How Bosco Got Home Safely

Yesterday my wife Angie and I went for a little drive around Fillmore. We visited a few Antique stores, and then got a couple of blended mocha’s over at a little drive thru coffee joint called The Coffee Kiosk. After that we drove around a looked at some of the older houses in the area, and somehow we ended up at a dead end by the High School.

It wasn’t exactly a dead end, but the only way out would have been for me to drive the wrong way on a one way street. There was no one around, and so my wife encouraged me to just go ahead and do it, but we were in no hurry, and so I didn’t think it would be wise to break the law in a sleepy little rural town that most likely relies on traffic fines to pay for much of the public works. So I turned around.

Right across from the High School is a Little League field. As we drove by it we saw a Corgi mix looking dog just kind of wandering around by the dugout. My wife asked me to stop and check on him because it was hot out and he looked tired. I stopped the truck, got out, and called the dog over. He wasn’t afraid, but he hesitated for a moment before he trotted over to greet me. All he had on his collar was his rabies vaccination tag, and his dog license. The rabies tag was issued by Banfield Animal Hospital, and on the back there was a 1-800 number.

I called the number, and through the vaccination ID number the operator was able to give me the dog’s owner’s phone number, and the Dog’s name, which is Bosco. Bosco had crawled under our truck so he could lie in the shade, and when I called him he came right to me. I made the call to his owner, and he said that his dog, “Must have got out.” He said he would be there soon, and so Angie and I let Bosco sit in the cool of the cab of our truck.

Soon Bosco’s owner came walking across the field, and thanked me for helping his dog. I said he was welcome, and that when we found him he looked tired and thirsty, and that I would have given him some water, but all I had on me was a blended mocha. The man thanked me again, and then he and Bosco headed off for home.

This was the highlight of our day. All too often I see “Lost Dog” flyers posted around town and wish there was something I could do to help reunite the poor lost dog with his family. It is a dangerous world out there for a dog to be wandering around all alone, and it breaks my heart to think that many lost dogs come to an unhappy end.

This time, because my wife asked me to stop, Bosco was able to go home safely, and in one piece.

My Letter to Jack and Carole Bender

Back in February I wrote about how I felt the comic strip Alley Oop was beginning to go downhill. I used to really like Alley Oop until Dave Graue retired in 2001, and Carole Bender took over as the writer for the strip. Since then, while Carole’s husband Jack is able to draw the strip very much the same as it has always been his wife’s story lines leave a lot to be desired.

I am not the only person who has noticed this. There is a blog set up called Alley Oop Watch that has been critiquing the strip semi-regularly for over a year now.

Not long ago, I was reading the Sunday strip off of comics.com, and it was so bad, I decided to write Jack Bender, and let him know how I felt about his handling of the seventy-one year old strip. Here’s what I wrote:

Jack and Carole Bender
c/o United Media
200 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10016


Dear Jack and Carole,

I have read the Alley Oop comic strip for well over thirty years now, and have always enjoyed it. It is one of the very few comic strips that have been carried by our local paper since I first moved here as a child in the late 1960’s, and I feel that is a testament to the quality of the strip. Alley Oop’s adventures have always been interesting, and fun to read, and the artistry of the strip has also consistently been top notch.

There have been a few occasions when the local paper has wanted to remove some strips to make room for newer strips on their comics pages. Most often this results in a reader’s poll in which the paper lets the reader’s vote on which strips are their favorites over the course of a few weeks. While Alley Oop has not always been among the top picks, it has hung on to its spot for many years. Once about three years ago the strip actually lost it’s spot in the line up, but readers banded together and a letter campaign brought good old Alley back to our comic pages.

Once again the local paper is looking to infuse new blood into the comic pages, and so far Alley Oop remains a staple of the comic pages, but I have to tell you that ever since you have taken over as sole writer and artist of the strip, I will have to vote against keeping Alley Oop around any longer.

It saddens me to lose Alley Oop, but I feel I lost him quite some time ago. You as a team have reworked Alley into some other strip that looks like Alley Oop, but lacks the wonderful writing of the old strips. Sure, Alley Oop was always a fanciful strip, but the story lines that have been used over the past year are quite frankly, bland, and unimaginative. They also are quite unbelievable. For example, how could Dr. Wonmug, who designed and built the Time Machine, not know enough about it when it broke to fix it? And why in the world would he put an ad in the paper for an IT specialist to fix it for him?

