Who's Been Drinking From MY Bowl?

Along with the three dogs, we also have a cat. Right before I took this pic this morning, I heard him scratching at the door from the garage to the kitchen. I let him in and he went over to the dog bowls as usual. Dani had followed me and is still fascinated by this creature who basically ignores her no matter how much she tries to beg for a new playmate.

Gizmo stays mainly outside by his own choice. Over the years, we've tried to get him to stay inside but he's 15 and by now quite set in his independent ways. We adopted him from a local horse ranch as a tiny kitten and I think his outdoors and barn roots were stronger than any bribes we offered. He doesn't stray far from the house and he'll come in to steal the dogs' water (see photo) or to "shortcut" from the garage to the back yard.

He's even gone on walks with us. Yep. He follows at a typical cat distance of about 15 yards and if you turn to look at him, he pretends he thought of the walk by himself as if to say, "What are YOU doing on MY walk." It's really quite funny. Except for the time we took the dogs (then only two of them) across the street and into a nearby neighborhood for a night time walk. When we had circled that neighborhood and were back at the entrance waiting for traffic to clear so we could cross back over to our side, there was Gizmo waiting for us at the entrance. Yep, unbeknownst to us, he had followed us down our long, dark driveway, and across the street to that neighborhood.



Dani eventually gave up hope that Gizmo would play with her and went and bothered Chili instead.