Family Royalty?

It seems our extended family has expanded in the person of one puppy. Last Friday, while enjoying the festivities in the park after the Fourth of July Parade, my oldest, Eva Marie, saw a town resident sitting under a tree keeping watch over a large, topless cardboard box. As we walked by, Eva spotted a writhing mass of black furred puppies within the box, so, of course, she reached in picked one up. It was a fait accompli. There was no way a woman who loves animals the way she does was going to put that young canine back in the box and walk away. Asking her to think twice before taking it would be like asking a Saudi Sheik to consider not selling oil.

This is the culprit. According to the guy with the box, the mother is a Greyhound and the father is a "traveling man", but most probably a horny black Labrador Retriever that roams the local neighborhoods. My daughter and my 16 year old granddaughter have agreed that his name shall be "Prince Dude". We can guess as to which of the two girls came up that name. So far, I think his handle ought to be "Sir Piddlesalot".

It's hard to see any Greyhound in Prince Dude, and my suspicion so far is that this character's temperament will prove to all black Lab, which means my daughter's household is in for a wild ride.
Of course, not all members of my daughter's household are thrilled by Prince Dude's arrival. This is Abbie, who has pretty much ruled the house for several years. Cats, generally, allow people to feed and house them, and will often react with utter disdain toward unapproved changes in living conditions. So far she has not attacked "The Dudester", but she has shown off her most dramatic hiss when the puppy's curiosity has brought him too close. I think that, in time, the two will learn to get along. It's been my observation that once a cat and a dog hammer out a working relationship, it will be hard for the dog to stretch out and sleep without the cat deciding it needs the dog's body warmth for its own nap.

Many years ago, the family acquired a snow white Samoyed, appropriately named "Sam", whose biggest problem in life seemed to be that the standard twenty-four hour day did not offer enough time to get in all the naps that he needed. His response was to leave great lumps of white hair on the carpet when the nap ended and he walked elsewhere to take another nap. Now, we had a Siamese cat at the time, who for three days after Sam's arrival, refused to let her feet touch the floor. She traveled by jumping from one piece of furniture to another when Sam was around. But within a few weeks, it was a common sight to see Sam snoring on the living room floor and the cat curled up literally in the armpits of his two front legs getting all the body warmth possible for a serious feline snooze.

There is an animal that Eva is not sure she loves, and that is the deer. Every summer Eva keeps quite a garden in her backyard and canning its output is the reason for its existence. She was a little tardy in getting her fence put up around the garden this year and the deer came in at night and feasted on her cucumbers and a couple of other newly sprouted vegetables. It's too late in the season to re-plant the cucumbers from seed, so she's looking for starter plants at some of the local sources. These were pickling cucumbers, not the type you use for salads, but the type you turn into dill pickles or bread and butter pickles. The deer also got to one of the horseradish plants, but we're hoping enough of its greenery is left for it to bounce back. The row of broccoli was a total loss, though, and they had a pretty good time with some of the lettuce. I guess deer can be picky eaters because they absolutely ignored the carrots.

For the many, many people in rural areas who plant such gardens, deer, rabbits, moles and similar critters are an ongoing frustration.