This is just one of the many incredulous examples of the story lines that faithful readers of the strip have been subjected to since you took it over. The artwork still passes as Alley Oop, but the writing does not. I have nothing against either of you personally, and I normally wouldn’t take the time to write someone about his or her work like this, but I feel that if you continue to handle the Alley Oop strip, it will be doomed to extinction very soon.

I hope you understand how I as a fan of Alley Oop feel, and I hope you are receiving many letters like this, and that you will respond by making some changes to how the strip is written. The artwork is fine, but the writing really needs to go.

Thank you for your time,



Jeff Babb

To my surprise, Jack actually wrote me back. His letter arrived a few days ago, and was hand written on a small piece of lined yellow stationary. Here is what he had to say.

Dear Jeff,

Thank you for taking the time to write we appreciate your thoughts.

Writing continuity for a comic strip these days is not all that easy.

The physical size of the strip is much smaller on the printed page than in the good old days.

Nearly all papers are morning publications now. In the heyday of our NEA syndicate, almost all clients were evening papers with relaxed, end-of-the-day readership.

Because of television, readers don't see the newspaper comics everyday now, so the plot has to be slowed down so that reader doesn't miss out on the story.

As for the pop machine changing the computer setting unnoticed by Dave, there are only so many times such an error can be caused by a computer glitch, or lightning.

Thanks again for writing,

Jack Bender

Jack seems like a nice enough guy, he was even kind enough to draw a picture of Alley Oop at the bottom of his letter.

Jack's letter indicates to me that he just doesn’t care about Alley Oop as a time honored comic strip. I don't believe it is a priority for him. Rather it appears more like he has inherited Alley Oop, but lacks the passion for giving the strip life.

His reply to my letter doesn’t even address my thoughts, rather it consists primarily of excuses that I have heard many cartoonists complain of before, but of which most seem to live with, and still provide a quality strip. Even his last paragraph in which he refers to a pop machine changing the computer’s settings has nothing to do with what I wrote. My example of one the strip’s plot holes was of the time machine’s inventor not being able to repair his own invention, but Jack was defending a part of the current storyline wherein a soda can falls from a shelf and lands on the keyboard of the time machine’s computer. This makes me wonder if perhaps Jack reads Alley Oop watch being as they took this particular strip to task in a recent post.

I suppose I will continue to read Alley Oop even though Carole Bender’s stories are to the newspaper comic strip what Ed Wood’s films were to the movies because I really hope that they will either start giving a damn and come up with something worth a comic as enduring as Alley Oop. I just hope that newspapers across the country don’t start dropping it to the point of its demise before that happens.

Pre-Halloween Catblogging

I wanted to get a couple pictures up today of Ebby, our resident Black Cat, but the only ones I have with me at work, (shh,) are of her and Athena. They aren't the best pictures of either of them by any means, but they will do the job for now. Perhaps when I get home I can post a couple more of just Ebby.

So without further ado...

I have mentioned before that Athena and Ebby were best friends. They were together almost all of the time. In the first picture Athena has approached Ebby most likely because she just wants to spend time with her. Ebby, most often possessed of a bad disposition, probably growled at her causing Athena to raise her arm in preparation for a who-do-you-think-you-are-growling-at swat.

The second picture shows the outcome of most encounters of this nature; an exchange of ear cleansing.

The Blind Leading The Cargiver

When I arrived at the hospital yesterday to be admitted, there was a blind man in a wheelchair ahead of me who had just finished up with the admitting process. He was told to report to Day Surgery on the third floor. Admitting is on the second floor. He asked if perhaps someone could assist him given his obvious conditions. The clerk inquired about the person waiting with him, who it turns out was his caregiver.

The caregiver leaned in and said that she was indeed his caregiver, but that she had “a bad heart”, and that she shouldn’t be pushing him around in the wheelchair. The clerk said fine, she would call for some assistance.

The clerk got off the phone, and told the couple that there was no one available. The man then suggested to his caregiver that they should switch places, and he would wheel HER up to the third floor. While this conversation was taking place, the clerk got a call presumably letting her know that someone became available, and that they were on the way up to help. Before she could tell them this, they were gone.

