Dog Walk

The dogs' morning walk.

May be their favorite thing.

They trot along beside me,

Hunting lizards,birds and bunnies.

Today, they saw something new

A gray tiger cat just a few doors down

Sunning himself in the drive

What!  What!  I could see the wheels

Turning inside their poodle brains.

It was not our gray tiger cat, of course

Clyde passed away this summer

He was almost 17

Our first pet as a family

Pre-dog.

Still Clyde had been king of the back porch

He wandered the neighborhood proud

Everyone stopped to greet him

He loved poodles and people alike.

The dogs looked for Clyde on the porch for days

After he was no longer there.

The teens understood the cat had died

To the dogs, he had just disappeared.

As we approached the other gray cat

The poodles wagged their stubby tails

Cookie did her happy dance

Mack pulled ahead to greet the cat.

A friend of Clyde’s, perhaps they thought?

The new king of the porch? But no.

When the cat turned and ran away

Instead of running to greet them

They knew.

I had not hidden Clyde away

This was no switcheroo

We were a family

Without a cat

And now the dogs knew it, too.