How Spot the Cat lead us to Ela Thalasa the Dog

A week ago today we were making arrangements to catch Spot the Cat and take
her to a friend that volunteers with a group for getting stray cats and dogs
neutered. Spot the very sweet girl Cat had been spending a lot of time at
our house purring and rubbing on our legs an attempting to break into our
house. Of course this behavior is encouraged by the fact that we feed her!
Bur even so no other of the many cats (5 or 6) that inhabit our area of
Stavros are as friendly as her. So, we figured that very soon we would be
faced with a sweet Spot the Cat and many cute kittens trying to break into
our house. So, this is why we decided to try to get her neutered. So last
Saturday we spent the morning attempting to catch Spot, failing and finally
succeeding late in the day. Hurrah, we are out of the woods! Just take her
down to the Stavros Bay beach meet with our friend and hand her over. Then
she would be delivered back to use for the night and then we could let her
go the next morning and be all set, back to our peaceful routine of pet
management.

But, when we met to hand over Spot who should be in or friend's car but the
future Ela Thalasa. So, not thinking very far ahead, (actually not thinking
at all, I just saw a cute dog with one sad brown eye) when asked if we knew
of anyone with a fenced yard, that could keep the dog for a few days, and
then take her back down to the beach to let her go (dump her), I said that we
have a fenced yard and could volunteer to help out. So the dog came to our
house, for a few days.

Monday morning (dump day) comes along, it's raining, it's cold, the dog is
even cuter than she was when we first saw her, and we thought about going
down to the beach all summer long seeing this cute, sad one eyed dog, with
no one to care for her while we relax, sip, cold drinks go for a swim, read,
sleep, eat tasty snacks while she begs for food and water, just didn't sound
very good.

It's been ten years since our dog Hovenweep died. We thought at that time
that we would not want another dog. It was too hard to lose Hovenweep.
Dogs are so short lived. But here we are.

I think that the dog and cat situation here is just very old fashioned.
There was no neutering back in the old days and stray dogs and cats were mostly left to fend for
themselves (as were stray people for that matter). There really wasn't much
that could be done. Although as I pointed out to Grier, we could have done
the kitten management like my grandfather used to do it instead of getting
Spot neutered and then we wouldn't have a dog. But when I told him how they
did it in the "old days" he wasn't too interested in being "old fashioned".
My grandfather used to drown the kittens in the bath tub before their eyes
were even open, while my mother stood at the bathroom door crying and
begging him not to do it. And my grandfather was a lovely man who really
liked cats. So, picture the scene of Grier drowning kittens in the bath tub
while I cry and beg him not to do it. I think getting a dog was a better idea.

The dog's name means "Come here Sea". By the way Spot the Cat is called
"Voula" in Greek. Think I'll call her Voula Spot. But what will we do when
the time comes for us to leave Crete?

The picture of Ela Thalasa and Oka and Nogan shows a little bit of the wary attitude of the cats. But since she does like to chase cats their skepticism is well founded. The picture of Voula Spot is an action shot but you can see the black spot.