Cat Food

My mom has been gone a lot lately. I don't like it when she leaves. None of us dogs do. Neither does Martha, the boy cat. I don't know why we have to say "the boy cat" after his name. His name is Martha and he is a boy ..... so, what is the big deal?

When my mom plans a trip she tries to think ahead. She always makes sure us dogs have plenty of food and she even leaves instructions for our feedings. I saw her write it all down and tape it to the counter in the store. She tapes lots and lots of notes there for our dad to read. He doesn't. She calls every day and tells him what to do, though. She even leaves food for him to eat.

This time when she left, she forgot to stock up on cat food. She even mentioned that and then she said she thought she would return before Martha (the boy cat) would run completely out. I suppose she forgot to factor in how much Toni Louise and I would eat if we were lucky enough to gain entrance to the store. It is pretty easy to slip past our dad. He doesn't pay close attention. We can be out there and eat to our hearts content ..... or until we throw up and he is blissfully unaware. He won't even notice the pee puddle or the up-chuck when he finally realizes we are in there because we have barked and cried to be let back into the house.

My mom finds it all, though. It is like she is some kind of all-knowing being. I swear she even knows when we are thinking about doing things. But, that is another story. This story is about cat food. Or the lack of cat food. Martha ran out of food while my mom was gone.

Funny thing is that Martha will eat dog food. He likes to taste our food, just like we like to taste his. But he wants his own food. My mom felt bad that he ran out of food and wondered why, since she knew he should have had enough to last. She looked at me and at Toni Louise (sometimes my mom just calls her TL for short) and asked us if we have gotten into any trouble while she was away. She warned us that she would know if we lied. She had already found some evidence of throw-up of undigested cat food on the floor behind her desk, there will be more about that later.

Yesterday, while she was painting a fence, she found a tiny mouse laying in the tall grass. It was so tiny, that at first she thought it was a bird feather. She scooped him up with a shovel and placed him carefully on her golf cart.

His eyes weren't even open yet. She told our Dad that she had toyed with the idea of raising him and naming him Stuart. For some reason she thought this was really funny. Our dad said that she should just smash his tiny head with the shovel and be done with him. I can only assume that he is not a fan of mice and I am certainly happy that I am not a mouse.

Instead she decided to offer this mouse to Martha, as a tiny appetizer. Sounds quite reasonable to me. I would rather enjoy a good game of cat and mouse myself ........ but I would draw the line at actually eating the creature. Better offerings await me in my dish inside.

Martha (the boy cat) was not all that impressed with this tiny mouse. It squeaked a little and he looked at it and poked at it with his paw, but he never really engaged in play. Didn't eat him either. My mom was a little put out that Martha (the boy cat) was so picky and suggested that maybe he would prefer it if she had just scooped up the cat food us dogs threw up and put it in his dish!