silent stalking

This is where Emmy spends about 50 to 75 percent of her waking hours, usually looking out the window. Often peering intently into pitch blackness in hopes of spying a kitty.

Last week we caught Emmy out in the backyard, very still and statue-like, clearly stalking something. She was staring at the neighbor's hedge, where a neighborhood cat likes to lounge around. This particular cat and Emmy are bigtime frenemies. The cat drives Emmy crazy, and she either silently prepares to hunt it or screeches and cries and runs around, devastated that they can't be together (or that she can't hold the kitty oh so gently in her little dog fangs). On this particular night, she was focused on very still, intense stalking. I looked at the cat, and it was also focused on still, intense stalking. There are birds living in the hedge where the cat was. Lots and lots and lots of birds that usually poop on our car. The cat fixed its eyes on the depths of bird land, in the center of the hedge, and Emmy fixed her eyes on the cat. And I fixed my eyes on Jesus. Just kidding. I mean Emmy.

And then! The cat leaped into the air, landed on the on the hedge, and then vanished into the neighbor's backyard. Emmy went berserk and screamed and cried and shrieked and ran into the house to see if the cat was perchance now just casually sitting outside a different window. But the cat wasn't, because THEN it came silently strolling out from the bottom of the hedge, with a small bird in its mouth. Emmy panicked (maybe nervous for her bird friend?) and knocked over the fan pictured above. It made a ginormous crash, but Emmy was not bothered by that one bit.