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Snickers doesn’t get much face time on this blog. Mostly, because she’s IZ’s cat and torments my dog enough to keep me in an almost perpetual state of peeved. It’s an unfair relationship, really. Because if Sophie responds we have no choice but to crack down on her. She’s a terrier and her instincts are intact; she’s genetically predisposed to hunt and kill vermin. Snickers certainly behaves like a weasel, but up against the snapping jaws of an enraged dog, she doesn’t stand a chance. You’d think that be enough to stop her wily ways.

I like this about my dog. I am a city girl through and through, but I harbor delusions of living “out” and having a whole pack of terriers to call my own. Like my dog’s instincts, my fantasy life is intact; I have visions of plaid riding jackets and leather knee-high boots (What?! By now you people should know my fantasies come with wardrobe options.) and five or six lovely, black and tan Welshies jumping at my feet. We spend countless hours roaming the vast expanse of our country estate nosing out assorted vermin. We come home, hot and sweaty and tired and triumphant, having once again cleared our fair land of weasels. (Hey, if you’re reading metaphor here, good for you.)

A Welsh Terrier is no slouch when it comes to nosing out a vermin. Just ask my Miss Sophie. There’s not a garbage can or telephone pole she doesn’t growl at when we’re out walking. Never mind our neighbor cat out for a midnight stroll. No, she has bigger prey in mind; namely her own shadow! Clearly, I’m not the only one with a rich fantasy life.

Now, I don’t believe in letting a person, or dog, dream alone. So, I can’t resist whispering, “Kill it, Sophie. Kill it!” even though it’s perfectly obvious that the only vermin in her life is the cat. Vermin she can’t kill. Vermin she must tolerate.

Which brings us back to Snickers. Lord only knows what goes on in her fantasy life.