The House of Rhyming Pests II

PART TWO – Yowls in the Night

I never take sleep for granted, and I know ahead of time that every night my eyes will be opening several times before the sun comes up. Whether its some sort of pain (like when my ear somehow gets folded over and after sleeping on it a while, it suddenly explodes with pain), Graves-disease induced night sweats (I’m dreaming that I’m swimming…) or the noise made by the refrigerator kicking on (and rattling whatever things I left on top of it) – there is never a night of unbroken sleep for me. And now, the dog doesn’t help.

She used to sleep soundly at the foot of my bed, or sometimes under it. The noise and shaking of the train going by rarely disturbed her. If for some reason I had to turn the light on in the middle of the night, she would squint and hide her face. But, that is no longer the case.

It started after a long winter, a time in which I keep all the windows and doors of the house securely closed. My house is made of cinderblock and it takes a lot of noise outside for me to hear it. Of course, that changes when the warm weather sets in. Then I am beset by the cacophony of birds, insects, neighborhood dogs, neighborhood arguments, souped-up cars, car radios, and backyard parties. The din usually dies down at night, unless someone has forgotten to bring a dog in, or leans on an alarmed car.

I didn’t mind that the dog barked at the occasional night noise, and felt secure that she was protecting me. I admit, I encouraged her. By the time the CATS moved into the neighborhood, it was too late. The dog was set on high alert.

The first night of yowling was a terrifying thing. At first it seems like a baby is crying, then screaming, then being torn end from end. A few minutes of this and you know you are dealing with feral cats, doing what feral cats do on a moonlit night. Soon the cats and my dog were involved in an earsplitting duet.

I went outside in my pajamas and chased the cats away. I yelled at the dog to stop barking. She continued to pace the house, nose at window level, sniffing for cats. The next night they were back. More yowling. More barking. More me chasing them in my pajamas.

Of course, as a natural result, then came the kittens. Why a mother cat would pick my yard with an obviously hostile canine is beyond me, but she did. She brazenly sunned herself and her litter on my deck, right on my cushioned lounge chair. When I came obliviously out of my back door, dog in tow, it was like a cat explosion, with mother cat and kittens flying in all directions. My dog practically took my arm out of the socket lunging after them.

And they just don’t leave. I don’t know if it is the third or fourth generation of cats that have chosen this neighborhood as their territory. I never know if I open a door whether I will find one laying on my stoop, or crouching in my bushes, or hiding under my car. My dog spends hours sprawled on the floor, her nose pushed up against the tiny space under the screen door. She can scent a cat at a hundred yards. And now, she is so proud of her herself for sounding the cat alarm, she now regularly barks at squirrels, falling leaves, cars going by and thunderstorms that are 40 miles away.

So, it is only logical what critter decided to drop in on Noreen’s House of Rats and Yard of Cats.

NEXT: The Night I Almost Slept in My Car