THE BIG TRIP (CONT’D)

You folks are good! Elizabeth holds the winning ticket for the closest guess so far. I had to recheck my facts as there seems to be a few places on this planet where woolly creatures are wandering the hills. Where I’m going there are just over 20 million people and there are over 120 million sheep. Some of them are merino sheep – one of my favourite kinds!

Friday night was the first night that I tried to keep the door open in ‘Checkers’ room’ (otherwise known as the office) so that the pets could intermingle all night. I’m not sure what time I awoke to Tobi hissing and growling but the office door got closed and Checkers continued her nightly confinement. I didn’t try it again last night as I was too tired for a real racket.

I understand that this new cat introduction may take some time, especially with two female cats. The vet mentioned a few months actually. Checkers has been really good about being the submissive new cat to the thought-she-was-submissive cat (who turns out to be more dominant than I thought!). Tobi’s personal space is about 2 feet. It’s too bad as Checkers is really interested in Tobi but Tobi is having none of it. There are lots of places around this house for them to hide or take a break from each other, however, and Checkers has open run of the house most of the time now. I do close the door when SD and I aren’t home as Para might herd Checkers all day and neither of them would enjoy that for several hours.

Other than that, Checkers provides hours of entertainment chasing light shadows on the kitchen floor (when there’s sun). Para doesn’t like the fact that she sometimes finds herself being stalked by a black and white cat. I don’t know if Checkers has figured out that Para ia a dog yet, or if she thinks Para is just a big cat (very insulting to the Border Collie by the way. It’s a good thing she doesn’t read my blog!). Checkers does not really like being herded by Para, so Para has gotten swatted at a few times. Luckily, Para is used to cats and our other cat that passed away tried to swat Para every now and then so the dog is practised in moving away from paws quickly.

I think I’ll wait another bit to build the suspense about our big trip. I won’t be able to wait much longer than that – I’m just about bursting with excitement!