Well, it surprised me! Not sure about the dogs…
I was taking the little doggies for their evening walk yesterday, and it was dark. I dunno about where you live, but here we have those horrible sodium lights which just seem to turn everything a sickly yellow-brown colour without actually shedding much in the way of actual light, so it was pretty gloomy.
Anyway.
There I was walking the dogs, and – since the outing was for their benefit – letting them sniff at this and that and pee up things* and all, and there is this one hedge where they nearly always spend a few minutes reading the pee-mail. I expect it serves as the local doggy newsagent, or something. And then it dawned on me that I’d been standing there for quite a few minutes, and the dogs still had their noses in the hedge, so I took a step towards them and …
‘MRRAAAOOOOOWWW!!!’
Well. It made ME jump! Not so the dogs, who still had their noses stuck in the hedge closely observing (as it turned out) a cat. A very vocal cat. A cat who was tired of being observed by two very large and curious dogs and was issuing a serious threat in Classical Feline.
Clearly the dogs don’t speak the lingo, so it was up to me to interpret.
‘Come on chaps’, I said, gently pulling on the leads. ‘Unless you want to get your eyes scratched out’.
And they came instantly. Suspiciously fast. Almost as if – dare I say – they were just waiting for a reason to leave without unseemly and undignified haste.
‘I was just ‘splaining to Ranger …’ said Sid, hopping rapidly up the road behind me, and not looking back.
‘Yes, but what IS it?’ demanded Ranger. ‘Looked quite int’resting to me. Smelled funny though .. ‘
‘Trust me, you don’t want it’ I told him, firmly. ‘They bite and they scratch’.
‘OK’, Ranger said, tucking himself between me and Sid. ‘Anyway, you know I don’t like fluffy toys. Especially if they have sharp bits!’
Tonight we walked by that same hedge again. I half-expected them both to pull over towards it to see if the cat was still there, but no. They studiously ignored it and passed without a glance.
But I did find the cat stuffie Ranger was given for Christmas later, tossed out of his bed with half its tail missing.
I blame Sid. Remember the octopus?
* Not people’s cars, or flower beds, or rubbish bins, obviously. People can show a deplorable lack of understanding about such things.