... and I've been awake for the past two hours. Savannah started barking at one o'clock and her bark was so ferocious that I came downstairs instead of just telling her to Go to sleep! from the top of the stairs. When I got into the kitchen, I heard the cats outside howling and screeching, and I'm sure the rest of the people in the hills here heard them also.
There has been a gray/white stray cat hanging around our yard this past week and I absolutely refuse to feed it or even acknowledge it, which is totally out of character for me. We had an orange/white stray here for over a year and I had been feeding that cat because I felt so sorry for it, but it wasn't a friendly cat at all and my husband and I had bites and scratches to prove it. The orange/white stray disappeared when we were in England this past summer, and I was so thrilled that I promised myself not to feed any more stray cats.
So tonight, that gray/white cat was sitting outside the fenced-in coop trying to make friends with our two outside cats. Both Mickey and Gatsby sleep in the garage at night, but they have access to the attached coop which has cat-sized wicker furniture for them to sleep on and play in. So there was the gray/white stray, sitting outside the coop and howling, and there was Mickey and Gatsby, sitting inside the coop and howling right back at the stray cat. It's been so warm this week that Mickey and Gatsby have probably been sleeping in the fresh-air coop instead of the garage, and any stray cat that comes along is bound to try and make friends, hoping for feline companionship and some cat food.
All of their after-midnight cat-noises stopped when I came downstairs and turned on the porch light, then I went outside on the porch just in time to see the gray/white cat running away from the coop and out towards the pasture. By that time, Savannah was wide awake and ready to start another day, and I was just plain wide awake.
It was not a totally quiet day out here yesterday, with Savannah barking at our friend Corey, who has been visiting for the past couple of days. Savannah has made it her puppy-life's ambition to protect me from any and all 'intruders' who do not live in this house. On one hand, it's nice that she's become so protective, but on the other hand (the other paw?) she is scaring the wits out of our friends and neighbors.
We thought Savannah had finally made friends with Corey yesterday because she was sitting on the sofa with her and letting Corey pet her, and when Corey and I were outside walking Savannah, she was trying to jump around Corey and play like a friendly puppy instead of a guard dog. That behavior lasted a few hours, then Corey went out to the guest cottage for a bit and came back into the house and Savannah roared her disapproval and scared the heck out of both of us. I've lost count as to how many times I've yelled "Savannah! Cut it out!"
As I sit and type this, Savannah is sound asleep. I had taken her outside a little while ago because I thought she may have to pee after all the barking she did when she heard the cats howling. I've also lost count as to how many times I've walked up and down our driveway in the middle of the night in my pajamas. The neighbors aren't close enough to see what I'm wearing at any time of the day or night, unless they're sitting on their porches with binoculars aimed towards our property.
Christmas is just two days away... all I want for Christmas this year is a really good night's sleep.
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