It was about a year ago when Cat approached Patrice and I about what she wanted for her upcoming birthday.
Cat is a big thinker and big dreamer and at nine years old she knew enough to give us a two month warning.
"I would like a Timber Wolf." (Actually a Timber Wolf-dog hybrid, I learned.)
I looked over at Patrice. "That sounds about right."
She inquired if I was out of my mind.
I didn't know anything about Timberwolves so I did what a good father does, I made it up as I went along.
I told her that I didn't think it was legal to own a Timberwolf in New York.
She produced a printed page from the Internet which informed that it was indeed.
I told her that we wouldn't be able to find a breeder.
She produced a printed page from the Internet which informed that one existed in Michigan.
The compromising began.
The compromise:
http://www.flickr.com/pho...6964236308/in/photostream Cat named her, Spirit.
Patrice and I refer to her as, The Great White Menace.
Dogs chew,we knew that, so the half dozen pair of shoes, the arms on the chair my mother gave us, the numerous cds and dvds,
my favorite wooden cooking spoons, Cat's toys, the pool toys, my wallet, and all the rest were to be expected.
I don't even mind that The Great White Menace chews on Mr. Duckles the cat. Duckles seems to enjoy the sport.
http://www.flickr.com/pho...7111071341/in/photostream http://www.flickr.com/pho...7111076215/in/photostream I overlook the craters The Great White Menace has dug in the backyard. I have a friend who is a landscaper and he will drop off left-over
top soil this spring and summer. Chalk it up to puppy training.
http://www.flickr.com/pho...965007666/in/photostream/ The Great White Meance found a loose tile in Cat's bathroom and suddenly we needed a new floor. It's what I do.
http://www.flickr.com/pho...7111063903/in/photostream The Great White Menace dug a hole in the living room carpet and suddenly we needed a new floor. It's what I do.
http://www.flickr.com/pho...111065895/in/photostream/ The house is thirty years old and in need of a makeover. It's what I do.
What I don't do.
Recently I was working on our back porch and The Great White Menace thought she needed to help. She is usually tethered to a seventy-five foot run with forty feet of wire leash, two ten foot pieces and a twenty foot section. I had disconnected the run because she had ripped the frame right out of the tree to which it was secured. I had her attached to the house end of the run.She spots a group of twenty or so wild turkeys in a clearing about 150 yards away. She breaks into a full run and when she gets to the end of her leash,it snaps. And she is gone. Which is ok, she has gotten away before and she goes into the woods for a few hours and then returns to back the door all happy and muddy. There is a large spring where the house end of the run attaches and as The Great White Menace broke free from the leash the spring yanked the wire leash back towards the house. The leash rose to the second floor, broke through a storm window and punctured a hole in an approximately 160 year old stained glass window in Cat's bathroom. One of two windows that had been salvaged from a building in Rome, New York.
http://www.flickr.com/pho...112569023/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/pho...966489144/in/photostream/ The Great White Menace has struck again.
I have a sister in Anchorage, Alaska.
What is the postage on A Great White Menace?