I sat down and filled out the papers I needed to be admitted into the hospital, and after maybe fifteen minutes or so, we were on our way to the third floor. When we reached Day Surgery, the man and his caregiver were nowhere to be seen, and I assumed they were taken to another room. A nurse had me sit down so that she could take my vitals, and as we spoke we heard a loud BANG down the hallway. I don’t know what happened, but when we looked, there was the blind man, his cane neatly hung off his shoulder, wheeling in his caregiver. He explained that he was the patient, and that she was his caregiver.

The nurse who was helping me had the caregiver sit in a chair, and took away the wheelchair, which until that moment I didn’t notice was hospital property. The nurse then helped the man maneuver into a chair next to me. She was holding him by the arm, and giving him directions such as turn around, back up, to your left, etc. The man finally made it into the chair, but he didn’t seem to be able to follow the nurse’s directions real well.

I thought to myself that this is probably why it took them so long to get to the third floor. I pictured the caregiver in the wheel chair, and this blind man pushing her relying on her directions, and perhaps not following them, as he should.

I found the whole thing rather amusing, and it turned out to be the highlight of my day.

How I Spent My Birthday

My wife and I arrived at the hospital yesterday promptly at 6:50am for my appointment to have a cervical epidural. I was admitted, and went up to the third floor to be prepped for the procedure. I was given a gown, booties and a cap, and asked to strip down completely, and dress in the gown and accoutrements I was given, and then go to the waiting room and wait to be called. Thank goodness my wife was there because she was astute enough to recognize that two gowns might be better for me than one. I did as I was told, and after a few moments sitting in the waiting room, I was called.

I sat with another nurse who told me that I could wear my pants if I wanted, that it wasn’t necessary for me to strip down completely. I always prefer clothing, (at least for myself,) in a clothing optional atmosphere, so I quickly returned to the restroom and put on my pants. When I got out, the nurse asked me if I had been taking any blood thinners, aspirin, or Motrin in the past week. I have been taking painkillers for some time, and recently my pain has been pretty severe, so I supplemented that with Motrin over the past few days. So, my answer was yes. She looked at me with a surprised expression on her face, and asked me if my doctor had given me a sheet describing the procedure, and what I should and should not do before I went to have it done. I told her no, that while the surgeon might be the best this side of the Mississippi, his office staff left a lot to be desired.

So, my procedure was cancelled.

I went home, called the office manager of the surgeon’s office, told her how over the past month and a half her staff repeatedly dropped the ball, and how I just let it slide because I was always able to take matters into my own hands and get what I needed done, but that this time they really screwed up, and I wasn’t very happy about it. I told her not only did my wife and I both take off from work, but that I had to mentally prepare myself to have a needle stuck into my neck down to my spine, and now we get to do it all over again next week. She wasn’t happy. I wasn’t happy. And I hope some of her staff isn’t very happy today. I will also be telling my tale of woe to the surgeon first chance I get.

Other than that, it wasn’t a very pleasant birthday.

My Night in the Cemetery

In the spirit of Halloween, I though I would relate the following story.

In the fall of 1984 I was working for a local factory on the night shift. There were maybe four other people working with me, and one of them was a friend of mine I will call “Greg”.

Greg and I were both in our early twenties, and after work we would often have a couple of beers together before we went home. On Halloween night, we decided it would be fun to head on over to the nearby cemetery and toss back a few there. The cemetery is the oldest and most populated in town, and in the front it still has the old fashioned, standing tombstones as well as a few crypts.

We drove out to the side of the cemetery in separate cars, and parked across the street from it. We had planned our excursion into the cemetery a few days prior, so we had every thing we needed, which was basically just beer and cigarettes anyway. I stowed the beers in the pockets of my down-filled vest, and we scaled the stonewall on the north side of the cemetery. Soon we found a small bench nestled between two gravesites in the oldest section of the cemetery. We were nearby the crypts, so after a couple of beers we thought we might check a couple of them out just to see what they were like inside.

I thought for sure these things would be locked up to keep people like my friend and I out of them, but this was not the case. We opened the door to the first crypt we came across, and walked right in. It was a bit spooky in there what with the knowledge that there were several remains in drawers right next to us, but nothing out of the ordinary happened. At the far end of the crypt was a small fountain like structure where a bottle of holy water was kept. We walked down the narrow passage and took a look at it, and I remember getting a bit nervous being so far deep into this crypt and thinking that if any psychopath or evil spirit had the urge to trap us, now would be a good time. But of course nothing happened and we were soon out of the crypt moving on to the next one as if they were model homes.

