My niece the cat.

I got my blog back from Dad, and thought I would write about something that people are actually interested in... me, Gizmo.

In my family I have Mom, and Dad (Erika, and Eric), an older brother Adam, and older sister, Lindsey.

Adam doesn't live with us at home. But, whenever he comes over I bark at him a lot until he plays with me and gives me treats. He might be the easiest person to get a treat from. Most people make do a trick. But, with Adam just barking will usually do it.

Lindsey is only around once in a while. She lives in the house, but apparently has another place where she lives sometimes too. Lindsey and I are both blondes. I like hanging out with her when I can, and she taught be how to roll-over, which is one of my highest value tricks.

Here is a picture of us hanging out together when I was little.

But, as much as I like Lindsey, she did one thing that I'm not entirely sure I can forgive her for yet.

Apparently, when Lindsey was living at her other house before I even was born, Lindsey had a friend that got something called a "cat". Cats are like dogs, but smaller, less fun, and with very sharp claws. So, Lindsey's friend got this cat which she named Gnarly. And boy, was that a good name choice. Turns out not all cats like people, and like attention. Strange!! So, Gnarly is one of these cats. Gnarly really doesn't like it if you touch it, talk to it, look at it, or try and play with it. Why do these things exist? Well anyway, Lindsey's friends didn't like having the "loner" cat, so she said she was going to just take it to the pound. But, Lindsey is one of these people that doesn't like to see any bad thing happen to anyone or anything... even a cat. Which... you know maybe if a bad thing was going to happen to something... having it happen to a cat wouldn't be so bad... But, no one asked me. So, Lindsey volunteered to keep the cat.

When Gnarly first came home I really loved her. I thought I had buddy to play with all of the time. But, no one in the house wanted us to play together. They kept us in different rooms. Oh, I could hear the cat, smell the cat, but I wasn't allowed near the cat. Not fair! It went that way for a whole summer. Then Lindsey went back to live at her other house, and she left the cat behind. So, Mom and Dad started letting Gnarly and I hang out together. At first whenever the cat saw me it would just run and hide. Which was great! Because that meant I could chase and bark. Then a couple of times. I actually caught it! And, I would start to play with it like I would a small dog at the bark park. But, Gnarly does not play fair!!! As soon as I would start trying to play she would start smacking me with her paws and they are SHARP! worse than any dog at the Bark Park.

But, I would rather play and get scratched than not play at all. So, I just kept trying to play with Gnarly. I started kind of learning how much I could get away with before she got really mad. And, Gnarly stopped running every time. Sometimes she would actually walk around near me and not run away. Sometimes she would actually let me push her with my nose and nibble on her head a little before running away. She likes to drink out of my water bowl, even though she has her own upstairs. Luckily she doesn't like my food.

So, we have kind of become uneasy friends. We can hang out a little. I still chase her once in a while. She still tries to scratch me once in a while. We have established some boundaries. Like, I have a rule that I can not climb up on tables and counters. Gnarly also has this rule, I obey the rule when anyone is looking at me, an Gnarly never obeys the rule. In this picture I am trying to get Dad's attention to yell at the cat, that is clearly in a rule violation.

Oh well, all things considered I guess it is more fun having the cat around than if it wasn't here. But, if they would have asked me, I would have suggested another dog.