It's a love/hate thing

My husband and I were blissfully married in November of 1999. We were settling in to married life and for my birthday in January, I mentioned that I would like to go to the animal shelter and look at puppies. Of course we found the cutest black furball which they had determined was half German Shepherd and half Samoyed (you know, the sled dog breed). They warned of of how much exercise this dog would need and invited us back for the puppy social. We never went, by the way.

We affectionately called her, Grizzly. She just looked like a grizzly bear. She would crawl under the couch and you couldn't find her because she is totally coal black. The only thing going for us was that her eyes would reflect light. If she was curled up with her head down, forget finding her under there.

She stayed in a very comfy "kennel" in the garage and we got our first tastes of being rudely awakened by a very lonely dog. Thankfully for her, we ended up moving to a 160 acre farm a few months later and eventually she learned to stay on our property and therefore could be off the dreaded cable line.

She really does look like a grizzly bear, which is helpful if a stranger sees her from a distance. The watchdog in her is basically useless the closer the stranger comes. She just sees another person that she can cheerfully greet onto our property.

With her black, thick fur, she relishes 40 below temperatures. It is a rare instance in which you will find her in her dog house...maybe during a sleet storm. She can usually be found in the dead of winter sleeping on top of the snow and it doesn't melt under her.

When we got our first set of kittens, she loved them uncontrollably. They hissed and swung at her nose with sharp claws. Grizzly wouldn't give up. Then we saw it one day... the cat sleeping on Grizzly out on the grass. Of course the cat wouldn't have stayed there if he would have known that anyone was watching, but alas, Grizzly's affection won out and they were friends.

This happens every time we get kittens. Grizzly is just a bit overbearing and they want to show her who is boss. Oh reeeeaaaaly.

So today, this is what I found...




Yep, they are licking each other in complete dog/cat affection. Grizzly won out again.