Dolly and the Wolf Trap

She may be an occasionally infuriating, princess kind of a cat -- refuses to eat from her bowl unless it is full; insists on sleeping on our bed, under the covers, tucked in between legs, and leaves with a disdainful look thrown in our direction if we so much as move an inch; runs all over us early in the morning to make sure we wake up -- but Dolly is our second little girl, Lilou's furry elder sister (weird as that makes as sound), and has been with us since she was two months old, five years ago.

Being a princess, she has her fixed habits. One of these habits being that at five p.m. we stick our head out the door, meowl three times or five, and there she comes running from wherever she's been terrorizing field mice, to come home and stay in until she demands to be let out again the following morning.

One evening last week, we meowled until we were hoarse, and no spot of black came gliding down the dirt road. Husband and I were worried, but trying not to show it, reminding each other of that time, a year ago, when she wouldn't come home until midnight. At 10 o'clock, we decided to go out meowling one more time, and from the neighbor's lot we heard a weak meowling back.

A scrambling over wire fence and lots of tumbling over garden machinery later, we found her: the princess had her left paw bitten by a fox trap, left by our neighbor, we later learned, to catch a gigantic rat that had been eating the eggs in his chicken coop.

I wanted to file a complaint against him, as these traps are illegal, but opted for the diplomatic way and instead had him give me his word that from now on he'll only be using humane cages. Husband even borrowed these from the mayor's office for him. But you can bet neighbor is never seeing his wicked fox trap ever again (I hid it next to my washing machine).

The princess had no bones brokens (lucky kitty!), but walked with a limp and was confined indoors for a week. Today is her first day outdoors. I think I'll be sticking my head out the door and meowling every hour or so to make sure she's okay.