Eva and the Dog

Eva is getting to be such a big girl. She will be 5 months old tomorrow, and seems to have lost most of the kittenish look already . She and Tira and Unique get along quite well. The three of them play together, and a lot of times Eva and Tira play while Unique spectates. Unique has her grumpy moments, when she will hiss at Eva or Tira, but she never tries to hurt them. I think she is just trying to remind everyone that SHE is the queen of this house. The first picture is of Unique and Eva.

When Eva was with Steph, she likely had not met a dog before, since Steph doesn’t have one. Our dog was a stray that showed up here one winter. It took us a couple months to catch her – she obviously did not trust any one. We weren’t planning to keep her, we just didn’t want this shorthaired dog living in the woods during a NY winter, trying to survive. But she loves the horses, loves us, and is a great watchdog. But – she hates cats! Our barn cats don’t take any abuse from her, but we really had to work with her with the indoor cats. Unique wasn’t a problem – she and the dog, Klepto, just accept each other, but don’t go out of their way to be together. Tira, on the other hand, used to run up to Klepto, stand on her hind legs, and put her front paws around Klepto’s neck!! That was when we decided we really had to get Klepto behave better around the cats. We worked with her for a while, and she got to where she and Tira would play together. She would still growl at the cats when they approachd her crate, where she sleeps at night, and she still would go crazy when she sees a stray cat (she once tried to kill a very friendly, very pregnant stray that showed up here), but she was friendly toward the cats that she know belonged here.
Then we got Eva. We knew Eva was unfamiliar with dogs, and we weren’t sure what Klepto would be like with Eva, so we kept them separate until just about a month ago, when Eva was bigger. The first time Eva saw Klepto, her hair stood on end til she was twice her usual size, and she ran and hid. She would always act a little afraid, but interested, in Klepto. Klepto, surprisingly, really wanted to be friends with Eva! She would see Eva and wag her tail and try to approach her. Eva no longer gets poofy or runs away when she sees Klepto, and a few times has even stood her ground to let Klepto appraoch and sniff her. When Klepto is in her crate, Eva will sit near the crate and watch her. The second picture is Tira and Klepto.

For those wondering about the dog’s name – she is a worldclass thief!! Before we had decided to keep her, she was living in teh barn with the horses. Things kept coming up missing – the dishes we fed her in, horse halters, fly masks, brushes, clothes that Ken would throw on the floor of the garage,solar powered lights that were by the driveway, even a short extension cord. Also, things would appear in our yard – balls, frisbees, various small items that didn’t belong to us. The burglary spree ended the day she brought us a live chicken!! The chicken lived in the barn for a couple weeks til we could catch her and return her to her owner…the dog ended up with a collar and new license, a yard fenced with Invisible Fence, and the name Klepto!!