The Rock Wall

Does your cat have the Zooms?

I’d never heard of it until I was talking to Charlotte Wiggins last week and she said her cats had the “zooms.” I knew instantly what she meant and yes, both our cats have it – the winter phenomenon of pent up energy.

One day I was in the bathroom and saw Bella stalking something that was above her head. Quite a ways into her “stalk,” Caddeaux, who had been sitting on his usual chair on my side of the bed, jumped over Bella and the “zoom” was on down the hall and into the kitchen.

Another day, there was suddenly a loud catfight right beside and kinda behind my easy chair complete with all the hissing and screaming you could imagine.

Last night, they slept together on our bed and spent a lot of time grooming each others head, face and neck.

Davis’ dog, Caddee, is staying with us while she takes her medication to stop her itching. She doesn’t seem affected by the zooms, but on warmer days she will dig up and kill moles.

– Last Friday, Kimball and I heard in detail, complete with phone pictures, about what I would call a novel way of hunting coyotes. Gary Arthaud and his buddy, Blue, use a special breed of hound, half Grey Hound and half Russian Wolf Hound. They primarily hunt in Kansas where they have wide open spaces. It takes the two to four hounds about a quarter mile before the “catch dog” nips the coyote’s heels and rolls him. Then the “kill dogs” go for the throat and it’s over in seconds.

Gary raises his pups in a pen with a barbed wire fence between the feed and the water to get them accustomed to fences. He says it’s not pretty if a dog hits a barbed wire fence at 40 mph.

And he raises the pups around cattle so they don’t go after a calf that jumps up. He said it his dogs kill a calf you might as well get out your checkbook and write down a 1 followed by three zeroes.

And it’s important to get permission from the landowners where they are going to hunt or it’s called trespassing.

But it sounds like an effective and quiet way to hunt coyotes. The hounds don’t bark.

And a little bit dangerous – like the time they went airborne over a levee at 50 or 60 mph or hit a chug hole in a milo field that took the front end out of Gary’s pickup.

He did say that badgers don’t cooperate. The dogs caught one that could turn over in his hide. Bobcats are no match for the hounds but he has never sent the pack after a mountain lion and won’t.

Sounds like those hounds have the zooms – anything that can outrun a coyote. KL