Dogs or cats?

FELINE FRACAS AND CANINE CACOPHONY

We do not have pet cats or dogs. However, we share with cats on the prowl looking for birdlife or lizards to eat. They come at night, and if they successfully catch prey, then you hear all about it from the commodity of noise that results.

One of the occupations in which we had to indulge when first coming to live in our present house, we had encounters with wild cats – generally domestics that have been let loose into everlasting freedom by their owners – which used to create havoc. It costs us to hire cat traps from the City Council, then catch the cats and take them to the RSPCA. They were generally euthanised, and I felt obliged each time to offer a substantial donation to the RSPCA to look after these unwanted felines.

In a similar context, we’ve had to put up with a nuisance of dogs ever since we moved into this house. We don’t have dogs, but we indeed share the cacophony of noise raised by the canine pets of nearby householders. At times the barking is quite incessant and certainly does not enhance my appreciation for these four-legged friends of man.

Occasionally, we have had stray dogs take refuge at our place until removed by authority. On one occasion, I was required to dispose of a dog to the RSPCA. The reluctance of the group to accept the animal was somewhat tempered by a donation of $400.

Many years ago, when we lived at Angurugu on Groote Eylandt, our daughter did have a pet cat named Tinker, which had been given to her by an aunt. This was just before we set off on the journey from Perth to Darwin, A trip of around 4000 km by car. The cat most certainly made its presence felt during the trip.

It went AWOL in Darwin, and I thought that was it. However, the landlady of the motel where we were staying found the cat and airfreighted it to Great Island, where it was restored to our daughter.

Next door, fellow teachers had a dog – from memory, a pit bull. This was an aggressive dog that, on occasion, gave Tinker a hard time.

However, the cat came out on top. There was a dreadful commotion outside our house in some bushes one morning. We rushed out in time to see that Tinker had dropped from a tree onto the back of Chops, the dog, as it trespassed onto our property. The biting and the scratching that Tinker offered to Chops paid back a good deal of the angst he had caused the cat to that point in time.

Dogs and cats. We don’t have them but we sure share those in the neighbourhood.