Archive for the ‘Animals’ Category
The grass and weeds would get tall on our 68 acres in central Texas. We bought an old 15 foot bat wing shredder to pull behind the tractor to keep the weeds knocked down. This is the kind with a wing on each side that will fold up if the hydraulics are working right.
I enjoyed shredding the field. It was a time of reflection in the quiet solitude of the tractor roar. The tractor was pretty loud, loud enough to alert the hawk who resided in the area. When the tractor started up, I would soon see the hawk making lazy circles above me in the sky. He knew that dinner was soon to be served. The noise of the tractor and the shredder would send the mice and rabbits scurrying for cover and when the hawk saw them he would swoop down and try to catch one.
I would always start at the outer edge and work inwards toward the middle. The small rodents would always run toward the taller grass not realizing that the patch was getting small with each pass of the tractor. One day while shredding, the hawk had dived down to try and catch something and was on the ground about 40 feet from the tractor which was now making its pass on the other side of the tall grass. As the mower got closer to the perpendicular where the hawk was, the tall grass started shaking like a critter was running away from the tractor. Then there was a squawk and flapping where the hawk was. As the tractor came close to the hawk on the second pass I could guess what had happened. A rabbit had run right into the hawk who was sitting on the ground looking rather surprised with the free meal in his talons. No wonder he always came out when he heard the tractor.
If you read my last two animal stories, you will realize we raised goats for a while. These were not the fancy boar goats that were just getting established in this country at the time, nor were they the Spanish mommas that many people had to clear brush. No I had to have Angora Goats. These are the goats with all the hair that have to be sheared twice a year.
We bought about 4 nannies and a black billy (or doe and buck as the goat people seem to prefer). I had visions of raising colored angoras. It has taken years of breeding to get this nice, consistent, white color and I wanted to scrap all that and breed the color back. I planned on spinning the natural colored mohair (that is what the hair is called. Angora comes from the rabbits) and selling what I did not use.
The first couple years were not too bad. They multiplied slowly and we would get out there twice a year and shear them. My husband, Paul actually got quite good at shearing the animals. We soon learned not to tie their feet like the professional shearers. It seems they relaxed when they were not tied up and they would zone out. With them relaxed, it was easier to shear them and less likely to hurt them. When we were through we rolled them back on their belly and had to shake them some to get them out of their meditation so they would get up and move on so the next could take their place.
After they were sheared we would put them back in the pen with the others and the unsheared ones would butt the sheared one around a while. It was almost like they were making fun of the other one. The one who was bullying the most was the one I usually picked to shear next.
When the herd got larger than 12 we had to divide the shearing over several days, shearing three at a time in the evenings after work. One year I left the matriarch for last and she kept looking at me, it seemed she was asking “Isn’t it my turn yet”. When we were finally ready for her she came easily and willingly to the shearing area. She was happy to get rid of her thick hot load!
I never did get a decent shearing from the goats because of the lice. They were infested. We tried all the available products but all they succeeded in doing was making the lice dizzy until lunch. The lice made the goats itch. An itching goat will rub against trees, against fence post, against barns, against truck fenders – you get the picture. All that rubbing will make the mohair felt on the goat.
Finally between the shearing, the lice and chasing the goats back into the pasture (who were going through the electric fence to get out) we decided to quit the goat business and raise cows instead.
After reading my story last week, my husband reminded me of another episode with Suzy Que the goat dog.
We lived on 68 acres and had fenced in about ¼ of an acre for our yard around the mobile home. One night as we were lying in bed just about to fall asleep here comes this Boom, Boom, Boom of a deep Great Pyrenees’ bark. This is a bark that easily transmitted through those weak, thin walls and readily seeped through the window that acted as our headboard. Covering our heads with the pillow was not doing it for us. At 2 in the morning, my husband Paul decided he had had enough and ran outside trying to chase Suzy away from the house where she could bark without sounding like she was outside our window.
She wouldn’t budge but thought it was a game. Paul came back in and put his shoes on and went back out to chase Suzy. Here was Paul running around the pasture chasing a white dog at two o’clock in the morning. He was throwing what ever he could grab at her. He came back in shoeless. This happened several times. I guess if you are into late night exercise this could be useful.
Actually Suzy was just doing her job. A Great Pyrenees has several barks and will use one bark in one location then run to another location and use a second sound then run to a third and use yet another bark. This is to confuse the coyotes and other dogs into believing that there is more than one dog in the pasture. It was just that Suzy was choosing all her locations around the house (probably because that was where the goats were hanging out).
After that every once in a while I would see Suzy out in the field carrying a shoe in her mouth.
Even to this day if you went walking around the field, you would come upon old shoes scattered around that Paul had thrown at Suzy in the middle of the night. Hmmm, I bet that is what happened to the pair of shoes that Paul could never find after we moved.
At one point in our life travels, we lived on 68 acres. To keep taxes to a reasonable level, we had goats which allowed us to keep the agriculture exemption for the property.
