Pierre and Shadow like to garden with me. For those who haven’t met the pets at Seven Oaks, Pierre is a tough cat I adopted as a six week old kitten almost exactly a year ago, and Shadow is my German Shepherd dog. She WAS adopted exactly one year ago today from the Town of Farmville animal control facility. (Shameless promotion: adopt a shelter dog. You won’t regret it!)
Shadow lays within ten feet of me while I weed or plant. She chases deer off the lawn and out of the fruit orchard. This morning when I opened the front door to take her on her walk, the deer were just on the edge of the flower garden next to the driveway. One glare from her and the entire herd of six thundered away through the woods.
Both pets love being outdoors – it’s hard to get them to come inside. Pierre stalks bugs and attacks with gleeful abandon. He loves the slate sidewalk in front of the house. He basks in the sun, then springs into action after beetles, crickets, butterflies and bees.
Yesterday we laughed as we watched him play, leaping and spinning to catch flying insects. Suddenly he was hopping up and down and shaking his paw. He slunk to the front door of the house and meowed to get back inside.
Shadow raced over and with a snap of her teeth, vanquished the foe who had hurt her best pal.
Yup, Pierre finally got stung by one of the wasps he catches!
He’s fine, not even a bit swollen. I have a feeling the wasp just nicked him. But my tough, scrappy gray cat finally met his match!
Maybe your scrappy cat has learned wasps are not much for playing with.
Keewee, I sure hope so. He was just outside and busy chasing beetles, but left the wasps alone, so we’ll see!
My one dog catches and eats anything flying by…flies, bees – it doens’t matter. I wonder if he ever will be stung.