Full House !

We've just had a couple of very nice, mild days during which I was able to get outside and do some garden tidying.  Mostly, I was "harvesting" a bumper crop of "doggie do".  If there was money in dog crap, I'd be a wealthy woman.

My daughter and her boyfriend moved out recently: so I am now free to let you in on a secret.  Are you ready ?  

While they lived here, we had a total of seven -- YES !   SEVEN !  -- dogs in our house: in a semi-detached house with a small yard.   Two of the dogs were rescues, that they were fostering.  Luckily, Kait's boyfriend, Des, is a dog trainer, so things were not as chaotic as you'd imagine.  Nevertheless, as far as the poop production goes, it was very impressive.

Kait working with her wonderful, Red-nosed Pitbull, "Sooki".

But I can hear what you're thinking: and you're right.  Seven, is too many dogs.

My other two boarders had moved out over a month ago, taking their two cats with them.

Did I mention that Kait's boyfriend, also has two cats ?

Yup.  We were living in a lil' house with SEVEN dogs and SIX cats !   And FIVE people.  

A funny sign from the Happy Dudes Surfing Emporium.

Are you sitting there with your mouth gaping open ?    There certainly were days when I did.

Des's beautiful pit bull, Rascal, enjoying the rope swing.

The dogs did not have the run of the house or chaos would really and truly broken out..  My dogs, Wendy and Trey never go downstairs, and the kids' dogs never came up un-escorted.  And "no", we never had a dog fight.   In an year, not one dog fight.  Four "pits" or "pit bull crosses", two Bouviers and a lab-cross, lived in relative harmony.  The lab-cross is Wendy.  My sweet-natured, darling, Wendy.

So in this house full of dogs, would you be surprised to know that Wendy and the Des's female, Bouvier, Liza, were the "alpha" dogs.  Wendy posses a calm demeanor, but the mere subtle curl of her lip causes Trey to flatten his ears and turn away in deference to her higher status.  She doesn't need to fight.  She exudes confidence.

My cats, Roswell and Butters.

In a way the cats were more trouble than the dogs.  Of the six, five were inside cats.  Butters as a rescue, never adjusted to indoor life, and displays his displeasure in very tangible ways, and hence gets to go outside and play in the traffic.

Surprise number two, regards the identity of the "alpha" cat in our animal-hoarding,  home.

Roswell, my space-alien cat.

It's the smallest of the cats, none other than our own resident, space-alien cat, Roswell.  If Roswell decides one of the "other" cats (anyone who isn't Butters) shouldn't be upstairs, he chases them back downstairs

I'm still pet-sitting Des's two cats: Max and Bocce, aka, "Bean", so I'm currently living with two dogs and four cats.

Max.

Still, the house seems VERY quiet with five fewer dogs, four fewer people and two fewer cats.

The house seems so much bigger now.

This is the first time I have been alone since I retired here in '09.

Ahhhh bliss ...