Off for our morning doggy walk. In the winter, when Arizona is livable, Cassie can easily walk a mile or two. In the summer, we're lucky to make it to the end of the block, even after dark -- and of course I don't ask her to walk on those broiling hot pavements at that time of year.

The Queen of the Universe loves cats. She wants to smooch them all on the nose, and whenever she catches a whiff of the feline (which is often in this neighborhood...), she wants to track down the owner. Oddly, the cats don't seem to reciprocate. :-D

This morning we peeled off from a confabulation of golden retrievers and dachshunds near the park (we had joined these folks who had seven dogs with them, two of which were pretty much out of control) to walk up a neighborhood street. And what should we spot running across the road but a fine, healthy-looking coyote.

It wasn't very big -- smaller than some of the other well-fed specimens who inhabit the alleys and the oleanders around here. But she looked good. And she definitely was big enough to pluck a corgi off the end of a leash.

Since I hadn't brought the Coyotoe Shillelagh along (we carry that at dusk and after dark), we turned around and went the other way, out of an abundance of caution.

These critters are all over the neighborhood now, largely because a couple of colonies of feral cats have taken over abandoned houses, and the more nit-witted among our neighbors insist on putting food out for them. They don't seem to grasp that food for the cats = food for the coyotes, and that the cats themselves are coyote food. Both of these things call coyotes into the neighborhood, and now we have them a-plenty. Not too long ago, Cassie and I came nose-to-nose with one in the driveway when we went out to get the morning paper.

Scared the bedoodles out of the wild thing -- it shot off so fast it was a blur before it rounded the corner of the courtyard wall. Did you know that a coyote, like a greyhound, can reach 40 mph in just a few strides?

Cats. Ah yes. The cats.

Now don't get me wrong. I love cats. I've had many a cat, and at some points in my life I've been just as irresponsible about them as my present neighbors can be. So I can't really call their kettles black.

But still...

One of my neighbors adores cats every bit as much as Cassie does. She has a pretty little tortoiseshell tabby that she allows to run loose, and this critter has taken up residence in my yard. That would be marginally OK, except that my backyard is desert-landscaped with finely crushed granite. The cat thinks this translates into "Giant Latrine." And I absolutely could do without said cat leaving deposits for Cassie to unearth and eat, as dogs sometimes incline to do.

It also gets into the front courtyard and sprays in there. Cassie thinks that's a lovely perfume. I don't, oddly enough.

Some years ago, I had some serious trouble with this neighbor's husband, whom we know as The Psychotic. Both he and his wife, whom we know as Other Daughter (her dad calls her sister his "Pretty Daughter" and this one his "Other Daughter") live two houses down from me. At one point, because of an altercation with Other Daughter's father, Semi-Demi-Exboyfriend (known as SDXB) went toe-to-toe with The Psychotic, telling him to stay off my property. The Psychotic announced he would come onto my property any time he pleased.

He tried that one lovely afternoon. My German shepherd caught him in the act. It was not good.

Mercifully, he escaped unscathed, and he never tried it again.

However, various small acts of vandalism continued, and so to insure that he wouldn't jump the wall into the yard, I took strips of 1 x 4's, hammered nails through them, and wired them, points up, along the tops of the block walls.

This was very WT, of course, but it did work to keep the poor guy out of the yard. As a practical matter, I recognized that he was mentally ill (he and Other Daughter are both on disability because their mental illness precludes much paid work) and did not want the German shepherd, who had free access to the yard through a doggy door, to eviscerate him.

LOL! Since then, he's found some meds that agree with him and he's quit going off the things, and so now we're all on good terms. The Dragon's Teeth, as we called them, are now off the wall.

But I still had some, figuring to use the dried-out wood as fireplace kindling.

This morning, having about had it with the kitty visitations, I resuscitated a few strips of them and tied them along the favorite wall of ingress.

They look just terrible, as you can imagine. However, I've conceived of a better idea: carpet tack strips.

Next week, when I have some money again, I'm going to buy two or three packages of carpet strips, which should be enough to cover the tops of the walls that aren't overgrown by cat's claw vines.

These are much less obtrusive, but the tiny tacks are mighty sharp. They should keep the cat out, and also the local raccoons. I may secure them to the top of the front courtyard's wall, too -- there's so much shrubbery out there, they won't be visible from the street.

The courtyard has two wrought-iron gates and a couple of decorative sort of window-like affairs also filled with wrought iron strips, through which Kitty can easily slip. However, when the new corgi pup gets here, these will need to be secured with screening so he can't wriggle out. I figure installing that stuff a little early won't harm anything.

Ah well. I must get to work, reading mind-numbing scholarly copy by ESL writers. You can tell how much I want to by the length of this post...