Close to Nowhere

I added a cat to the menagerie several months ago. The dog I had, Teddy, decided that he was going to eat cat food instead of his dog food. Cat food is bad for dogs. I'm not sure why, but I do know that cat food makes dogs really fat. Teddy also decided that the litter box was his new playground. I'd had it. I decided Teddy had to go.

As soon as I found what would have been a great home for him, daughter Dana and granddaughter Remy had fits. And they were right. I started shutting the door that gave Teddy access to cat food and litter and things went back to as near normal as they get around here. I have since gotten grandson-in-law Mitch to cut a hole in said door and we put a cat door in. Teddy is too big for the cat door and the cat is positive that the new flappy door is the greatest invention ever and loves to leap up and jump through it at 90 miles per hour.

So we're cruising calmly around here with hundreds of chickens and roosters and ducks and something called a "naked neck" chicken; along with two dogs and two horses outside; I'm not sure how many cats at daughter Dana's house and a cat and dog at my house.

Then my cousin Al moved. He and his wife Frances moved from acreage in Union County to a house with a tiny yard. His dog Lucy, whom he's had since she wandered up to his house when she was a puppy eight years ago, was not going to be happy at all living in the city. Especially since she's a really big dog with lots and lots of hair. She looks like a huge, hairy wolf ­ unless you look at her face. She is the sweetest-looking dog I've ever seen. She just radiates love from her eyeballs and her facial expressions (yes, dogs have personalities and feelings).

The dog that had never been in the house had to be coaxed into my house by her human (cousin Al) and a hot dog. Al almost cried when he left the house and knowing him, he did cry on the way back to New Albany.

Lucy has settled in really well. I've read that it takes two days for a dog to stop being afraid at a new home, two weeks to relax around their new humans and two months to adjust to new routines and families.

Lucy has been at my house a little over a week. I have to drag her, crying, outside in the morning. She lays by the front door and waits patiently until I open the door and let her back in. She then lays at my feet in whatever room I'm in. She'd love to play with the cat, but the cat is having none of that. Teddy has decided she's OK and he lays beside her wherever I am. She sometimes goes outside now voluntarily, totally ignores the chickens and is beginning to be friends with the two outside dogs.

Al is amazed that his outside wandering friend is happily living inside a house. I'm not.

Lucy and I are the only females in our house. We're sticking together!