The face I love, over and over, even if it is laced in the spicy scent of Mademoiselle Le Pew.
Mademoiselle Le Pew comes each night, when dark, to finish off the fine quality barn cat food that sits in a bowl for the front porch Apifera Cats. Mademoiselle is known to venture to the big barn to graze on other fine edibles of the other Apifera barn cats, but seems to prefer the front porch. Rather than being inside, Martyn and I tend to sit outside on the porch, enjoying the cool summer nites, and of course, where we go, so goes our noble dog Huck, and the one eyed pug, Billy. We have trained Huck to wag his tail from afar at Mademoiselle, but not run towards her, as we have explained to him that one must never startle Mademoiselle. "But she is so cute and quite attractive at nite with her glaring white stripe," Huck says with his eyes....Well, last nite he took matters into his own feet, and introduced himself much too quickly to dear Mademoiselle. One can not blame the lady for being startled.
All I can remember is seeing Mademoiselle walking rapidly up the porch where we sat, as she has no fear of us, and Huck in close proximity, and Big Tony right behind them. As Mademoiselle fled to her private room nestled in the Quince bush, dear Huck began to lick himself all over in alarm, "My God, what has happened to my usual doggy odor??" At this point the one eyed pug sensed something was amiss, and came up from under the quilt as he sat on my lap. Giving a skunked 90# lab a bath of vinegar and dish soap at 10 post meridian after one has had their evening wine is a sobering affair.
In the background, Big Tony sat watching the entire bathing process, as if saying, "Huck, I told you -Always approach her with quite dignity, like a cat would....".
