Rusty and Gus are slowly making progress.  When Rusty first appeared on the scene, Gus-the-kitty was Freaked.  Out.  He stayed barricaded in the back room, and even if I locked up the dog in his crate in a separate, closed room, Gus would totally lose his mind if removed from his hiding place.  You can’t hold Gus down, though, and the two of them are working it out.

In other news, I had yet another horse incident on Monday.  It is starting to be just a little bit lighter for a little bit longer in the evenings, and since the weather was nice, I started my riding lesson in the outdoor arena instead of the lighted indoor arena.  The dusky time of night, however, is a bit tricky for the horses.  Things are extra shadowy, so there is more room for freak outs.  I had just started to get  into a good canter, when all of a sudden, the horse just took off running.

But I didn’t fall off! (for once)

The difference this time involved a few things.

* One, the horse didn’t have a sudden start.  We were already moving quickly, so he just increased his pace until he was bolting.

* Two, he was going in a straight line, more or less.  There were no twisty turns to make me lose my balance.

*Three: I broke down and bought a saddle that fits me (I found one used for WAY less than I thought I was going to have to spend), and I think the proper saddle fit helped me keep my balance when the horse was going nuts.

*Four: I didn’t freak out.  I mean, clearly I sort of froke out, but I was somehow able to keep my head about me.  Because he took off somewhat gradually, I didn’t get as startled as I did last time the horse bolted (different horse, btw).  Time slowed way down in my head, and as my teacher yelled things to me like: “KEEP YOUR HANDS DOWN!” and “BEND YOUR ELBOWS!” I was literally thinking to myself: “I am just going to keep my legs long and my heels down and keep my butt in the saddle,” as I tried to follow her instructions.

Eventually, the horse came to his senses a little bit, and I was able to slow him to a stop.

I was definitely shaken up (and, you know, literally shaking), but I was thinking about it on my drive to work yesterday, and I think it actually made me a bit more confident overall.  Since I was able to keep my balance and (eventually) bring the situation back under control, I fell like if it happens again, I’ll feel like I know a little bit better how to handle it.

Although hopefully, I won’t have to test that theory out any time soon.

Yesterday I was doing some spring cleaning which involved mopping my floors.  Not just mopping my floors, but moving all of the furniture to mop the whole floor.  I moved the chest next to my kitchen table, and underneath it, I found the stopper to the bathtub.

How did my bathtub stopper end up under kitchen furniture?

This guy:

Yesterday, I replaced the stopper, and today, I noticed that it was gone again, and in its place, stuck in the drain, was a jingly-ball cat toy.

I eventually found the stopper under the dresser in my bedroom.

See it under there?  In the shadows?  Gus has since dragged it into the middle of my bedroom floor.

Theft of bathtub stoppers is only one of the myriad quirks that makes Gus the world’s awesomest cat.

First of all, I shouldn’t be surprised that he stole the stopper, because Gus loves the bathtub.

Um, can't a cat get some privacy around here?

Whenever I can’t find him, I first check the bathtub.  After that, I check my bed.

He has somehow figured out how to smoosh himself around so that when you look at the bed, it looks perfectly flat, but if you look long enough, you’ll see that part of it appears to be breathing.

Gus also loves Apple products.

He seems to feel equal love for the laptop and the iPhone….

…and is particularly fond of self-portraits and watching TV shows:

On top of all of this, the other day, Gus actually got mail addressed to him.  MAIL!

Um, is he subscribing to magazines when I’m not looking?  It would not surprise me.

Here he is following the dialogue on a TV show like a tennis match.  The best part is that when the commercial comes on, he loses interest.

 
And just for kicks, here’s one of Gus and Casey:

Gus. He is a character.

Progress continues.

Gus is so, so, so curious about Rusty-the-Dog.  So when they end up face to face, Gus really wants to check things out.

I don’t yet trust Rusty not to eat Gus, so I try to keep a hold on things.

And then he poses like this, trying to look totally casual:

In other news, I’m watching two nutjobs on the Bachelor cry in corners, and I just ate five chocolate cookies, which I’m sure will prove to be a bad idea when I’m too sugared up to fall asleep.  YAY!

Rusty, my new dog, and Gus, the world’s amazingest cat, have a strained relationship.

One the plus side, Rusty doesn’t seem to have much of a prey drive, so he isn’t snarling and trying to kill the cat, as evidenced by a low baby gate serving as an effective barrier.  However, he does want to chase.

Gus is not afraid of dogs, having lived with Casey-Dog since he was a teeny, tiny kitten.  He also loves Molly (Westerman and Javier’s dog) who is really good with him as well.

So Gus really doesn’t know what to make of Rusty and all of this chasing, and yet refuses to act as anything other than the king of the house.

Gus has a little cozy spot in my linen closet behind the curtain above.  Even though I try to be careful about it, Rusty has tracked him down in there and cornered him at least two times, yet still, Gus hangs out there, clearly daring the dog to mess with him.  (Gus might think the baby gate has a bit more power than it actually does.)

