gravid
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posted on March 15, 2001 09:54:01 AM new
You would be surprised what lives in the suburbs.
I was driving home one summer recently on a nice day with my windows down. I saw some sort of miniature dog with black curly hair in the back yard of a house I was passing behind.
Just as I looked over a large mass came out of the sky like a stone and maybe 2 foot above the ground opened it's wings to brake with a fluummp sound I could hear over the traffic noise. It sort of scooped the dog up with a rolling motion as it pulled up. The last I saw the big hawk of some kind was pumping like crazy because it was visably having trouble carrying the dog away. It had to really struggle to get over the telephone wires on the back of the lot.
I am sure the people thought it was safe out there.
[ edited by gravid on Mar 15, 2001 09:56 AM ]
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zilvy
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posted on March 15, 2001 10:34:35 AM new
Zazzie can you imagine the potential smile on a miniature schnauzer??
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RainyBear
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posted on March 15, 2001 11:15:33 AM new
Gravid, wow! That would be quite a sight. I suppose there are more critters than I normally think about living in the suburbs. Those crows are pretty mean and I've been intimidated enough by their squawking to go back inside a time or two. Plus I know there are raccoons around, and back in my old neighborhood (very close to the city) I saw a possum tightrope walking on a power line outside my apartment building.
My kitties got into a packet of silica pellets the other day, too. And last night hubby confessed that he'd taken a chewed cigar butt away from them! It seems the little furries are picking up his nasty habits.
Edited to add: ROTFL about the basset that makes change!
[ edited by RainyBear on Mar 15, 2001 11:16 AM ]
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equestrian
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posted on March 15, 2001 03:26:11 PM new
Gravid,
Your post brought to mind a close call I had with a hawk. Quite a few years back I had my cat Kootie out in our backyard - he was trained to the leash too so I was always about 10 feet from him at the most. As he was intensly sniffing around a tree when I just had this really weird feeling and looked up - two hawks were circling above us getting closer & closer. Well let me tell you - I've never moved so fast in all my life! I bolted, scooped Kootie up and made a run for it - he of course had no clue as to why I would interupt him. After that incident I was so leery to take him outside again. It's not just the coyotes & traffic that are a danger to our pets.
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zeldas
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posted on March 15, 2001 03:31:09 PM new
Zazzie TeeHee I am going to have to remember that one!
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sideslam
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posted on March 15, 2001 08:15:26 PM new
Zilvy,
I do have a dog. I got him about a year ago when I still had old dog. The cat, well everytime I get a cat. My husband makes me put him or her outside. He doesn't like cats.Anyways everyone of them have dissappered on me. Which I find strange. So I gave up on having a cat. But I do miss having one. And I just miss old dog. The dog I have now is a real good dog. But it is just not the same. When you have a animal that you really enjoy for many years. I suppose it is hard to get past that.
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Capriole
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posted on March 15, 2001 09:05:25 PM new
Gosh...this is why I peeked into the roundtable..yay.
My cat is a Maine Coon.
Frank is a Baby Huey: Tiny meow, shy around people etc.
When I had my cable modem installed they cable guys saw him for a few seconds before he vanished.
The cable guy stared in astonishment:
"Do you have a pet raccoon?"
I nearly fell over laughing.
I mean he's a big boned cat, not fat, but weighs in at 17 pounds. (all right he's not a skinny cat either!)
Capriole
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zilvy
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posted on March 15, 2001 09:27:26 PM new
HiCapriole That was really cute about the repairmans response...we had 2 fellows doing some work on the house and I kept reinforcing that none of the cats was allowed out..."No Matter What They Say" and I pointed out Tigger who was hunkered on the back of the couch (17lbs at that time). One fellow said, "That's not a cat, that's a Wooly Mammoth!"
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equestrian
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posted on March 15, 2001 09:32:44 PM new
Capriole and Zilvy:
I envy you both! I love Maine Coons! Your Tigger is absolutely gorgeous Zilvy. My guy is big too, he's 15 pounds, but doesn't have the temperment of a MC!
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bunnicula
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posted on March 15, 2001 11:16:21 PM new
A few years back I owned two Neapolitan Mastiffs, Rumpole & Emma Peel.
One night I cooked a roast and when I took it out of the oven it broke into two pieces, one large & one small. I had two small slices for dinner, leaving the roast on the kitchen counter to cool before refrigerating it but I dozed off over a book before I could do so.
In the wee hours of the morning I woke up & staggered into the kitchen, intending to put the roast in the fridge...only to discover that the large piece was gone! One of my dogs had taken & eaten it (these dogs definitely weren't into sharing  . ) Tears came to my eyes at this evidence of generosity--the small piece of roast had been left for me. What more can one ask?