It turns out that once you have seen one crypt, you have pretty much seen them all. Every one we looked in was made of stone, had plaques on the walls identifying the remains that were entombed, and had nice examples of ironwork and masonry. So we returned to our bench o’ beer.

As we engaged in the kind of semi-drunken chitchat you might find in any cemetery on Halloween night, my friend Greg suddenly got up, and ran off into the field of tombstones. Slightly bewildered, I looked around to see what sort of creepy apparition might have scared my companion away. For a moment I thought for sure I would look up to find a headless, see through ghoulie hovering just over and behind my head, instead what I saw was even more frightening.

What had scared off my friend, and what now had me paralyzed in fear as I sat on the bench, was the horrifying sight of two police cruisers entering through the front gate of the cemetery. Once the reality of this spectacle registered in the feeble, alcohol soaked cells of my brain, I also got up and ran.

I had no idea in which direction Greg had run, and quite frankly I didn’t really care. What was on my mind was avoiding the police, and getting the hell out of that cemetery. I ran full speed trying to make it to the south side of the cemetery where I knew there would be no fence or wall to scale, but rather a sizable hedge that I could hide in, and possibly escape through. I turned back to see where the police cruisers were in relation to myself, when I tripped over a small tombstone, and landed right on top of an adjoining grave.

I should note that I wear glasses, and as I lay sprawled on this grave I suddenly realize that the world had gone all fuzzy and blurry looking. I cannot see two feet in front of my face. Literally. And so it was imperative that I find my glasses if I wished to get out of the graveyard in one piece, and not spend the rest of the night in jail.
I scavenged around on my hands and knees furiously trying to locate my glasses. I looked up at one point and saw what appeared to be three headlights heading in my direction. (Everything beyond two feet is blurry, but believe me I can make out three bright lights coming at me in a dark cemetery.) I finally found my glasses, put them on, and saw to my horror that one of the cruisers was just a few yards away from me, and was coming down the path I was next to. They were using their spot light to look into the graveyard and up into the trees, so that is why I saw three lights instead of two.

I had little time to react, and the option to run had long passed, and so I plastered myself against the far side of the nearest tree, and held my breath as the cruiser passed by. When it did, the spotlight waved through the tombstones as it approached my tree, and when it finally got to me, the light broke on either side of me as the spotlight briefly shone on the tree, and passed harmlessly on by. After a few moments, I breathed a sigh of relief and looked down the pathway to be sure that the cruiser was a safe distance away from me. It was, and the other cruiser was on the side of the cemetery I needed to get to, but was well beyond the hedge that would provide me my escape. As I stood there formulating my escape route, I heard a whistle, and turned around already cussing out Greg for just up and leaving me back on the bench. But he wasn’t there. I called his name, quietly of course, but got no answer. Figuring he would have the same idea as me, and would be heading for the south side of the cemetery, I quickly, but carefully, made my way towards the hedge.

I was almost there when I stopped to look for the police. They were all the way in the back of the cemetery by now, and were on foot around the mausoleum. As I stood there, someone grabbed my shoulder.

Being grabbed by the shoulder in a cemetery on Halloween night with the police looking for you is not for the faint of heart. I nearly peed my pants. Of course it was Greg, and indeed he had had the same escape plan as I, and together we made it to the hedge.

We walked to a local gas station and called a friend to come pick us up. While we waited for our ride we watched the police continue to search the graveyard. When our friend arrived, we quickly drove by where we had initially parked our cars. Noting that there were no other police vehicles present, nor any sign of any cemetery personnel, we got in our cars and left.

From there all three of us drove over to the next town over and snuck into a smaller cemetery there. (We hadn’t yet finished our beer.)

We found a good spot with a bench, and sat down to tell our friend about our adventure. I got to the part where I heard Greg whistle, but didn’t see Greg. Greg said, “I didn’t whistle.” I said, “You didn’t? I heard someone whistle just as clear as I can hear you guys now.” Greg went on to explain that he never saw me from the time he ran from the bench, until he grabbed me by the shoulder over by the hedge.

And then we heard a distant whistle.

Each of us silently finished our beers, and then we quickly left.

How I Spent Tomorrow

In this post I talked about my anterior cervical discectomy with fusion surgery. It's a rather painful remedy for bulging cervical spine disks and spinal stenosis.

