EDITION OF WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 26, 2015 (PetPowellPress) Call this “The Noise at 3 Something In the Morning.”
Two days ago, one of the feral cat dishes vanished from its place where our daily Front Porch Feral Buffet is presented. Usually there’s an orange cat, temp name Tango, and a nearly grown gray tabby kitten, no name yet, dining on the healthy food.
I was almost certain neither of them walked off with the dish or ran away with the spoon -- no spoon for cats, of course. I looked all around the front yard for the dish.
On Tuesday morning, somewhere in the 3 o’clock hour, I was awake and as long as I was up, I decided to put out the feral cat food. It was quiet on the front porch -- not a cat in sight. I finished that task, then went back inside to find something to watch on TV. I’d just settled down to Randolph Scott cowboy movie when there was a bit of a thunking crash on the front porch.
I went to the door to see if I could help a cat, but there were no cats. Also, the clay feeding dish that had taken the place of the silver feeding dish was missing. But in the glow of the outside light, I could see the silver dish -- missing for nearly 48 hours -- in the grass just outside the shrubbery. The clay dish had been dropped just off the porch -- it hit a limb or two on the way down and that was the noise.
As I stood there wondering where the silver dish had been hiding, I heard a hiss from above. And a deeper hiss from about knee level. I only had time to snap a photo of the hisser from above. That's the higher hisser hanging off the edge of the roof, eyes shining in the phone phlash. Before I could reload the phone camera, the deeper hisser scrambled up a piece of shrubbery and raced off across the roof to Raccoon Hideout. I was tempted to try to the lure the smaller, younger raccoon back to the porch and invite it inside but I realized, “Nope, I’ll never be able to explain to Martha why she was awakened by a pack of dogs chasing a raccoon through a whole lot of breakable household items.” Surely THAT would have awakened her.
I figure it’s live and let raccoon live around here. Worse things can happen. Years ago I put the cat trap out on the front porch one evening and the next morning, as Martha was about to leave through the garage door, she woke me and gleefully told me, “You’ve caught something in your front porch trap. Good luck.”
I opened the front door, sleepily squinted at the trap and saw a black and white cat for about a split second, then my vision cleared and I realized I was looking at a captive skunk. Using a broom handle from behind the slightly open glass door, I gently turned the trap over so that the door slid open and the skunk moved on without leaving a message.
Rather see raccoons on the porch.
SOME CATS NEEDING HOMES
That is one big load of cats -- not that they’re unwanted, it’s that the person who wanted them died and left them. Our tipster Paige Johnson, one of the area’s busy animal advocates, says, “They are all fixed, indoor cats, good with dogs - need vaccines updated. ... There were 12 cats - 5 have been re-homed or gone to rescue. There are 7 cats left that need a place to go or they are Garland Shelter bound. Lira on the photo collage was taken by rescue today. The others on the collage still need help - two cats are not pictured on the collage. They are tabbies.”
They all used to be strays. “The elderly owner loved these cats deeply. They were his world. He took them in as strays years ago and has had them ever since. He went into a coma a couple of weeks ago and died yesterday [Monday]. His wife is elderly and cannot take care of the cats. I am working with the daughter-in-law to help place them. We have been working on this for over a month now. We are at the point that we have no more time - the cats must be placed within the next 24 hours or at a minimum have a plan within a day or two.” To help these cats, email lonestartreasures@live.com or text 214-734-5698.
ON BEHALF OF A ROTTIE
Heather Harrison, the animal advocate and hustlin’ rescuer, sent a note asking, “Can anyone help this girl?”
She’s beautiful, isn’t she.
The story is “Rogue is a 4-year-old, female Rottweiler. Large girl, about 95 pounds. The sweetest girl you will ever meet! She just wants a human to cuddle and love her. Very well mannered and calm. LOVES her squeaky toys. Leash- and crate-trained. Fully vetted! NOT good with other female dogs. Has rear hip dysplasia, now awaiting front TPLO surgery (Funds available!!)
“Her owners want her gone by Friday or she will be euthanized!! Local rescue has been networking her but no luck!”
The contact point is Heather’s email: NICKALE7@YAHOO.COM.
[LARRY ASIDE: I never gave a thought to having a Rottie around the house until I picked up my pal Earl after someone dumped him in Kiest Park. He is the most polite, adorable, gentlemanly dog in all of Texas’ 254 counties. I didn’t train him -- that’s just the way he is. Ask other Rottie-by-accident people. Swear on a stack of Westminster entry forms, Texas Earl the Cheeseman is an example of a breed that can love humans, cats and saltine crackers as an evening treat.]
LET THE PHOTOS REACH YOUR HEART
Four of a dozen currently available at the Denton McNatt Animal Care and adoption Center, 317 N. Elm St. We got the photos of these great faces from Amy Poskey, the shelter animal advocate who focuses on Denton. Call the shelter at 940-349-7594 or email these shelter addresses: gayla.nelsen@cityofdenton.com, Cynthia.uber@cityofdenton.com,@yahoo.com, dentonshelterdogs@yahoo.com and/or dentonanimalservices@yahoo.com.
That fluffy one is Frederick the Goldendoodle -- you know how much people pay for these dogs and now here’s poor ol stray Frederick unclaimed in Denton. Probably not even his real name. Sonja is the beautiful black and white Pit. Tennessee Jack is the Pit stray with the patch. and Chyanne is that lively red Pit girl with the “perky ears.” Yep, a Denton County Earhound.
CONTEMPLATIONS: Journalism has lost one pretty swell guy, the great (not a good enough word) Kent Biffle. I had the pleasure of being the DMN’s National Editor way back yonder when the paper had travelin’ money and I talked my pretty smart boss into sending two reporters to Normandy to cover one of the big anniversaries of the D-Day invasion while a bunch of the veterans were still up to the trip and planned to go. The payoff was readers got a spectacular, moving inside the Continent look at what American soldiers had meant to the people that bloody, tough day in 1944. That’s just one example of Kent at work -- you can find those stories preserved at the public library. Kent wrote more good stories in a month than entire newspapers could publish in a year. (Excepting, of course, the ol’ Cowtown tabloid, The Fort Worth Press, where we both toiled in different eras and the place was known for having a constant stable of dynamite writers.) Kent was a writer. He also was one of the funniest guys I ever knew. Great quips. Fast. Genius-level. I came back from a road trip to New Mexico once and told him I’d gone to one of the Billy the Kid museums and seen, inexplicably, a stuffed two-headed calf and without missing a beat Biffle explained, "That’s the one they used to teach Billy how to rope.” Those of us who knew him are fortunate, but all of us who got to read him in the paper -- heck, we were genuinely blessed. Here’s the LINK to the obit written by veteran News staffer Joe Simnacher, one of Biffle’s colleagues at The Big Paper Downtown. That’s a photo of Biffle’s book of Sunday columns -- maybe it’ll help you remember him and how much you looked forward to reading his work.
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