Great Piggie Hunt of 2003

Great Piggie Hunt of 2003

Before I start, those of you who don't live in our household will need to understand the term "piggie". Our oldest Daughter Krista has a Guinea Pig (Fozzie) and my son Josh has a Hamster (Dory). Drew, our youngest daughter, obviously can't pronounce all of that yet, so she settles for "Piggie" for both of them.

Anyway, I'm getting ready to leave for work yesterday morning and Krista tells me I have to come see Fozzie. He was laying outside of his little house inside his cage, which is rare for him. To us it means he's probably getting more comfortable with his surroundings. To Fozzie, it probably is a way to tease our largest cat O'Malley. O'Malley likes to stick his paws in the cage and Fozzie has learned to reciprocate with a slight nibble on
whatever O'Malley decides to stick in his cage. 'Nuff said.

Well, I decided to check on Dory, who lives above Fozzie in a penthouse suite in the skeye eye eye. This is to prevent O'Malley from reaching her, but to also keep Drew from removing key parts of the cage that would otherwise give Dory complete freedom. I didn't recognize Dory in her cage, but she hides, so I proceeded to check on the stuffing in her cage to see where she was. After poking and prodding for about 2 minutes, I came to the realization that one of the "key parts" that I mentioned was askew and left a gaping hole that Dory could escape from.

And so the Great Piggie Hunt of 2003 had begun. Krista and I tore up the girls room, closets, dressers and then woke my wife Tina up to help us tear everything up just one more time. No piggie. We looked under couches, beds, kitchen appliances, even in places she could never possible have reached. At this point, I'm late for work, Krista is late for school and Tina is awake far earlier than she should have been with nothing to show for it.

We head to our bedroom once more to cover the same ground a third time, cause twice wasn't enough and I point out to Tina that one of the cats is hoarding cat food under our vanity and beside some boxes. Tina takes the flashlight and low and behold we reach the end of the grueling Great Piggie Hunt of 2003. There sits Dory with a clump of tissue she has fashioned into a bed, along with about one cat food bowls worth of dry cat food. Safe and sound, she's put back into her cage and everyone sighs a big relief.

To really appreciate what she'd done, you have to understand the layout of our home. Dory lives some 5 feet above sea level on top of Fozzie's cage, who resides on top the girls dresser. She escaped from her cage and plummeted 5 feet to the ground, squeezed under a closed door and made her way to our bedroom on the complete opposite side of the house. To top that off, she pulled toilet paper from someplace (it was clean), and made herself a bed, presumably tired from the trek she made cross country in the night.
Then, amongst 3 highly trained killers we have as cats, she manages to trek back into the kitchen area to retrieve cat food from the very bowl the killers eat from, stowing away at least one of three bowls worth of food in her hideout.

Saying Dory is skilled is an understatement. She's a covert specialist in my book. Either that, or we have 3 of the laziest, most stupid cats in the world. Dogs rule.