On Good Friday, Cat Daddy and I strayed onto the Dark Side and met up with a DOG. (With the Dog Parents present, obviously. We wouldn’t have the slightest clue what to do with a dog by ourselves.)
This is Shadow, who belongs to one of my old school friends:
Despite being a member of the opposing faction, Shadow has a remarkable amount in common with Louis Catorze: they’re the same colour, they’re similar ages, and both have dodgy teeth, iffy legs and weird tails. If they ever met in another life, they would probably be friends.
It was a gloriously sunny day when we met in Richmond Park, so everyone else and their dog was there, too. Given the unpredictable mix of different types of dog (and human) plus geese, deer and whatever other animals lurk in the undergrowth invisible to human eyes, I expected utter carnage. However, Shadow was impeccably behaved throughout, sticking close to her Dog Parents even when off the lead, and showing no interest in looking for trouble. There was only one minor disagreement with a couple of chihuahuas, and they were the ones who started it.
Cat Daddy: “It’s always the small ones, isn’t it?”
Chihuahua Mamma, looking sheepish: “Yeah … sorry.”
We are very lucky that Catorze’s misbehaviour tends to take place out of sight, often under cover of darkness, and, if we’re stuck, we can always wheel out the old “It must have been some other black cat” excuse. It’s rather more difficult to deny the transgression if it’s in broad daylight, in public, and you’re standing there holding one end of the lead whilst the crazed animal at the other end is going absolutely ballistic. If you have a psycho dog, rightly or wrongly, people judge you and think you’re a useless, negligent parent. But if you have a psycho cat, everyone seems to accept that there’s not much you can do about it. In fact, if your cat is especially bad, they might even feel a bit sorry for you.
Shadow thoroughly enjoyed her walk and made the most of every sunny moment, as you can see from this picture:
And, as if we needed evidence of how fundamentally different they are, this is how Catorze passed the time on that same day:
louiscatorze.com 
Leave a reply to Belle Cancel reply