Life on the Leash

The first three videos are up!

Check them out here. (They should play one after the other.) Fun!

As I was leaving for my clients on Friday I noticed that I still had a half-full cup of cafe mocha in the cup holder in my car. Not wanting to accidentally knock it over and dirty up an already filthy car, I took it out nestled it in the liriope by the driveway, thinking that I’d throw it out when I returned home.

A few hours later I got out of my car and saw this on the sidewalk near where I’d left the cup:

Perhaps the mailman had kicked the cup over as he walked by? But no, the mail hadn’t arrived yet. Plus the cup wasn’t in a “kickable” spot. I studied the spatter like Dexter.  Are those … footprints?

And wait a sec – where’s the cup? I continued my CSI-ing and discovered the lid a few steps away. With teeth marks in it!

“No way,” I thought to myself. “A squirrel? Coffee? Can’t be.” Then I considered the evidence: 1. footprints,  2. teeth marks, and 3. a bold, active squirrel community.

I checked the back yard and there I found the final piece of the puzzle:

Sumner assisted in the investigation:

The gnawed out bottom of the cup closed the case.

Squirrels? Coffee? Yup.

Wish I had seen the crime go down. Did he drink any of it? Did he try to drag the cup to the back yard with some of the coffee still in it? Did he pause at the top of the fence, posing with the cup in front of him as if part of some surreal Disney-Starbucks collaboration?

And just what does caffeine do to a squirrel?

It’s a cutneness flashback!

A former client sent me a few photos … here’s how Timber looked when I worked with her about 4 years ago:

And here she is all grown up:

I like her unwavering dedication to the face-in-grass pose.

My new client was concerned when she called me for the first time. She had a perfectly wonderful 3-year old resident dog, an Akita named Katira:

But my client recently brought home a rabble-rousing 3-month old Husky mix, Mishka, and things were getting challenging in the household.

(Mishka’s ears are taped so they’ll point up.)

She was concerned that the two dogs were playing inappropriately with each other (bitey, rough and nasty), so I took some time to watch them in action after our formal lesson ended.

Take a look … what’s your perspective? Do you think, just based on these pics, that the play is fair for both pups? Are there any safety issues?

Red light or green light for these two? Why or why not?

(Yes, that is a Flat Cat in the mix … they loved it.)

It looks like it’s all done and ready to sit on a shelf at your neighborhood book store (hopefully a prominent shelf), but the truth is, it ain’t. Not yet.

Just got this in the mail yesterday. Time for the next round of edits.

Book, you are haunting me!

Taylor and Lola’s person e-mailed me yesterday after our holiday hiatus. He was ill, he said.

A bad case of …

KITTEN FEVER!

Yes, Taylor and Lola now have a second sibling kitty, the fabulous Leroy Brown. (Not to be confused with Leeroy Jenkins.) So far, the pups have welcomed him with open paws, as evidenced by this awwwwww-inducing shot:

I have to get over there with my camera … that’s some quality cuteness going on.