After losing a goat to a coyote, we bought a Great Pyrenees puppy. We named this white pup “Suzy Que” and called her Suzy for short. When we first brought her home we shoved her into the goat pen and the matriarch did not take kindly to a dog being there and butted her around the pen for a while. But Alice and Suzy soon came to terms.
Suzy was just a puppy and not too sure of what she was there for. We had another goat attacked and killed; at that point Suzy seemed to realize her job. It was like she felt sheepish, hanging her head and thinking “oh, this happened on my watch”. After that she took her job seriously.
One day we came home from the store and Suzy was acting all excited. We did not know why. I got some food out and feed the goats but one held back which was totally unlike any of them. Food was usually of prime importance to them. I took another look and it was Abigail and her rear end was bloody. I think Suzy saved Abigail. Abigail quickly recovered.
There was another day when I went outside and Suzy was acting excited, jumping all over the place. She would then take off to the corner of the property and start barking. After doing this several times, I finally got the hint and went to check it out. There was a small dog sitting in the corner shaking with fear. I told Suzy she did a good job, and then held her back while I opened the gate and let the poor dog out. That poor little dog was so grateful to be out of there, I never did see him again.
Suzy would walk the property line, following the fence every morning and evening and would bark at anything that was not where it should be. One night I had driven our van to the gate and left it there overnight. The next morning, there was Suzy, on the other side of the gate barking at that van. She kept at it until I got tired of hearing her and moved it back to the house where it belonged. All-in-all she was a very good and sweet natured goat dog.
We once live in a mobile home on 68 acres. This home had a sliding glass door in which we installed a cat door. However, for a number of months we had no back deck and on the outside of the sliding glass door, there was a 3 foot drop to the ground. To make the cat door actually usable, we installed a one foot by one foot shelf on the outside of the cat door. The cats had to jump onto the platform to come into the house.
One night we woke up to a bump, bump, bump noise coming from the living room. My husband got up to investigate. I called out “what did you find”? and he showed up at the bedroom door holding a full grown rabbit by the scuff of the neck. It was in good shape and he took it outside, letting it go beyond the yard fence.
The only way we could figure out that the rabbit got in was by Callie. She must have caught the thing, jumped up on the platform and let go of it to shove it through the cat door! That was some feat! She was always amazing us.
Callie was one smart cat. My husband says she had the intelligence of a 3-4 year old child. I have to agree.
Several weeks ago, I mentioned how quickly she learned but she also took the initiative. She saw me opening doors and quickly learned how to jump at the knobs and slide one paw down faster than the other making the door unlatch. She would then either push the door open or reach under the door with a paw and pull it open. The only doors that were safe from her were the heavier latched exterior doors.
Another test of intelligence is the fear factor: very little scared Callie. Most cats run from a vacuum cleaner. Callie would just act annoyed. I remember vacuuming the curtains behind the bed while Callie was on the bed trying to sleep. She kept giving me dirty looks and finally moved when the hose nozzle fell off landing next to her for the second time.
But one event really stands out highlighting her intelligence. I had two closet plants that were not thriving in their new location. Two weeks before I had cleaned out all the dead leaves from one of the plants and I had finally gotten around to cleaning out the second one. I was sitting there pulling dried dead growth from the plant when Callie came in and sat down watching me. She then walked over to the plant that I had worked on two weeks before. She stuck her front paws on the rim and started rustling around in the plant. I was starting to get worried. Had she decided to give up the litter box for more natural surrounding? But no, soon she came up with a dead leaf in her mouth and laid it on the floor close to me. She was either saying “I can do that” or “you missed one,” both fit her personality.
The Cat from Outer Space – Wednesday Animal Story
Posted by: Ann
Callie was from outer space. That is the only explanation. She was the most unusual cat that has ever owned me. Last Wednesday I told how she would get on the roof and back down. I did not tell you about her jump.
You see other cats jump. They make this nice arc in the air and land on a surface. Callie did not arc. She went straight up then over and down with her legs hanging loose under her. It was like she levitated. When she walked, she marched, left, right, left, right, lifting her left side in unison and then the right legs. I always wondered how she managed not to fall over (she probably thought the same about us).
At one point while Callie was with us, we moved out on to 68 acres with a mobile home. About 50 feet behind this house was a barbed wire fence and a lot of scrub and thorny vine growing close to it. One day as I watched, Callie headed toward the brush and disappeared into it. I paced her through the brush although I could not see her. I was wondering where she would come out. Soon she came out about 100 feet down from where she had gone in and I was staring straight at her. I had paced her correctly however now she had a shrew in her mouth! We always joked that she had a refrigerator of shrews back there.
While living in this mobile home we installed a cat door with a small 1foot x 1foot platform outside just large enough for a cat to jump up on and then come in the cat door. One night we awoke to a “thump, thump, thump” coming from the living room. Paul got up to see what was going on. There hopping around the living room was a full grown rabbit and Callie looking smug.