That surgery was just over a year ago, and I have still have chronic pain in my neck, shoulders, and arms. I have been seeing my GP about once a month for going on two years for this problem, and she recently kicked me back to the surgeon to see if we can determine why I am still having pain.

I had a follow-up MRI, and tomorrow I go for the first in a series of three cervical epidurals.

I am actually more worried about the epidural than I was about the surgery. I think that before my surgery I had already met the surgeon who would perform the surgery, and not only did I trust him, but I knew he was going to cut into me, and would be able to clearly see and deal with all the muscles, blood vessels, nerves etc., that stood between him and my cervical spine. This time around someone I have never met will be sticking a needle in my neck down to the dura of my spinal column, and they will be watching the whole process on TV as they do it. This makes me a tad nervous.

The upshot is that the procedure will be early tomorrow morning, I will be on some fairly good drugs, and I get the day off of work.

The downside is tomorrow's my birthday.

The Tooth Fairy is Forty Years Late

The oddest thing happened last night. I woke up around one in the morning, and found a quarter in my left hand.

I felt it resting in my palm when I awoke, and placed it on my nightstand. I turned on a light and looked at it, and sure enough there was a quarter. I woke up my wife and asked her if she placed it in my hand when she went to bed, and she replied that she had not, but that perhaps I had put it there myself. (She was probably not real happy that I woke her up so early to ask about a quarter).

Maybe the tooth fairy missed me a long time ago, but if so, I want all the back interest as well.

Baby Pictures

This weeks cat blogging will be short, but cute. Below are two baby pictures, one of Athena, and one of Thalia.

This is Athena with her sister Mitzy. Mitzy, on the right, was later adopted.

This is Thalia while she still lived at the breeder's. Her eyes still show that intensity present in this picture.

Ain't they cute? Be sure to check out the Carnival of Cats at this blog is full of crap.

Angel Takes His Turn with the Bees

I have not posted any updates lately to Athenamama because I haven’t been feeling very well for the past few weeks. Yesterday, however, I was feeling better so when I got home I thought it would be nice to take our two dogs, Angel and Jacqueline, for what we refer to as "The Long Walk".

The long walk is essentially just a walk around the block. Sometimes we walk all the way around the block, and some days when I am not feeling well we might just walk far enough for the dogs to get a little fresh air, and do what they gotta do, before we head back home. Along the way on the long walk is a very small park. Usually we detour through this park, and sometimes even sit for a while and rest. In fact, this was the same park where Jacqueline got stung by a bee.

The dogs also like to root around the peripheral of the park for fun, and sometimes in search of a place to relieve themselves. It was during this exploration phase of our walk that I noticed Angel licking one of his hind feet. Such activity is not abnormal during our walks, so I let him indulge himself for a bit before I decided we should move on. When I tugged on his leash, he dutifully stopped licking, and got up to resume walking, but he wouldn’t walk on the one foot. Suspecting something was wrong, (I’m almost intuitive that way,) I bent down to take a look at his foot.

Nothing was visibly wrong with it from what I could see there in the park, but I could find a tender spot on one pad of his foot by applying mild pressure to it with my finger. It was obvious that he wasn’t going to walk on it, and not being sure what was wrong with him I decided to carry him home.

Angel weighs about eighteen pounds, and so while he isn’t impossible to carry, it is kind of hard for me with the problems I have in my neck and all. But, I managed, and we got home soon enough. I carried him upstairs, and put him on our bed. I got a flashlight and took a look at his foot and found stuck inbetween two of the pads a bee stinger. I asked my stepdaughter for a pair of tweezers and deftly plucked it out.

Angel looked pretty unhappy for the next hour or two; panting for a while, and still refusing to stand on his foot. He also would pull his foot away when I would touch it, but there was no swelling, and his breathing and heart rate seemed to be good. The vet I took Jacqueline to when she got stung was closed, and the animal hospital wouldn’t open for another hour, so I just kept him comfortable and we watched TV. (Angel enjoys “Fear Factor”.)

Angel is much like a child. You offer him sympathy and he plays it for all it’s worth. He snuggled up next to me and offered his belly for scratching. He looked at me occasionally with his soulful eyes if he felt he needed more scratching or perhaps a massage. He remained in my lap watching “Fear Factor” as he dozed for quite sometime.

