Protect Your Pets from 4th of July Dangers

Leaning once again on the cat side of catsignal, another big holiday is coming right up. While fireworks and big gatherings can be fun for humans, it’s another story entirely for our companion animals.

As they so often do, the good folks at the Humane Society of the United States have placed the common sense of the subject in terms so plain and firm that all I need to do is link to it and you can read there how to keep your pets safe and happy this Independence Day weekend. Go for it.

Fiction: Beevey

Beevey woke up. Large, dark eyes opened in a thickly furred head. Something had changed, Beevey – short for Black Velvet – knew.

The cat listened for a moment. Both the adult humans were still asleep. So he unfolded himself from the closet floor and set off into the dark to peruse the rest of the upstairs.

Beevey padded down the hall to the baby’s room. With the aid of a soft night light, he hopped up on a chest of drawers and looked down into the crib. The little girl was also asleep. Of course, had that changed, there would have been lots of noise and one of the adults would have gotten up.

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Fiction: Appeasing the Appetite

The mouse’s eyes darted around. He had been maneuvered into a corner and there was no way out. He looked up and up again. There towered a great gray cat with evil and hunger in its eyes.

“Oh, please, please, Mr. Cat! Please don’t kill and eat me!”

The cat was amused. “Whyever not? I am hungry and you are food. This has been the way of things since our kind first shared the earth.”

“Please! I … I could pay. I could get something for you that you wanted,” the mouse pleaded.

“You are what I want,” the cat replied reasonably, and he lifted his right forepaw for the coup de grâce.

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Fiction: Papal Bull

Not recently, Carmine, a white and tan cat, woke especially early and spent the morning in prayer, punctuated by the occasional quick glance at where his tail should have been.

When he felt as prepared for his journey as any cat has ever felt, he slipped away from the barnyard and wandered down the dirt road toward the port.

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