Woman in the Middle

Do your pets punish you? Mine sure do. In my household, it is Honey the dog who is most likely to dole out the punishment for perceived slights and transgressions. In case you haven’t picked up on this yet, Blackie is a really mellow cat. He rarely gets out of sorts, unless there are new kittens in the house, of course. But, before I expose Honey’s dark side, I do have to tell you about the time Blackie got mad at us.  It still makes me laugh.

We were living in our other house and Blackie was allowed to go outside during the day. We were going away for overnight and we didn’t want Blackie to be out at night when the coyotes roamed our neighborhood. We decided to leave him inside with plenty of food and water and his litter box.  When we came home all was well. The litter box had been used and he hadn’t gotten into any mischief. However, to make sure we understood his displeasure at being left in the house, one perfect poo had been deposited in the middle of the living room floor, where we would see it as soon as we got home.

We have a dilemma anymore when we are going to be away  the house for a good part of the day. Honey can not be left outside for extended periods of time any more. The last time we did that she exhausted herself pacing back and forth. If we leave her inside she mostly sleeps on her comfy bed. We can’t have someone come in and let her out as she doesn’t like strangers , and to her a stranger is anyone but the four of us. When we are gone we just leave her inside, hope for the best and clean up the mess if there is one when we get home.

When we went to Disneyland recently we were gone for eleven hours. But, when we got home, Honey was sound asleep and she hadn’t had any accidents. Good dog!!

However,  she apparently wasn’t happy that we had left her for so long. The next day she piddled in the house twice and pooped once! At first we were wondering what was wrong. A bladder infection? A sudden increase in her doggie dementia? Was the end near? Did we need diapers? Then, we realized we were being punished.

We have always said Honey is so smart, if she had opposable thumbs she would take over the world. She is certainly smart enough to punish us when we get out of hand and stay out too late!