Rusty just watches and watches, waiting for his chance to chase.  Rusty has jumped the baby gate before, so he knows it is just a polite reminder, not an actual barricade, one of the many reasons that Rusty is a fascinating dog.

Gus also likes to take it to the next level and taunt Mr. Rusty.

If you look carefully, you can see the blur that is Gus behind the baby gate, lolling around and stretching out, and generally showing off to the dog who is about eight feet away.

Even better, Gus is playing with his new favorite toy, which used to be Rusty’s favorite toy.

“Oh, this toy?  Yeah, isn’t it great?  I sure do love this toy!  I bet you wish you had a toy like this…too bad that baby gate is in the way!  HA!”

So, because of Gus’ fearless nature and relentless showoffery, I am confident that one day they two of them will be besties like Gus is with Casey-Dog.

Maybe just not anytime soon.

Hooray!  I woke up this morning and could fully close my jaw.  Good times.

For those of you just tuning in, yesterday I fell off a horse and kicked myself in the face, and now my jaw won’t close.

I was hoping that it would have miraculously fixed itself overnight, but not so much.  Happily, my jaw still doesn’t hurt, I just can’t get my back teeth to touch each other.  It does limber up just a bit if I stretch it out, but then it gradually clenches back up.  I’m guessing it will just take a bit more time to figure itself out.  Also, today the rest of my body remembered that it had fallen down, and so not to be left out, my back and neck are all achy.  Twice today I have coated myself in IcyHot, and man, that stuff is gloriously fabulous.

In other Tuesday news, I took Rusty to the vet to have him microchipped and vaccinated and whatnot.  He had a blood test and was positive for Lyme Disease.  Yay.  Luckily, Lyme Disease isn’t that big of a deal in dogs, he just has to take antibiotics for a month  (A month!) and then he should be fine.

Come on, 2012.  I think we can do a little better than this.

To end on more cheerful note, Gus, like many of today’s youth, is addicted to the iPhone, and enjoys taking self-portraits.

I think those photos are really, really, really funny.  I’m pretty sure he took them for his Facebook page.

Gus drinks a TON of water.

The dog and the cat share a water bowl, because Gussie can’t be bothered with drinking out of a small, cat-sized bowl.  It is beneath him, really.  So the two of them share a big, glass mixing bowl of water.  Casey, however, not only spends her days outside, she also prefers her outside water, and will bark to go out for the sole purpose of drinking the outside water.

Meaning Gus is the primary drinker of the inside water.

Each evening I fill it up, usually just topping it off.  And each evening I put at least a liter of water into that bowl.

Is that little cat really drinking a liter of water a day?  Because that seems a bit insane.

That’s really all there is to say about that.

I must have jinxed myself talking about the adorableness of Gussie because not too many minutes ago, he and the dog were up to their usual nonsense, chasing each other around, and attempting to bite each other’s faces.  Sometimes, Gus manages to get a claw stuck in Casey’s face, to which I yell: “You better not scratch her eye out, because we are not going to the vet for that!”

But somehow during their mayhem my leg got in the way today and instead of Casey-Dog’s face,  Gus got his claw stuck in my leg.  STUCK, I TELL YOU!

There was screaming on my part, and both animals made themselves scarce right quick.  Casey, knowing she was busted, ran straight to her crate for a time out.

Casey-Dog is no stranger to Time Out in the Crate.

She enjoys what we like to call demand barking where she barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and sometimes growls until she gets what she wants.  (A trait of the Catahoulas is that they are insistent.)  Of course, if you give in to her while she is barking, she has only learned that incessant, irritating barking gets her exactly what she wants so she’ll do it every time she wants something.  Entonces, instead of letting her out/ throwing her ball/etc, she gets sent to the crate when the barking gets bad.

Truthfully, this probably happens once a night these days, and it is particularly bad weekdays right now because I don’t get home until after dark, and can’t take her out to run around.  Not enough exercise = demand barking = pain-in-the-butt dog.

What I heart about the crate, though,  is how much she loves it and how well it works.  Sometimes (as in the old photo above), she just hangs out in there.  And when she gets sent to the crate for barking, it calms her down almost instantly.

At this point, if I just look angrily at her and say: “Go to your crate!” She stops what she is doing, runs to the crate, and puts herself in.

Sometimes, she runs to her crate so eagerly, I swear she was just putting on a barking show so that I’d send her to time out.

She’s a crafty one, that Catahoula.

“You must be ready to teach and exercise a Catahoula. If not, he will eat your house. The Catahoula will not let you forget that you own a dog.” –Don Abney

Lord knows, Mr. Don Abney there was right.  Thank goodness for the crate.

Oh, Gus the cat.

He is pure entertainment.  A few things Gus enjoys:

Watching TV.  Here he is watching “The League.“  That show is ridiculously funny:  if you don’t already watch it, you need to start.  Horribly inappropriate, but I find it hysterical.

Gus also enjoyed an equally inappropriate movie, “Bridesmaids.”

Besides TV, Gus also enjoys staring at other things.  The overhead kitchen light, for example.

Or staring out the window, and occasionally getting tangled in the curtains.

Aw, Gus. So much awesomeness in such a little body.