What next for the Chihuahua?

No vote was taken. The mangy critter was staying. Tigger and I needed to resolve ourselves to deal with the infiltrator. And just before the girl went back to school that fateful fall, we found out that the furry, uninvited guest now known as Fernando, was named after her favorite futbol star. Funny, little did we all know that soon the cute little precious would grow up into a beastie and start tackling us and playing foul with us just for fun. Stinker would have been more appropriate!

Everyone believed Fernando would settle down eventually. But as the weeks passed, NADA changed. His favorite pastimes? Wrestling poor Tigger, who is no spring chicken. And then there was the chase the Chihuahua, pounce and chew on her butt. Nope, this Chico may have been pretty to look at, but the hombre had a fickle streak, and muchos tricks up his sleeves. Que cute, my foot!

(Looks so innocent! Yeah, right!)

Oh, and hang on to your pantalones, turned out he even liked to eat Cheerios! My Cheerios!! What was this world coming to when even a Chica’s morning ritual “fetching” of the Cheerios was no longer sacred! Ay, Dios!

Look! Evidence: Hit and run! Call my lawyer!!!

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Oh, oh, infiltrators in the Chihuahua’s casa

Oh, my friends, I know I have been way too quiet, absent all together, really. I’ll need to catch you all up on a whole lot. But listen to my tale and you’ll not only forgive the Chica, but you’ll understand the whackiness of the twilight zone I’ve been caught in. It all began about a year ago …

I guess you could say I was sleeping on the job that night, but all seemed quiet on the prairie and it was 1:30 am! Way past my bedtime. When apparently, in the dead of night, two infiltrators snuck onto this Chica’s territory. And Mama being a softie, she fell for their sad mewing and big shinning, pitiful eyes. Oh, the poor things (right?!!!!!!) pathetic!!

But before I could say, “uno momento, por favor,” Mama and her accomplices (the kids) where out there on the front walk trying to lure the skittish, frightened and “helpless” little creatures. Aww, they they looked so scrawny. They must be starving. How long had the poor dears been out there all alone?

Ole Tigger and I soon caught on to what was going on just outside the door. OK, so we had gotten to the Alamo stand a little slow and it was already looking bad for the home team. But it WAS late as I said and we were half asleep. Tigger glared fiercely out the window while I started barking trying to shoo the mangy things away from my property, but all I ended up doing was waking Dad up. He came to see what all the ruckus was about so I figured he would take our side and we’d stand our ground together. But he took one look outside, sighed deeply, shook his head in defeat and went back to bed. What?!?!

Whoosh! They captured the first critter. You could say he was the less bright of them two geniuses. Throw a little food out, wave a little twig and GOTCHA! Seriously dude, you fell for that? So much for survival instinct. Off he was whisked into the garage. Hey, maybe it would be OK, so long as they stayed out there and did not infiltrate the casa we could work out some territorial arrangement.

Seeing what happened to his bro, the other pesky critter caught on quick. He scooted into the bushes and stared suspiciously at the humans trying to soothe him and con him out. There were a couple of forays into the open and failed attempts at grabbing the biestie, but the varmit was too slick and fast. However, Mama is nothing if not determined and patient. She just sat out there pretending not to care and playing with the food and the twigs, with an “innocent” looking towel just laying there. I gave up on the barking, both because Dad was threatening to throw a shoe at me and because this was actually becoming an entertaining spectacle, a true showdown if not at high noon.

As I could have told the silly cato, eventually that patience and the Mama won out. On the third pass near arm’s reach, Mama struck out like lightning and houdinied the cat into the towel where the flailing and slashing was soon contained.

Off to the garage went little Cato number two. Mama and her crew set up some rudimentary accommodations — water, food and a litter box. So OK, I thought, as only the approved individuals came back inside and everyone agreed to go to bed. We’d all gather like sensible family members and discuss what to do with the refugees in the mañana. Humph!!! You bet your frijoles we would.

Nobody asked me!

Are you thinking it has been too quiet on the Chihuahua from western Florida front? Well, amigos, you are right. But actually much has been happening in the last year. It is the Chica that has had a little trouble keeping up. But you’ll soon understand. Allow me to catch you up with my cuento …

You see, there came a new Cato to town. “Que?!?” You say? Well, so did I! But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me tell you the story from way back when all this madness began. My therapist says it will help me “process.” Si, como no! Right?

As you might imagine, were having a great summer. The kids came home from college. We laughed, we played, there was mucho belly rubbing and chihuahua adoration during family movie nights. I was in my glory, soaking it all in and trying to forget that August would ever come around. The familia went on a couple of summer trips to which I was not invited (still working on forgiveness for those) but they came back to me every time and made up for leaving me behind with extra treats and scratchies.

Unfortunately, time does fly when la Chica is having fun and before we knew it we were packing the kids up to go back to college. Can you believe it? Our girl was going to be a senior, our boy a sophomore already!

But just as August came and the unavoidable sadness began to descend upon the household, POW, there came what will forever be known as the Cat-tastrophe of 2012. Stay tuned for more episodes of the tail that would not quit … Ferrrrrrrrrnando.