Jazzy and the Cats
So people ask me, ‘How are the cats and the puppy getting along?’. And I answer, pretty well, all things considered.
Pretty well means that no blood has been drawn. And all things considered means that for the first couple weeks, Jazzy was completely unable to control herself around the cats (AKA ‘the little black dogs who can fly‘).
She still finds the cats perplexing. They’re puppy sized but they simply won’t play puppy games. She keeps trying. But she has calmed down a bit.
For the first couple weeks, if a cat entered the room, Jazzy would turn into a circa 1965 teenybopper spotting a Beatle. “Ohmigod ohmigod ohmigod – he’s Right! There!” And then she’d leap at the cat with shrieks of joy and devotion, often knocking him down in the process. Not surprisingly, the Fab Two didn’t appreciate such treatment and would head for higher ground.
But she’s moderating that behavior somewhat. Sam seems to be training her. He will hang around the floor within reach and issue a correcting box to the ears if she pesters him too much. Sometimes I’ll see them both sitting on the floor absorbed in their own projects. Makes a mommy quietly proud. Even Liam is spending more time out on the floor, so progress is definitely being made.
Here’s a recent video of Jazzy and Sam. See the improvement? She’s merely being a pest, not a complete menace.
(I have to send you to Photobucket for the video, because WordPress doesn’t seem to want to upload a MOV file here.)
In other news (remember, I’m Jazzy’s Mommy, but I’m not JUST Jazzy’s Mommy), I’m trying to regain the threads of Real Life, all the other stuff I used to do pre-puppy. I’ve been going back to the pool and to tai chi class.
And try not to get your hopes up too much, but I’ve actually written a bit more on The Book! Not a lot, though – I’m getting to the tricky part, where all the characters are in motion and there are three or four different misconceptions in play about what is going on. And I have to consult maps and make sure I’m not getting people places faster than horses could take them there, and though this is the exciting and dangerous part, I need to also keep in mind that this is romantic comedy and there still needs to be an element of humor involved. Whole lotta moving parts. So I frequently just throw up my hands and leave the computer to go out to the yard and throw a tennis ball for my dog.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
