Both dogs were stolen, then the mutt was released and came home - I
later found out that there is a rash of beagle stealing in this and
several adjoining counties and Buddy, though only half beagle, looked
pretty much like one.  At the moment, I just have Brandy and she is
confined to the back yard by a Radio Fence.  She has about an acre and
she still chases cats, but the cats have learned that she won't
approach the electronic fence so they can come all the way to a corner
of the house without having to deal with her, then they can quickly
scurry the twenty feet or so to the cat flap.  The fence transmitter
and collar are the combined containment/training model, and I have
used it to break her of sticking her head through the cat flap, but I
can't catch her harassing cats to work on that.  She a failure as a
possum preventer though: one got in about a week or so ago - bigger
and darker than the others.  I had to chase it out and call her to
deal with it, but she did put the fear of dog in it - that was one
hurt possum when she finally gave up playing with it (it disappeared
not long after).

It looks like I'm going to get stuck with another dog - my boss has a
prodigal daughter, and she decided she didn't want the dog she had, so
she dropped it off on him - now he's 'suggesting' that I take him to
provide company for Brandy.  ... I think I want to wring Mudpie's
neck: he just peed on some papers one of the other cats had knocked
off the table - I just added another litter pan that was completely
clean ten minutes ago.  It's been snowing all day, and most of the
cats, including the neighbor's are inside and have been acting weird
since yesterday evening - lots of hostility.

I'm still a cat person, barely tolerant of dogs.  I don't think I'll
ever actually like them.

BTW, I think I have found a way to protect Sebastian from Mooch -
Sebastian insists on fighting and he gets beat up every time.  The
woman I got him from recently lost her last cat to a long term illness
and she's both in need of a cat and willing to take Sebo (she
originally found him living out of a dumpster, but had two cats of her
own and couldn't keep him ... one of her cats died suddenly not long
after that).  Sebo is only moderately happy here since Fleagor won't
let him be the alpha male and he has gotten rather aggressive lately -
he'll be happier as an indoor only cat, and winter is the time to move
him since he's already spending most of his time indoors.

T.E.D. (tdavis@gearbox.maem.umr.edu - e-mail must contain "T.E.D." or my .sig in the body)