We could not figure out how she had managed to jump (excuse me, levitate) on to the small platform three feet off the ground with a full grown rabbit. I know she had to let go of it to push it through the cat door and that was why it was hopping around the living room. We put the uninjured rabbit back outside past the fenced in yard. Maybe Callie had decided to move her refrigerator into the house.
Callie was an agile, medium sized cat. Barney was a LARGE 18 pounder all bone and muscle and very clumsy. Barney would try and keep up with Callie. I think Callie deliberately lured Barney into places he could not get out of easily. Callie would get on the fence and jump onto the roof. Barney would follow her. Callie would jump down from the fence. Barney would be stuck.
There were a number of times I had to pull Barney off of the roof. I finally decided that Barney had to learn how to get off the roof himself. If he was going to climb up there he could get down just like Callie did. There were a couple of times that Barney came into the house limping after jumping down and I would pull out the hot pad and he would lay his sore back legs on it.
Callie would also jump up on the fireplace mantle walking in and out of the objects up there. Sometimes Barney would follow her and either knock stuff over or manage to fall off himself.
Barney finally came to terms with what he could and could not do. He realized that there were some things that he just could not do.
The lesson from Barney is that we often have to come to terms about our limits. Why do we keep trying to do things that we are not good at when there are many things we are good at. Barney was a great people cat. He loved meeting people and people loved him. Barney exuded personality. If he were a person I would give him a job in public relations or entertainment.
What are your strengths? Are you spending too much time in an area for which you have no natural ability?
I introduced Barney and Callie last week. This week I want to tell a story about Callie.
One evening, about two months after I brought these two home, Callie was sitting on my breakfast room window seat. The window was open with just a screen between her and the world. Outside the window, a stray cat walked by and all of a sudden Callie jumped through the window screen to get to him. It was then that I learned Callie loved a good fight. This incident also scared me, not because my clawless cat wanted to be involved in fighting (hey it was her choice to fight, and no I was not the one who declawed her) but because I had no control after they were out of the house. What if they were about to run into the street? It was time to teach these two their names or more precisely, to come when I called them, especially if they were going to get loose.
I took them both outside with some cat treats. Callie caught on real fast. Barney took more work.
I was so impressed with Callie that I taught her to come, and stay! I could just you hand signals and she obeyed!
Callie had another unusual quark, she loved water. She would even get in the shower with me while I was showering! She also loved drinking out of the sink faucet and would jump up on the vanity in the bathroom whenever the water was running. This became a problem. I had contacts and insisted on a hairless, dander free area as I dealt with them. At first I would use the stay command to tell her she was not welcome, then after dealing with the contacts I would say “come” and she would jump up. There were a few times when I was through with the contacts but had not given the all-clear command and she had jumped up anyway. I also noted a couple of time when I started working on my contacts when she was not in the room, then she would come in and my hands were busy so I was not able to do the hand signal that went with the stay commands, but she would stay grounded until I was through. I started thinking about the whole thing, it was like she was reading my mind. I then noticed that I tensed my back when she came in while I was working my contacts. When I was through my back relaxed. Callie wasn’t reading my mind she was reading my body language and acting appropriately! I was able to stop with the commands altogether and just use my back muscles. She was able to read my energy through my clothing!
Even though Callie was easy to train, there was one battle that Callie finally won involving the top of the refrigerator. I do not allow the cats on any food preparation or serving areas. However Callie loved to be on top of the refrigerator to survey the happenings in the kitchen. But to get there she had to jump to the kitchen counter first. I fought with her on this for several months. We finally came to a compromise. She could only get on the small section next to the refrigerator and only to jump to the top of the refrigerator. This has been the only time I have compromised with one of my cats about one of my hard and fast rules.
I had a beautiful calico cat once, or I should say a beautiful calico at one time had me, as a servant. Cats are never really owned. If they do not like where they are, they move on to a new place and start a new life.
I got her and my big black and white cat, Barney (who I have mentioned before) at the same time. After I picked out Barney I started looking for a female companion cat for him. When she saw that the black and white was out of the cage, she came to the front to present herself. She did not want to stay there behind bars. I saw that she was female and about a year old where Barney was 6 months, so I thought this would be a good match.
When I got them home, I was not so sure I had made the right decision. Callie spent the first three days hiding on a shelf in my closet. I finally forced her out and closed the door. She then proceeded to torment Barney, who was just a large overgrown kitten. It got so bad that I started thinking about taking one of them back, but which one? Barney was so cute and adorable, loved everyone and I really wanted to keep him. But Callie was female and older, two strikes against her for readoption and I was afraid she would be put down. What to do?
At night Barney would take up residence on my bed and start kneading and sucking, slobbering all over the blanket. I was getting tired of going to bed with a wet blanket. So one night I picked up a towel and Barney and headed to the living room. I set the towel down and Barney on top of it and petted him and talked. I told him that this was his momma and he could knead and suck it all he wanted. He finally got the hint and started on the towel. Callie finally came out of the bedroom to see what was going on. When she saw Barney sucking on the towel, she came over and started licking on him. At that point I realized that it would be ok and they would get along.