It’s easy for me to forget that Lucy is substantially smaller than the other two dogs.  I thought that since Lucy has a rather large head for her size, that she was too large for the cat hole.  I have since realized that Fanny can get through a smaller hole than previously thought possible, and Lucy can get through a much smaller hole than I’d ever imagined.

Let me explain the logic behind the cat hole.

The New Improved Cat Hole: Just big enough for 17# Fanny to fit through…and nothing bigger- I hope!

Dogs absolutely lust over cat food, and most dogs are inexplicably enamored of snacking on cat shit as well.  Neither cat food (too high in fat and protein for a dog’s metabolism) nor cat shit (well, it’s shit, ’nuff said) is healthy for dogs to consume in any kind of quantity.  It’s sort of like humans living on bacon and candy- it might taste good at the moment, but it’s just plain unhealthy, and such a diet can lead to serious disease. Dogs are not the best arbiters of healthy eating, and they really shouldn’t be left to free-forage.  As George Carlin once wisely pointed out regarding “gourmet” cat food, “How many gourmets lick their ass?”

Since we have four cats and three dogs, the cats need a safe place to hide when the dogs get on their nerves, as well as a safe place to eat and crap.  The dogs need to be kept out of cat food and kept out of cat shit.  In our house, the dog-free zone is the basement.  There’s a roughly cat-sized hole cut in the basement door that (in theory) keeps dogs out while letting cats move freely in and out.

Big Fat Fanny- that’s what I get for naming the cat while listening to Queen.  The dreadful 70’s linoleum- not really my choice.

The original oversize cat hole worked just fine for Clara and Lilo, who have long since realized that they aren’t going to get to go downstairs to munch.  Clara is slender but even so, she’s still 65#.  Lilo is about 55#, and not terribly motivated to pursue anything that doesn’t afford her easy access.  Lucy, at a comparatively tiny 45#, however, decided to use her thick skull to worm her way through the cat hole.

The cat hole was a bit oversize because Fanny is a bit oversize.  Our cats range in size from 4 1/2# Jezebel to 17# Fanny.  Isabel is just slightly bigger than Jezebel at right around 5#, and F.B. is about 8#.    I have four cats and only one is “normal” sized.  Go figure, and I have no idea why the two black ones are so tiny.  Jezebel eats more than any of the other cats, but she’s still the smallest.  Her (Jezebel’s) feral relatives that live on the body shop lot are all petite cats as well.  Perhaps city cats have some sort of advantage in smaller size vs. farm cats who tend to be large like Fanny.  Isabel and Jezebel were both city ferals at one time.  Fanny was from out in farm country, and I have no idea where F.B. came from before we took her in when her first owner died.

As long as Fanny fits, and Lucy keeps from ramming it, the reduced size cat hole should keep cats and dogs in their proper places.

If Obama gets his way, the rest of the country will be just like Detroit.

I’ve tried to keep my mouth somewhat shut about the political rancor and just plain stupidity going on in Washington right now, but I can’t understand why there are still dimwits out there who don’t get it about Obama.  Including Jerry’s Dad, the former Klan member. 

“Take a shower!”  or was that “White powder?”  Ass pilot.

I can’t say I condone the Klan, but frankly I’m tired of any racial or ethnic group demanding preferential treatment.  The white supremacists are just as stupid as the Al Sharptons and Jesse Jacksons and Muslim extremist crazies of the world, believe that.  But Jerry’s Dad seems to have done a 180° to think Obama’s the best thing ever, and I really don’t understand why or how he would.  Maybe he’s gone senile and he’s feeling guilty for 70+ years of unabashed racism?  Or maybe he’s just batshit crazy.  I tend to believe suggestion #2.

This guy is a nut, too.

The thing is, I can feel bad over injustices committed against black people – or any other oppressed group-in the past without feeling a need to offer a free pass to Obama’s present ineptitude, incompetence and malice.  Equal opportunity includes the obligation to own up to your own epic failures.  If you can’t run with the big dogs, I don’t care what color, gender, ethnicity or whatever you are.  Stay the flying flip on the porch.

Instead of working together with others in government toward responsible leadership, Obama has established a thugocracy- a culture in which there is one central premise: that big government knows what’s good for you, and we’ll take what you have by force, ostensibly in the name of “the common good.”  In reality it is about big government feeding itself at the cost of those who work, produce and create.  Communism / socialism didn’t work in the (former) Soviet Union and it doesn’t work now.

I don’t know who came up with this summary but it’s pretty good:

Socialism: Moochers electing looters to steal from producers.

Joy and rapture.  Welfare day at Walmart.  I think I’ll wait until the second week of the month to do my shopping.

I’m just hoping Lucy doesn’t get downstairs to dine on the magical dog candy again.