Of Cat and Dog

This morning as I was walking Bravo before sunrise, he suddenly veered away into the middle of the road to avoid something ahead of him. I peered into the dark and eventually realized that there was a cat standing in the gutter, back arched in warning. Yes, my 70-lb dog was afraid of a cat. Once he had made a wide circle around this scary critter, Bravo turned back to check, and she appeared to be following us. So he would run ahead, then turn again and kind of growl at her (but it was really more like his little talking noise than a fierce growl). This went on for a distance of 3 or 4 houses. Eventually we got far enough ahead, or she lost interest in scaring the big dog, or something, and we continued our walk.

So Bravo is afraid of cats, but he loves college students. We went to Beloit last weekend, and I think he believed that all the petting he got from the Beloit students was worth the 6 hours in the crate to get there. We had so many students come up to us, ask to pet him, and talk about how they missed their dogs. At least one girl said we made her day. Karis and I took him on a couple of long walks, he got to visit the farmers' market, and even snuck into her dorm room once. He thought the hotel room was a little strange, but all in all he did quite well with new experiences.

The weather was beautiful, and I very much enjoyed visiting Beloit and meeting some of Karis' friends there. But most of all, it was great to see my daughter again. I'm really glad she gets a fall break, and will be home in about 10 days.

We did have a strange incident where we couldn't call each others' cell phones, and so couldn't find each other for about an hour. That happened again on Tuesday when I went to pick up someone at work from the airport - she finally had to use a pay phone to reach me. I'm not sure what was going on...

Fortune cookie of the day:
Take some time and really listen to your own inner wisdom.