, my way to fill the void.

Transfixed

Transfixed

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This year our garden is more colorful than it’s been in years. (See deer repellent, mentioned earlier this week.) And for that reason it is bliss now to step out on our deck, to hear the first birds of morning and to witness the dusky dark give way to light.

Listen hard enough, I tell myself, and you will hear the great engine that is day whir into business again. It will be sleep deprived, of course, because it was up last night until after nine. But it will happen, is happening even now as I write. Our little dog stands sentinel; even he, I think, is sometimes transfixed by beauty, or maybe it is pure animal peace that makes him pause and lift his head. A sense that all is right with the world.

Deer Proof?

Deer Proof?

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Though we reside in the suburbs, it sometimes seems as if we’re forging a future on the frontier, at least when it comes to outsmarting the critters that live here with us. Owls shriek in the woods, fox wake us with their eerie cries and — most important this time of year — deer forage in our suburban gardens. If they were just snacking on a few oak leaves we wouldn’t mind, but they go for the tenderest and most long-awaited plants. The hostas with their tall lavender shoots, the impatiens, the day lilies.

Last year they ate the buds off the lilies before they could bloom. This year we’ve had a secret, smelly weapon — a deer repellent spray, a “liquid fence” that keeps them away — and a few victories — a riotous crop of tiger lilies in the backyard and winsome clusters of impatiens by the front door.

But we’re not resting on our, er, laurels. We’ve spotted the herds of deer moving through the woods, nibbling everything they can find. We know it’s only a matter of time before they grow hungry enough and bold enough to strike again.

Lost Dog

Lost Dog

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Yesterday, when I was on a woods walk, an unleashed shelty ran by me. I’ve seen this dog before and thought he might be allowed to run along the paths unsupervised. But when I saw him 20 minutes later trotting down the main street of our neighborhood, I knew I had an escapee on my hands. The little guy wouldn’t let me close enough to read his tags, so I followed him until he darted into a house at the end of a cul-de-sac. He was safely home.

What impressed me about this dog was his self-possession. He seemed to know where he was going. He was never lost. He was just out exploring. He was the perfect illustration of what self-defense experts tell us: Always act like you know where you’re going, even when you don’t.