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zilvy
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posted on March 15, 2001 11:49:38 PM new
Well obviously Bunnicula you taught them well about sharing {with you} and they were just reinforcing what they had learned. That is sooo sweet. Mastiffs? we are not talking small dogs are we??
Love the names...when was this in the 70's?
Emma Peele loved her?!
[ edited by zilvy on Mar 15, 2001 11:51 PM ]
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bunnicula
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posted on March 16, 2001 02:31:20 AM new
Zilvy: Not small, no. Neos are Italian Mastiffs & though *shorter* than the more familiar English Mastiff, they are heavy. They are the only Mastiffs that are cropped & docked & the most common colors range from mousey gray through dark blue, most with brindling. I owned them in the 80s, actually. Rumpole greatly resembled Leo McKern  .
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zilvy
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posted on March 16, 2001 01:40:15 PM new
GaffanI found your post more than mildly amusing....especially when I read At which point Leo screams "SHUT THE DOOR!". (I got him when he was 5; I didn't even know he knew how to say that).the second time.
It is true you will never know what to expect from a Parrot that you take on when they are older, especially if you are not familiar with their previous owner. It brought back the memory of a story my father told me...I believe in fact that this is true.
In the 30's a minister on Nantucket and his wife had a parrot that had belonged to a seafaring man. The parrot never really talked much other than "hello", "So Long" and a few other simple phrases. One day he got out of the house and took up residence in some shrubbery, my dad was about 14 at the time and was doing some yard work for the minister.....he kept calling "Polly" (I think every Parrot was called that back then) All of a sudden in the loudest voice they had ever heard the Minister and a group of visiting friends heard from the bushes...
POLLY DON'T WANT NO G*D DAMN CRACKERS
He didn't know the parrot knew about God!!
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Citygirl1
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posted on March 16, 2001 09:33:25 PM new
We've got a wonderful yellow lab named Skippy. When Skippy was a puppy, my fiancee was teaching him to retrieve, for hunting. At the same time we were trying to break him of his habit of chewing everything. One morning I woke up and found him lying next to the bed with one of my shoes in his mouth. I took the shoe away from him, told him NO! and being too lazy to get out of bed, I threw the shoe in the closet. Skippy ran after it and brought it back to me withi his tail wagging proudly~he had retrieved it!
Skippy is used to going to work with my fiancee everyday, but in the summer, its just too hot for him to be outdoors or in the truck for so long so we had to start leaving him home. Each day he would chew something up to show us his displeasure with this arramgement. Some fun items include: Library books which cost me a fortune to replace and the blinds off all our windows!
But we still love him-Fortunately, we have learned his greatest fear which allows us to exert ultimate control-the vaccuum cleaner!
Citygirl
I've always been crazy, but it's kept me from going insane!
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zilvy
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posted on March 16, 2001 09:55:47 PM new
We had a Weirmaraner, I was trying to teach him to water retrieve...he had already passed pointing and shooting. Still just a puppy...well we had this huge galvanized tub filled with water, I would play ball with him and eventually throw it in the tub. Of course the ball bobbed away from him and he'd get water in his nose. So I threw the ball into the water, reached under it to support it for a few times so that he could retrieve it. Each time I would pull it a little farther into the water. When it was submerged he finally tried to get it. Got water up his nose, sneezed and tried again. Remember this is a pup....next try he exhaled when he put his nose in and was so fascinated with blowing bubbles he kept putting his nose in and ingored the ball...blowing bubbles and looking so pleased when he came up for air. He was a great retriever and a wonderful companion for 13 years.
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gaffan
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posted on March 16, 2001 11:05:43 PM new
zilvy - thanks for the above, and for the parrot story. The great advantage of a previously owned parrot is that you always have someone else to blame any inopportune utterances on.
-gaffan-
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gaffan
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posted on March 19, 2001 03:42:32 PM new
The following anecdote concerning Leo the Panama Amazon parrot was originally posted elsewhere; I hope that cutting and pasting my own post is not a violation of some arcane clause of the CG's:
Just wanted to describe Leo's practical joke a few days ago. It was warm enough to take him out. As I was walking down the driveway, a guy with a dog was walking down the street. He suffered from that all too common variety of stupidity known as "not using a leash when you have a dog that's not under voice control". So the dog sees me and comes running. No big deal, just being friendly -- he was some sort of collie/lab mutt. The guy made two sharp short whistles, and the dog turned to go back to him. At which point Leo made two sharp, short whistles, and the dog turned around and headed back to us. I think we spun him around for three complete cycles. Finally the guy got the dog on the leash and headed away. Leo laughed. Truly an evil parrot.
-gaffan-
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