George and Nutmeg

George Arrives and Meets Nutmeg

by Katherine Ari                                                                                  July 14, 2009

Several years ago, we had two dogs, an alpha dog that was a six pound Maltese and a small Sheltie.  We had two cats.  One was a black, white and gray semi-long hair, the same color as our Sheltie, and the other was an orange and white Tabby marking striped male.  Both cats were neutered but Nutmeg, the orange one, was a little over 1 year old when we had took him to the vet.  He was old enough to have developed a tomcat attitude.

 

Nutmeg was outdoors during the day and he wandered around the neighborhood within a half block.  If another cat, like a tomcat, entered his “territory”, he would act like a typical tomcat asserting his dominance.  He frequently came home with scratches and bruises and swellings of unknown origin.  But it never slowed him down.  He was right back out there on the prowl the next day.

 

One day a neighbor boy came over to see one of our sons and a red-orange mixed breed dog was with him.  He was part Chow Chow, part Retriever and part ? and weighed about 39 pounds.  We guessed he was around 8 or 9 months old and he was full of personality.  The boy said he just showed up and was hanging around the neighborhood.

 

He was a very friendly and loving dog.  He just loved everyone.  But he was a Chow.  Chows around this neighborhood have a reputation of killing cats.  Chows are hunting dogs and can be overly aggressive and most of them around here are mean.  I wasn’t sure of what he would do around Nutmeg or our other more timid cat.

 

He was inside the yard with the boys.  Nutmeg had been out on his rounds but I guess sensed that there was activity going on at his house.  He sauntered back into the yard.  He wasn’t expecting a NEW dog on the premises.  Nutmeg adored the Maltese and the Sheltie loved all cats.  The visiting dog spied the cat, and he was on the chase.  Nutmeg was startled and ran for the nearest tree.  He got up out of the reach of the barking dog and stopped on a limb. “Where the H - - - did THAT come from?” was the look on his bright eyes looking down on the red dog.

 

We pulled the dog away from the tree and removed him from inside the fenced yard.  After a short while, Nutmeg came down from the tree.

 

The next day, the boy and the stray dog were again at our house. Nutmeg had been out prowling around and came back with his right eye swollen shut.  He looked kind of tough and rough.  He wasn’t in a very amiable mood to say the least.  When the dog came towards him, he just sat there, looking pirate like.  He didn’t budge, raised his right paw with his claws out, closed eye, and looked at him.  “I’m ready for you this time.  Come on Sucker!”

 

The dog was just about to him and when he realized that he wasn’t going to run this time, he kind of skidded to a stop. “I’m not sure about chasing THIS cat.  He isn’t running,” the dog’s face said.  Nutmeg took that as his opportunity to go towards the dog.  He went for his nose and slapped the dog’s face.  The next thing I saw was nine pound Nutmeg chasing 39 pound George, (he eventually was named George) across the yard slapping at his behind and tail with both paws, hissing and spitting, and scaring the dickens out of the dog.  But the dog was smiling all the time. 

 

Nutmeg ruled.  George was not a threat to the cats. He joined our family, and they got along fine.

Little smiles about cows and bulls

Animals Stories – Funny – Cows

Many times when I write about animals, there are symbolic meanings and messages.  But sometimes, they are just stories to make you smile or chuckle.  The following are related to cows or bulls.

My oldest son is 27 years old now, a full-grown man.  When he was about 1½ we were driving along a road where there were pastures, vegetable gardens, and cows or horses.  My husband, Doug, grew up on a farm.  He probably knew what cows, horses, and other farm animals were before he could walk.  It was just part of his childhood and adult life as well.

  But Miko had not been born into farm country.  We lived in a small rental house in Lithia Springs, GA which seemed like country but subdivisions were around the corner and Atlanta only minutes away. 

We were driving along a back road and saw a cow with her baby calf along the fencerow.  It seemed like an innocent thing to just stop and show Miko the calf.

  We stopped and got out of the car.  “Miko, this is a baby cow.  It’s called a calf.”  He looked at it and the calf looked at him.  Well, it seems that the baby cow had not seen a baby human either.  He took one look at Miko and let out a big blood screeching bellow.  Then Miko screamed and started crying.  The mother cow, breathing fire and glaring at us, moved between the calf and the fence. Doug said, “I didn’t expect that!”

  I held toddler Miko until he stopped crying.  He is still somewhat uncomfortable around cows.

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We used to have a friend with over 1000 acres of land.  He had cows and horses and chickens on part of his property but one section he left to woods.  We had permission to “play in his woods” whenever we wanted.  It was on a narrow dirt/gravel road and rarely a car would come down the road.  Across the road was another big privately owned piece of property.  It was mostly pasture but there was one tree right where we usually parked.

  One day, the rather rotund owner came riding up on a four-wheeler.  He pulled up to the fence and called us over.  Seems he had a bull that had an injured foot and he had to put some medicine on it every day.  The bull didn’t like the medicine and he would hide from Mr. Tidwell when it was medicine time.  He wanted to know if we had seen him.

“No, we haven’t seen any bull or cows,” we replied.  He drove around the tree and then headed up the next hill.  As soon as he got out of sight, that sneaky old bull came out from behind the tree and trotted off in the opposite direction of Mr. Tidwell on the four-wheeler.

“Would you look at that?  He was right there all along.  Mr. Tidwell probably will think we were lying.  How could we not see a big bull right there in the grass?”

This little story was just sweet.  Our second son was asleep in his car seat as we traveled on I-20 from Georgia towards Oklahoma.  I think we were in Alabama.   He woke up and said excitedly, “Look!  Puppies!”  What he saw up on the hill were black and white milk cows.  I gave Doug that cautionary look not to make fun of him and laugh.  “Actually, Kyler, there are milk cows.” I said with a smile – but not a laugh.

The next story did not happen to us but a friend told me about it.  He was a train engineer and since my daddy was a train engineer for 42 years, I like train stories. 

Seems as the train was traveling through the countryside, there was a farmer with a bull that kept getting through the right of way fence along the tracks.  That bull was a typical bull and territorial.  He didn’t like that big black engine coming through his turf.  As it came barreling into his “space”, that crazy bull charged the engine – head on.

Well, I won’t go into detail what happened next – let’s just say he took a short trip to become hamburger. 

BUT – the bull actually had the last say in that battle.  When his body was sucked under the front of the engine, his bones got tangled up in the break lines or something like that.  It cut the cables and disabled the engine.  It couldn’t move or even start back up.  They had to radio the base station and have another engine come out.  The train was stopped for several hours.  The bull lost – but it won.