Past Fortnightly Stories

Cat or raccoon?

It was a mild October day and I was walking from my house to my barn, about 100 feet away, with my two dogs. There are some beautiful pine trees on this lane. They are about 100 feet tall. Up in a branch about twelve feet off the ground I noticed a black fluffy tail hanging out, with some Burdock weed seeds stuck on it. I thought it must be a raccoon and kept on going. 



The next day, in the Arbor Vitae trees near the house, the same tail was hanging out. I decided to put the dogs in the house and got a large cage from the barn. Just in case this was a sick animal, I decided that I had better put on my winter jacket, some heavy gloves, and my riding helmet. I am sure I looked lovely. Then I tipped down the branch and caused the animal to drop from the branch into the open door of the cage. I then put the cage in the barn. It was indeed a very thin cat, covered with prickly weed seeds, and was very hungry and thirsty. When I put the food in the cage, he ate it voraciously, all the while grumbling as cats sometimes do. "What took you so long?" I was sure he was saying. 


Because I work at an animal shelter, I took him there to receive medical care, get gently cleaned up and be neutered. He was then put up for adoption. However, I found I could not bring myself to give him up. So, I paid the adoption fee and took him home. Now he is sleek and well fed and a treasured member of our family. 



How did this cat find my home which is 300 feet from the road and surrounded by hundreds of acres of nothing but trees and bushes? What made him choose to climb the trees that I would pass near the barn? How did he avoid my four romping dogs? How did he know I was his person?

I named him 'Rocky Raccoon' because I thought he was a racoon originally. He gets as much pampering as he will stand for and often stays inside the house when the weather is bad. He will never be a hundred percent indoor cat, but he will never be hungry again either. 


True story by Maggie Huff of the United States of America

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Footie Goes To The Big House

By the time we left the city, Footie was fit and much happier than he had been when we got him. His joy was complete when he found that there was a beach close by, where dogs could run free. Footie loves going into the sea, and it is a joy to see him so happy. 


There was a time, though, when that look of joy was not apparent. I refer to Footie’s time in 'The Big House'. It all started when we had a visitor from the city, who was not familiar with the “Shut the bloody gate!” principle here in the country. It was some time after our visitor left, that we noticed an absence of dogs. Jack and Footie had decided to take themselves on a little adventure. 



Now Jack, being President of the Escape Committee, had made many previous escapes. Tunnelling was one of his favourite methods, and if ever I am locked in jail, I am taking Jack with me, because he can escape from any form of confinement. He is not too good with getting out of the handcuffs, but it is only a matter of time.

In his previous adventures, Jack had discovered that it is a lot of fun to visit the nearby Convent school at recess or lunch, because the children will feed a cute little dog. So, off they went on a scavenging expedition. All went well for a time, but unbeknown to Jack and Footie, the nuns had phoned the dogcatcher, who swiftly appeared on the scene. The children gave the alarm, the dogs ran, pursued by the dogcatcher. Round and round the playground they ran, dogs, dogcatcher and children. Then, some bright spark of a dog thought he could escape by running through this doorway – into the church !! This put the nuns into a frenzy and they joined the chase. By all accounts it was a right shemozzle, with dogs going this way and that way, nuns roaring, children laughing their heads off, and the dogcatcher trying to catch two dogs at once. 



Jack, being the President of the Escape Committee, was smart enough to get out the door again, but poor old Footie, who is a bit slow on the uptake, was cornered. Into the paddy wagon and off to the 'Big House' went Footie, while Jack went home. 


When I got back from my fruitless search of the surrounding streets, Jack was waiting on the front verandah with an innocent look on his face. No Footie!! This was quite a worry because Footie had no road sense and could easily have been run over. Besides that, our shire council is very quick to euthanase animals that are not microchipped, and we certainly had not had him chipped. 


So, with trepidation, we rang the pound. They said there was a dog “sort of like that” in custody, so off we went to see if it was our Footie. Sure enough, hapless Footie was sitting forlorn in a concrete run, while the goon in charge of the pound was hosing out the cages – with the animals still in them !! It was like something you would see in a film about a Mississippi Sheriff in the 1950’s. 


