Russell A Vassallo, click
here to update your pages on AuthorsDen.
Blogs by Russell A Vassallo
Our Critters 7/9/2016 3:46:23 AM
I often wonder if any of our animals are normal. Why do I say this? Because there is not a single animal on our farm that does not have some kind of emotional dysfunction.
let me start with Sassy. She is a black car with a single white spot on her chest. She was being cared for by a kindly lady who operated a grooming salon and adopted more animals than her husband could stand. It finally came to a head when he issued a mandate that if she adopted one more animal, he was out of there.
Sassy resided in sheer pandemonium with dogs howling, barking, whining, crying,scratching and making any noise they could muster. She hid for days, so much so that the kind lady thought she had gotten out of the kennel and was now lost.
We were picking up Sweet Pea when Sassy jumped up on the counter and began rubbing around my hand. Kathy, the groomer, mentioned that she never did that and, in fact, avoided people who came to pick up their animals.
I felt a sense of sympathy for her and, though I dislike cats, I took her home. She promptly took up residence in our upstairs bedroom and disappeared for days.
Our cat, Boots, was so distraught he had a nervous breakdown and our vet had to tranquilize him and give us advice on how to integrate the two cats. He did this with a snicker, by the way, after five hundred dollars worth of testing.
These days Sassy sleeps in bed with us and usually finds time to play with her noisiest toys around four in the morning. I know she is dysfunctional. Every morning without fail, she watches me putting my socks on and comes over to scratch her head on my toe nails. Then she races out of the bedroom, down the stairs only to reappear minutes later to continue rubbing on my stocking feet.
Then there is Moxy, a once skeletal gray and white cat, that just showed up at the barn and persisted even when our two barn cats thrashed her for trying to steal their food. Not that I wanted another cat but she was hardly more than a kitten and obviously half-starved.
Before I knew it she had taken up residence in our garage where she proceeded to eat everything in sight, her portion, Kit's portion, Scat's portion and even the dog treats I put down for Spunky. She is a car with an eating disorder; she is anti-social and has no problem biting the hand that feeds her. Perhaps she thinks it's something else to eat.
She sleeps most of the day at the top of our garage stairs and lays right next to the day into our home. That I have nearly stepped on her when exiting is a given but it's fun not only to hear her hiss at me but to watch her waddle down the stairs as she is so plump she can hardly move her rear end from step to step. She doesn't really walk so much as roll down the stairs.
One of our other barn cats is named Kit Kat. She is about as friendly as an untrained tiger. Our vet long ago gave up trying to do anything for her. I mean, she is one nasty cat with a disposition like an unfed grizzly. in her time, of course, someone shot her so that she limped home for us to care for her. She permitted the luxury only until she was well.
The last time we brought her to the vet they sedated her and she was still ferocious. Kit bears out my theory that there is no such thing as a trustworthy cat. I have the scars to prove that, by the way.
Her vocabulary is limited, and yes, she does talk to me but it's always the same message: "Where is my special food?"
Our dog, Spunky, suffers from separation anxiety, which is, oddly enough, what I suffered from after my cancer. It is not possible to leave him alone during a thunderstorm so we have taken to sleeping downstairs with him the moment the weather turns nasty. Once he realizes that someone is sleeping with him, he rolls and cavorts with happiness, steps on us with his size twelve paws, rubs his back on us, whines, then darn near pushes me out of the bed. Just when one is dozing off, Spunky decides a goodnight kiss in in order.
Of course, Spunky was purchased by a negligent owner at a very young age, chained on an eighteen inch chain, left alone for days at a time and was finally confiscated by the County Attorney. Spunky is the subject of three stories, two in my book Tears and Tales, and one in my book Heart of an Animal. Our vet says Spunky has his wires crossed. I don't know how many times the UPS driver has had to bring him home when Spunky climbed into his truck looking for treats.
But I will match his loyalty against animal or person. Although Spunky is a coward at heart, he does put up a good show. And in his time he has tangled with five skunks and a ground hog and lost every battle.
And then there is Boots who had gone to his Heavenly reward. If you read Heart of an Animal, you will know how he got there. Boots did not drink from a water dish. He had to have water dripping in our whirlpool. When he was three, we sent him to a local grooming salon to get him spruced up with a bath and have his thickly matted hair combed out. Two hours later the groomer called and told us to come and get Boots who was hanging upside down in the cage and snarling at everyone. Boots has that oh-so-smug look on his face when we came to get him.