After a bit my wife came home, and whenever the dogs are upstairs on our bed, and someone enters the house, they start barking enthusiastically. Angel fulfilled his obligation and promptly stood up on all fours and barked loudly as soon as he heard the doorknob rattle leaving little doubt in my mind that he had made a full recovery.

Black Cat

Usually I don’t like to write about the more disturbing things that happen to me. To write about any experience is to relive that experience, and as far as I am concerned those things that are unpleasant in life are not worth mulling over. Yet, sometimes it might be worth the pain of such an event if it helps to prevent one of similar occurrence. Therefore, I have decided to write about my walk with our two dogs this past Saturday, and what we found along the way.

Saturday evening, like most evenings, I headed out with Angel and Jacqueline for our late afternoon walk. We pretty much take the same path everyday, which includes the pathway that runs along a small creek we in these parts call a “barranca”. This path is rather peaceful in at that time of day because few people walk through there, and in addition to the creek there are plenty of trees and birds to see rather than cars and asphalt.

There is a small area of grass at one point along the pathway that barely qualifies as a park. It is just large enough for a few people to fly a kite, or even play Frisbee with their dogs, but not large enough to warrant benches or barbeques. The dogs and I usually find this area vacant, and we often sit and relax here for a few moments during our walk. It is unquestionably the most relaxing part of my day.

It was just before we got to this mini-park that I noticed a slight, dark figure lying just under the shade of a eucalyptus tree. I could tell almost right away that it was a cat lying in the dirt. As we got closer I could see it more clearly and saw that the back legs were crossed as if the cat were merely resting, but I knew almost immediately that it was already dead.

Now, if you are at all squeamish, skip the rest of this paragraph because all you really need to know is that the cat was dead. For the rest of you, what I saw was half a cat. From just under the front legs on, the cat ceased to exist. I was curious to see if I could tell what happened to the poor creature by getting a closer look at its injuries. It didn’t look like the cat had been cut in half by a sharp instrument, but more like it had a run in with a predator of some kind. It also looked like a fresh kill. The exposed meat of the cat was still bright red as opposed to the browning color one would expect from meat left in the sun all day.

In any case, seeing this sad sight compelled me to write this entry in my blog for a couple of reasons. One is that I am a firm believer in keeping cats indoors. When I was a kid living with my parents we had two cats, and a rather large backyard. We thought nothing in those days about letting the cats in and out as they pleased, but neither of those cats ever left the sanctity of their own backyard. Moreover, none of our neighbors had a large dog, or any other animal that might want to make a quick snack out of a cat. Additionally, the area where we lived had yet to be fully developed, so the encroachment of civilization upon the natural hunting grounds belonging to the indigenous populations had yet to force those inhabitants to look to other sources for food.

Now that our little community of thirty thousand has surpassed the one hundred thousand mark, we have coyotes coming down from the hills at night and taking cats and other small animals that are unlucky enough to be left out alone after dark. This may have been the case with the cat I saw, but I am not sure. I have seen the coyotes in the wee hours of the morning when I walk with Angel up to the corner to get the morning paper, but when I see them they are returning to the hills after a night of hunting and foraging. To take a cat in the late afternoon sun this far away from the hills is most unlike a coyote.

The other reason I have for writing about finding this cat is that the cat was black. The color of the cat is significant because we are nearing Halloween, and even through the cat looked to be the victim of an attack by a predator, there are people in this world that like to “sacrifice” or otherwise hurt, maim, or kill black cats out of some sort of ritualistic indulgence associated with the holiday. Many of the local animal shelters and cat adoption agencies, (actually all of them,) will not allow the adoption of a black cat, or even a cat that is mostly black in color exactly for that reason. They usually stop all adoptions of black cats sometime in September, and will not allow them again until November.

I have a black cat named Ebby, and she is shameless in her attempts to get out of the house by darting out the front door whenever an opportunity presents itself. She will even run to the door when she hears a car park outside of our house. But we go out and collect her every time. All she really wants to do is eat a little grass, and she never runs away from us even though she knows we mean to drag her back into the house. I would not leave her, or any one of my other animals outside over night if I could help it.

So, please keep your cats, and other small pets, inside. You wanted a pet because you felt they were cute, and were a lot of fun, and hopefully you wanted one because you thought you could provide the love and caring that is essential for them to thrive, and be a happy, healthy individual. Now that you have one, you OWE it to them to keep them as healthy, and safe as possible.