The dogcatcher then turned up and told us the story of the Great Church Outrage, which gave us a good laugh. It turns out Footie was chipped, to the original breeder, but of course that would have been no use in finding us. So $70 later, and with our details now recorded in case of future escapes, we got our dog back. Or should I say, our ex-convict dog!!

True story by Ian Taylor of Australia

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Peepee the baby bird

Peepee came into my life when I was fourteen. My sister and her friend found him while walking home from school. They placed him in a box on my bed. The box was titled 'Belly'. "What's this?” I asked my sister as she walked past my room. "A baby bird," she said simply. “A very greedy and hungry baby bird”. When I opened the box I did not realise that I would be beginning a friendship that would last for many years.

As I lifted the lid I stared straight into the open beak of a cheeky looking almost completely featherless, fat, pink bird. The only feathers were the feathers that crowned his head. And so our relationship began. Peepee turned out to be a mousebird. Mousebirds live in large social groups and so it was only natural that Peepee would consider our family as his flock. He considered himself human and flaunted his hierarchy over our ring neck parrots. It is not hard to understand why he believed he was human. He drank out of cups, ate off our plates, played hide and seek and slept in a shoe box under a small knitted blanket. (Mousebirds cannot perch like other birds or hang on objects. Hence the sleeping in a box.)

The crown of feathers on his head would rise and fall in curiosity every time he saw something of interest and he would do this ridiculous little thing I call a 'mouse dance' on the floor where he would shuffle along the floor like a wind up mouse. This was an instinctual behaviour. Wild mousebirds love to sand bath and he was merely imitating this behaviour. The worst part of his day was bedtime. He hated bed times. He waited for the usual bedtime cues and promptly hid. We would call for him and there would be no sign of him. There are only so many hiding places in a home and eventually we became 'Peepee hunters', looking in his favourite spots and searching for the little time waster.

He liked hiding amongst the hanging cutlery in the kitchen, or burying himself under the sweaters in the sweater cupboard or sit dead still on the top of the pelmet amongst my mother’s ornaments. And just when we thought we had all his hiding places sussed he found another one.

In High school I was called the 'Bird Girl'. The girls would bring me baby birds and expect me to work miracles. I tried my best but I had a greater success rate after I befriended Peepee. I would get a baby bird and take it home and no matter what kind of baby bird it was, Peepee took in on himself to stuff objects into it's mouth. My job was to make sure the objects he was stuffing down the baby’s throat was food. It was a good thing I was there because if I was not quick enough, he would attempt to use substitutes like lint, coins and paperclips. After feeding the baby he would undertake a vigorous preening from the baby's beak to toe. I would watch on in wonder. I never imagined that the bird that I once rescued and reared would now be helping me do the very thing I did for him.

True story by Tracy Pitout

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4. Here's some information on Mousebirds from Wikipidea: This group is confined to sub-Saharan Africa, and is the only bird order confined entirely to that continent. They had a wider range in prehistoric times and apparently evolved in Europe. They are slender greyish or brown birds with soft, hairlike body feathers. They are typically about 10 centimetres in body length, with a long, thin, tail a further 20-24 centimetres in length, and weigh 45-55 grams. They are arboreal and scurry through the leaves like rodents, in search of berries, fruit and buds. This habit, and their legs, gives rise to the group's English name. They are acrobatic, and can feed upside down. All species have strong claws and reversible outer toes. They also have crests and stubby bills. Mousebirds are gregarious, again reinforcing the analogy with mice, and are found in bands of about twenty in lightly wooded country.

Dog thinks she is a kitten's mother

My sister has a dog called Kelly. A couple of years ago, I was given a kitten and I named him Panther. When Panther got home, Kelly went up to her and started grooming her. Kelly treated Panther like she was her puppy. Soon Panther adopted Kelly as her mother and started getting milk from Kelly.

It was really cute but Panther continued getting milk from Kelly even though she was older. Panther really needed to be weaned but Kelly did not know how to. Sadly,we decided to give Panther to someone we know, so that Kelly will not be hurt.

True story by Gemma of New Zealand

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