Isn't it amazing how much easier it is to train the dogs to do all sorts of things than it is to train a man to put the toilet seat down?
Thanks for the kind words, Beth. Don't give up hope on Dexter listening. Right now he's kind of at the developmental stage of a teenage boy. Sometimes you have to figure out how to get their attention, and they can be pretty adept at tuning out things they don't want to hear.
Right now I just have the dogs, Bimmer, Shiva and Kharma with me. My poor tomcat is roughing it (ha!) with my parents because there's no way he'd survive at the farm. He's always been an indoor cat, with only a few Houdini episodes in the great outdoors of town, and he has no natural fear of dogs, which would doom him to walk up to a coyote just like he would one of his buddies. He's been like that ever since he was a kitten; I brought him home after finding him squalling and abandoned underneath a Blazer at a Chevy dealership. He wasn't even old enough really to be away from his mama. The first thing he did when I brought him in the house with me and set him down was walk right up to Bear - all 110 pounds of him - and headbutt him in the ankle and start purring. Bear always liked cats, so he was a lucky kitten, but he's never had any fear of dogs, just people. He has my Mom's little fluffy, strawberry blonde bundle of cat-titude, Gracie, to play with, although it's taken him about two months to get her to warm up to him. He also likes to chase Mom's Rat Terrier, Katy (she earned her name, Katy-did-it) and Katy's not sure what to make of a cat as big as Gomez since she already has a heartfelt respect for Gracie, who is about a quarter the size of Gomez. And yup, that's after Gomez Adams. He's striped, but has a sparkling white tuxedo shirtfront and four white spats and when he was a kitten he had a habit of grooming up my arm with his little teeth. Remember how Gomez would kiss Morticia all the way up her arm? He also gets that wide-eyed stare right before he breaks out into a wild feline mazurka, jumping and twisting and dancing around for no apparent reason, then racing through the house at full speed.
Calypso the bull is still here, although he's peeved since Charlie set up a fence that he has to walk all the way around to get to side of the house where he always got his bottle. I've got to figure out a way to get John, who works for Charlie, to take him, since we really can't keep a bull that's not a purebred Angus, and he will also share too many genetic traits with the heifers his age that were sired by O.J., the big bull. Charlie named O.J. because his ear tag was number 32. He's a real character, but maybe I'll save that for another post. John just has a few cows and no bull (although he is FULL of bull) and wouldn't take Calypso off to the stock barn to sell.