The first story is about Archie. He loves to play--he plays with the cat, with Azza, with his toys, with me. When I am studying, he brings me toys one by one, hoping that maybe this one will entice me to play since the one he brought me five minutes earlier did not. I've written before about looking up from my books and notes and computer to find myself surrounded by a sea of dog toys, so many that I have to move them out of the way to move my chair.
Often when he is super stimulated during toy play, he carries his toys into Azza's or Mimi's crate, or to the two dog beds by my study area. He proceeds to ruck up the bedding, vigorously pulling it up and back with his front paws, with the general aim of burying his treasure within. He can completely turn over all of the bedding in the process, and in the case of the dog beds, move them several feet across the room. He will also bury his antlers like this. So every morning, while the dogs are eating breakfast, I go around to all the crates and dog beds to straighten out the bedding and remove all of Archie's stashed toys and antlers.
The other morning while I was straightening up the dog things, I was completely taken aback to find this:
That is a picture of an antler and a plush toy carefully placed on the cat's scratching box. In case you are thinking, "pfft, carefully placed--that was just an accident", I will tell you that I removed them and a different antler and two different toys were on the scratching box the next morning. Archie deliberately stashed his treasure there.
There are several levels of silliness here. I have no idea why Archie gets so much pleasure out of burying his toys--he never retrieves them so I think it is the act of moving everything around that he likes. He never puts toys in his own crate. The terriers regularly take snoozes in any available crate or bed, but they absolutely know which crate is theirs. While the cat doesn't use a crate, Archie sees him use the scratch box every day. I can only assume that Archie logically translated this as "cat's special place, good for stashing treasure." Makes perfect sense.
The second story is about Archie and the cat. I don't free-feed Beast--every meal is measured out. Thus he is convinced that he will starve and blow away like a bit of fluff, and he is constantly, and loudly, on the lookout for things he can eat. The compost bucket is a regular stop on his rounds although I've learned to put the lid on it when I put things like eggshells in there. He will come to the kitchen and beg just like the dogs when I am preparing dinner, although I have a low tolerance for that behavior and chase them all out after a few minutes.
Last night, I carved out an hour to make some real food. I sliced up half a sweet onion, peeled and cubed an eggplant, and cleaned, trimmed, and cut up three chicken thighs into thumb-sized chunks (when you are in vet school, you learn that when you manage to find time to cook, you cook big, enough for several meals, because you don't know when you'll have time again). I put all of that deliciousness into a saucepan with olive oil, salt, black pepper, and basil, gave it a bit of a stir, and turned on the burner. Suddenly, and now I can't even remember exactly why, I had to run back to the bedroom for something. It seemed necessary at the time. I was only gone for a few seconds.
I returned to the kitchen just in time to see the cat leaping off the stove with a piece of raw chicken dangling from his mouth. A piece of raw chicken he pulled directly from the heating saucepan. Little fucker. Archie was waiting below, jaws open like a crocodile--he is a very alert terrier and knows when the cat is up to something. The cat leaped over his head, hit the floor, and the chase was on. The cat was so frantic to take his treasure into the bedroom and under the bed, and Archie was so equally frantic to take the raw chicken from the cat's mouth, that they were bouncing off each other, off walls, off corners, off furniture, like pinballs. Archie was growling, the cat was growling, I was laughing so hard I could barely stand up.
I grabbed a flashlight, ran to the bedroom (yo, a nod to earthquake preparedness here, I have flashlights stashed all over the place), and dropped to the floor to watch it all play out. I sleep on a platform bed so Archie was not as maneuverable in that low space as the cat was but he sure gave it his all. In the end, the cat managed to choke down the piece of raw chicken before Archie could take it from him. Archie had to console himself with licking up drool and juice from the floor.
Never, ever a dull moment.
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