Hi everyone,

Been a while since I've posted anything resembling a story about the
beasts, but wanted to share this one:

To preface, the dee oh gee (Shelby the d*g), has had a cough for over
6 months.  She wouldn't cough for the vet, so based on a description
(and sound effects of yours truly), TED decided that it was "probably"
tracheal collapse, somewhat normal in smaller breeds.

Finally, yesterday, after Shelby had been having a particularly bad
couple of days, we went into TED and she got to hear the cough for
herself.  Shelby has Kennel Cough (which I suspected 6 months ago, but
I digress)...  She now has medicine, and seems to be feeling better
(Prednisone will do that for you).

Last evening, while I was reading posts in various groups.  Leonidas
(who likes to think he owns the world) decided that he was going to
test meowmie's patience again.  He likes to stand on his hind legs,
flex his paws (and thereby claws) and 'hang' onto the side of Paw's
easy chair.  He doesn't pull, just sticks his claws in the material.

Meowmie turned around to look at him.  At this point, Shelby decided
that meowmie needed her specialized assistance.  Now, Shelby has never
done anything like this before, so my surprise was absolutely so
complete that I couldn't get my camera (of course).  Shelby stood up,
walked over to the chair, put her paws on either side of Leonidas, and
bit his scruff.  She lifted him off the side of the chair and set him
down less than a foot from the chair.

The look of utter shock on the cat's face was priceless.  Leonidas has
always had frown lines on his head, so he had his frown and his
eyebrows were arched up in a look, that for all the world, said, "What
are you doing?  You don't do that?  You never do that!"  I checked him
out, just out of basic concern, but his scruff wasn't even damp.

Shelby had not hurt him in any way (accept maybe his lionistic
pride).  Oddly enough, he hasn't done that stretch/puncture/release
thing since she took him down.

Who knew that a d*g would be that gentle, when she was never trained
to do that?  The kicker to all this is that Leonidas is only slightly
'shorter' than Shelby (though she does outweigh him).  He has even
come out this morning and given her head bumps and rubs (which she
doesn't seem to like), and he'll lie down next to her when she coughs,
like he's trying to comfort her.

My babies never cease to amaze me!

Smokie Darling (Annie)