This morning I had the strangest dream of my life to date. It was mostly
about animals, and cats in particular.

As the curtain opens, I find a baby bird, mostly white in the upper body and
head, with greyish-brown on the wings, tail and legs, and it has a
bird-of-prey type of beak.

In an effort to identify and help this bird, I take it to a neighbor named
John, who is known throughout the area as being knowledgeable about birds.
And for some inexplicable reason, I take four of the cats along: Abelard,
Tommy, Billy and Eli (all the boys).

When I get to John's house and try knocking on the door, I find the door
hanging loosely enough that, at the first hint of the first knock, it falls
open, and I see John laying on the floor examining a birdhouse that he is
building.

His house is FILLED with birds, cats and a few dogs. There appear to be more
cats than birds. I show him the baby bird. He takes it from me, looks at it
and sets it on the floor, and it goes running off under a chair. We have
some light conversation about it. I tell him I think it's probably a
buzzard - even though it looks so much like an owl, I stick with this idea,
and he agrees, it is probably a buzzard. Then I start worrying that it will
harm the other birds and maybe some of the cats, and feeling bad about
bringing it over there.

Somehow the man senses that I like cats (maybe because I have brought four
of them with me) and starts showing me some of his favorite kittens. Many of
them look like Big Cats in miniature form. I am particularly enthralled by
two bright orange ones with black stripes. They are just a little bit larger
than regular kittens of their age, but he says they are baby tigers.

After quite some time of hearing about his different cats and looking at
them, meanwhile trying to keep an eye on the baby buzzard-owl, and seeing
all sorts of other birds all over the house, none of which are caged.

John is also cooking supper and asks me if I would like to join him. Just
then I noticed a small tuxedo kitten chasing a blue bird (not a jay, not a
bluebird) and run to rescue the bird, but I am too late. The kitten has let
the bird go, and it is alive, but badly injured. I pick it up gently and
give it to John, who tosses it into a pot of hot broth and adds some spices,
then dips out a cup to offer me.

I comment to John that I find it quite odd that he keeps all these loose
birds in the house with so many cats. Isn't he worried about the cats
killing off the birds? He says no, he trains them to get along, to live and
let live, but occasionally an untrained kitten will do something like this
and it can't be helped.

By now I am worried about *my* cats, who have been set free in John's house.
Up to this point they have been distracted by the newness of the
surroundings and all the other cats, but they were going to start noticing
the birds and I didn't want to be responsible for any more of his beautiful
birds getting injured or killed, so I decided to gather up the boycats and
go home, change my clothes and return to John's for supper.

And I was just in time to stop Billy from breaking out of the gate. Abelard
had already done so. Tommy and Eli were still in the house but I was sure
they would soon discover how easily they could open the door, too.

I got Billy into a carrier, then went after Abelard, who had run down a path
into the forest next to the house. Fifty feet down this path I was accosted
by a family of hoofed animals the size of wild boars which were in fact
miniature rhinoceri. They were blood red in color! They chased me back to
the house, where I caught the rest of "my" cats and prepared to leave.

As I was telling John of my plan, he suddenly became very amorous and
encouraged me to hurry back. I was feeling quite attracted to him.... But as
I left, a woman arrived and introduced herself as his girlfriend!

I was disappointed at the thwarting of the probably tryst but also glad to
encounter another person who seemed to be quite knowledgeable about birds. I
managed to track down the baby bird that was the original reason for my
visit, and showed it to the woman, who told me it is definitely an owl.

End of dream.

I'm sure it's fraught with meaning. Anyone care to take a stab at
interpretation?