The Big Black Dog

10Sep17

Yesterday in the afternoon, I took a walk. Two cats who I never met and never fed wanted me to pet them. One insisted I pet him, and when he was distracted and I continued on me walk he followed me wanting more. As I walked along the sidewalk Patch and Mask patrol, I saw Patch. He came up wanting food. I explained to him he didn’t let me pet him, and complete stranger cats had no fear of me whatsoever. Patch didn’t care. Fluffy came up and wouldn’t let me touch her either. I had just pet her that morning. They followed me to the apartment entrance and I came back down with some food but they were gone so I didn’t feed them.

This morning when David came back from his walk, he told me all of the cats were downstairs waiting for me and they were hungry. When I went down with food there were only two: Bag and Mask. I called around for the others but no one appeared. Fed Bag, went around the corner and fed Mask. Loudmouth appeared and I fed him. Fluffy too came out of hiding. Then I see it. The big black dog running around on his leash without an owner. First he scared off Loudmouth and Fluffy, then ate Loudmouth’s food. A few days ago someone had left out a bunch of meat in a styrofoam container, the cats didn’t touch it while I fed them but later in the day I noticed all the meat was gone. Well I had fed Loudmouth in that container, so after eating Loudmouth’s food, the big, black dog started to eat the container. Looking around for more, he was interested in my bag of cat food. I just petted him behind the ears. Then he saw Mask’s food and ate that. Mask’s bowl is broken now, so I assume the dog tried to eat that bowl too.

Bag was still eating peacefully by the tree. The dog was in the back yard by the entrance and Bag stopped eating and did what Bag does best, stared at the dog. The dog moseyed over toward Bag’s food, and Bag crouched and lunged at the dog. I thought, Oh no, there’s going to be blood and considering Bag was about the size of the dog’s head, Bag would get the worst of it.  But the dog was startled enough that he went left Bag and his food alone. Finally the owner came and took the dog away.

Then all 6 adult cats and 1 kitten appeared, and I fed them all.The