Cuckoo for Kitties

For all the training Lucy has been through, I have one rule I almost never break. She is rarely let her off leash.  This rule comes from numerous, weighty, verifiable experiences.

Lucy has a strong prey drive. Any and all critters gain her attention, but one of her favorites is the everyday feline. She can't pass its scent, its scat, its food, its toys, or the animal itself without stopping like a cartoon dog. It's as if she's walked into an invisible wall with her feet cemented to the ground, her nose twitching, and her head sweeping back and forth. The biggest clue we are about to have a problem is the silence. Lucy is almost never silent: she huffs, she whines, she jingles, she taps her nails on the ground, but when she is tracking prey or getting ready to chase- she goes still and silent. 

One of the best examples of this spectacle happened when she was about four years old. We have courtyards in our complex and Lucy and about 4 of her friends were hanging out. They were all off leash, circling, smelling each other and the grass and dirt. I was trying to get myself between Lucy and the far side of the courtyard. I realized I had let her off leash too quick, and then I got tangled up with the other dogs, almost fell, and couldn't get to my intended station. I saw it-- the phenomena was happening right before my eyes, but too far away for me to stop. Lucy stopped all movement, she swung her head toward the opening of the courtyard opposite me. She looked at me over her shoulder and took off running.

"No!" I yelled, but I knew in my gut, there was no use in calling - she was on the hunt. I knew where, too. She was going to the neighbor Brad's house. He had a cat that Lucy really wanted to get to know better. Her friend the Frenchie, Lucca, was right behind her. Tiffany, the Frenchie's owner and I looked at each other with shocked expressions, struck stupid for a minute and then chased the dogs. The two of them ran up steps, crossed the deck and got into his back patio lickety split. 

"Hey, you can't go in there!" I heard Brad yell at the dogs.

"Oh Shit! They went IN THE HOUSE!" I screeched at Tiffany while I was running toward the patio door.

I ran into the patio and stopped short. Brad was standing there with his bathrobe on and nothing else based on the glimpses of bare skin I could see with the way the robe was flapping around. I quickly looked at the ground and tried to inch around Brad without touching him anywhere to get to the sliding glass door. I saw Tiffany cringing and backing away from the patio out of the corner of my eye.

"Lucy! Come!" I shouted in the door. 

"I think they're eating all the cat food," Brad said with a frown on his face, trying to get in front of me to have a conversation. 

"Lucy, Lucy, Lucy!" I sing-songed, trying to coax my naughty dog out of the house. "C'mon Lucy, C'mon, pleeeease." I was getting desperate.

"You can go in and get her if you need to," Brad gestured inside his house.

"Uh no, I think she'll come." I said with little confidence while thinking, "Please, please, please." I did not want to get caught in the house with Bare Brad.

All of a sudden there was a commotion in the house, and the cat ran out with Lucy and Lucca right on her heels. 

"Close the gate Brad!" I roared. He slammed the gate right as Tiffany slid in the patio. I nabbed Lucy, put her leash on and tried to slide my way over to the gate without looking like I was trying to make a fast  getaway.

"We really have to make sure this doesn't happen again. I think it upsets Leia. Especially if they ate her food..." Brad was talking and I was trying hard to avert my eyes so I didn't see anything I shouldn't. The robe was open from his mad dash to the gate and one shoulder was hanging off and sliding down. I started laughing.

I couldn't stop. "On a leash, on a leash from here on out." I gasped.

Tonight, that all came flooding back to me when I noticed the side door was wide open and Lucy and her cousin, Jasmine had busted out. But I know my girl and she was right where I expected: under the house looking for feral cats.