Cats and Dogs

We finally have both . . . for a while

Pixie at the top of the stairs

This is Pixie. She is our youngest daughter Gwen’s sweet little cat. She’s got a lot of Manx in her with her bobtail and build, and at times she kind of moves like a rabbit. Relegated to Gwen’s room and the upstairs, she will often sit at the head of the stairs and do the cat version of talk to the humans who she wants to come upstairs and hang out with her.

Indy and Arrow in a brief detente

Here are the two dogs — Indy and Arrow — who would love to have Pixie come downstairs. One would like to play with her and the other would like to chase her. I fear it would not end well for little Pixie so we keep them separated.

Pixie is very doglike. She recently made the cross-country car trip from Boise, Idaho, to Freeville, New York, with several stops so the humans could see birds along the way. Pixie sat on Gwen’s lap a lot of the time and when Gwen was out birding, Pixie was also birding while riding in a backpack with mesh sides. Somehow, birding with a cat seemed strange to me and apparently it did to others who would gawk as Gwen trained her binoculars on something in the distance while Pixie casually took in her surroundings.

I grew up with cats because my mother loved them. When my mother died, on her bedside stand were five framed photographs. One might assume of her children and grandchildren but no. They were of her cats Baby, Blackie, Rosie, Sophie, and Emma. I was incredulous for a nano-second but then laughed because it made so much sense. When I married my cat-allergic husband many years ago, he got allergy shots until Sam and Peepers died years later. True love. Or maybe he was just paving the way for when he would have birds of prey in the house.

So having a sweet little kitty upstairs, at least for a while, has been wonderful for me because I can go lie on Gwen’s bed and have a purring kitty right next to me. For Tim it means having Allegra nearby but because he loves Gwen, he is more than willing to pop those pills.