Random thoughts on the Pet herd

I've come to the conclusion that the current annoying habits of the pet herd are due to a lack of pet leadership.  No, we don't need anymore pets.  Let me explain...

The first pet that came to live at the Suburban Ranch (back when it was more of an Urban Ranch) was MJ, the Bunny Cat Princess.  Her story, according to the Denver Dumb Friends League, was that her previous owners adopted her as a kitten, allowed her to roam the neighborhood and gave her up after she had four litters of kittens in less than 2 years.   (Dude, I can tell you how to fix that...) She was about 3 when we brought her to live with us, and for many years we had more video of her than the human children, as we filmed that foolish cat for HOURS after her spay surgery (she was HILARIOUS...I wonder if we still have that?...hmmm)  We spoiled that cat and made her fat.  Then, Mr IM's sister asked if we could watch Cass, her  kitten, for the summer.  We said, "sure!".  It was then that we realized MJ's fabulous leadership skills...She trained Cass the kitten to do all the things that kittens should do and loved it.  When Cass went home, we found Tigger (the "tiny headed kitten", because his brain, well, just isn't that big...) and MJ trained him (sort of...as well as she could...good job, MJ).  MJ went on to train Indy the dog as well as put the fear of MJ into Alice the Cat.  (Alice did not reap the full benefits of a MJ run training camp, as MJ was pretty sick by the time Alice arrived at the Ranch, however, Alice does have a healthy respect for growling animals).  Indy also had the benefit of us being friends with the owners of her mother, Truffles, so until Indy was 3 or so, we could periodically take her over to their big yard and let Truffles remind her who was in charge (Truffles, not us..).  We took Indy to puppy training class, and as there were no human children yet, spent hours teaching her to behave. (Including the amazing trick of putting a plate of food on the floor and telling her to "leave it"...and she would...) MJ and Indy then "trained" Tigger, Liberty, and Alice to be good minions, but not good leaders....

Without the guidance and leadership of MJ and Indy, we have Liberty, who thinks she is a 110 pound puppy, teaching Morrison (who is a 30 pound puppy) how to "puppy".  Tigger and Alice are not participating in the program (like MJ would have), as they are clueless and old (Tigger) and angry and aloof (Alice).  I think the solution is to find some MJ and Indy fur and have them cloned.  Yep, that's my plan.  Maybe I could have them cloned together as some kind of hybrid cat/dog creature....I think I've seen a horror film about that?

The good news though, is that Morrison is settling in and shows signs of being smarter than Liberty (sorry Liberty), or at least less scared (some of Liberty's odd habits probably have to do with whatever happened to her before we rescued her).  Morrison is making progress in the "leave it" department and is getting pretty good at taking food nicely.  I have high hopes that she can exhibit some leadership skills for this clueless herd....(perhaps even convincing Tigger to stop singing the song of his people at 3am?).  Ah, well...only time will tell!