{"id":1064,"date":"2005-07-17T15:30:00","date_gmt":"2005-07-17T22:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beltdrivebetty.com\/wyzwmnsworld\/?p=1064"},"modified":"2010-09-29T18:31:02","modified_gmt":"2010-09-30T01:31:02","slug":"tazmanian-devil-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wyzwmn9444.live-website.com\/?p=1064","title":{"rendered":"Tazmanian Devil"},"content":{"rendered":"

That pic of the kitten<\/a> and the yarn reminded me of a cat I had when I lived in Pickle Lake Ontario (ya ya ya\u2026I notice that I am fixated on Pickles\u2026let\u2019s not go there\u2026) Pickle Lake is the northern most community that you can drive to in Ontario\u2026after that you have to fly in or wait for winter and the building of ice roads.<\/span><\/p>\n

As I said earlier\u2026 there was a time in my life when I raised Dobbies and Rotties\u2026at one point I had 19 dogs all at various stages of growth\u2026I had a pretty good chunk of land and I was in doggie heaven\u2026except of course for poop\u2019n scoop\u2019n\u2026it seemed to me that I spent hours daily wandering around the property with a shovel and a green garbage bag\u2026but I digress<\/span><\/p>\n

At that time in my life I didn\u2019t have a job so the dogs were my family and during the summer months I left the door open and they came and went as they pleased\u2026although they never were allowed past the kitchen doorway into the rest of the house (baby gates\u2026ya gotta love em!) I lived in that big old farmhouse by myself for a few years and a couple of these dogs were very protective of me\u2026whether it was cos I was the food lady\u2026or cos of my cute face and vivacious personality, I\u2019m not sure\u2026so I never had to worry about living alone in the country and if I left home I could always count on 5 or 6 dogs spread out on the stairs and porch when I got home\u2026patiently waiting for me. <\/span><\/p>\n

The dog family numbers changed accordingly sometimes I had more and sometimes I had less\u2026but on an average there were 7 to 10 dogs minimum the whole time I lived in that house.<\/span><\/p>\n

Anyway I came home from town one early spring afternoon to find a small completely black kitten sitting on my front porch\u2026and nary a dog on the stair little own on the porch\u2026I\u2019m not a cat person (they make me sneeze) so I pretty much ignored it\u2026and I was puzzled cos I lived 3.5 miles from my nearest neighbour\u2026where had the little beggar come from?<\/span><\/p>\n

As I went about the business of feeding the animals I was surprised to find that the dogs all let the cat eat first\u2026for some reason unknown to me that little cat had tamed all my dogs during my afternoon in town\u2026and she was definitely the boss\/leader of the pack\u2026the only animal she ever deferred to was me\u2026anyway the end result was that I started taking antihistamines and the little cat moved in.<\/span><\/p>\n

In short order the cat was named Taz short for Tasmanian devil\u2026cos I could never help but be amazed at how that wee kit kept all them dogs in line\u2026and she never really got big\u2026for all I know she could\u2019ve been full grown when she moved in. <\/span><\/p>\n

The things that kit got up to!…one time I came home to find her hanging by one foot from the top of the living room drapes, she was stuck and could likely have been there for the whole time I was away. And I can\u2019t count how many times I would open a kitchen cupboard door or a closet door to spot 2 little beady eyes staring back out at me. I\u2019ve often thought it must have painted some kind of Rockwellian picture to see me head out to the barn with Taz following close at my heels and various dogs in tow.<\/span><\/p>\n

So fast forward to fall and I am furiously crocheting my way to mental health. (cos there was no tv reception there except the Pickle\/Pat Pirate TV Station and that\u2019s a story for another day) and making homemade Christmas presents for everyone. <\/span><\/p>\n

My sister who was then about 20 had requested a home made bed spread in fuchsia, burgundy and a variegated pink to white and in order to get the colors right I\u2019d had to special order $200 worth of wool via the local Hudson\u2019s Bay Store. When the wool arrived I hauled it home and brought this big box of wool into my living room and set it beside my big stuffed rocking chair. The timing was close but I just might get everything done in time for Christmas. <\/span><\/p>\n

The following day I got called into town in the morning to join some ladies for coffee and one thing led to another and I didn\u2019t get home till dusk. I was surprised that not one dog met me at the road\u2026and as I traveled up the drive to the house I discovered that there were no dogs in the yard, or on the porch. This was making me nervous. <\/span><\/p>\n

The back door into the kitchen was open and like an idiot I headed straight in. As I stepped thru the door I flipped the lights on\u2026to find that every single dog was in the house\u2026and every single ball of wall was wound around the dogs! And around table legs, kitchen chairs, bookshelves and the dishwasher. It was like one huge vivid technicolor spider web in my kitchen\u2026the dogs being the captive flies. The whole mess was about 3 or 4 inches off the floor under which Taz was blissfully rolling out yet another ball of wool!<\/span><\/p>\n

Everywhere I looked there was fuchsia and pink wool except for the spots in which a dog sat\u2026(at that point I think there were 7 or 8 dogs) There was lots of that “I\u2019m sorry mom” whining going on\u2026and some of the saddest dog eyes I have ever seen\u2026it was like they knew Taz had got them in trouble again\u2026and were just waiting for Mom to come fix it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Two things occurred to me at once\u2026 my sister was never gonna believe this!\u2026and I\u2019m gonna kill that cat!<\/span><\/p>\n

Taz had lots adventures during the time she owned me\u2026in retrospect this was one of the funniest. It took me days to untangle all that wool\u2026and was probably the best lesson in patience I have ever had.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That pic of the kitten and the yarn reminded me of a cat I had when I lived in Pickle Lake Ontario (ya ya ya\u2026I notice that I am fixated on Pickles\u2026let\u2019s not go there\u2026) Pickle Lake is the northern … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wyzwmn9444.live-website.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wyzwmn9444.live-website.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wyzwmn9444.live-website.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wyzwmn9444.live-website.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wyzwmn9444.live-website.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1064"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wyzwmn9444.live-website.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5751,"href":"https:\/\/wyzwmn9444.live-website.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1064\/revisions\/5751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wyzwmn9444.live-website.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wyzwmn9444.live-website.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wyzwmn9444.live-website.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}