Saturday afternoon was nice and clear and warm. As soon as I got home from class I let the girls outside and went out with them. I sat in a lawn chair and burned through most of a roll of film getting photos of cute kitties sunning themselves.

After a few minutes Amelia started paying attention to a gopher hole again. I figured it'd nice to get a photo of her sticking her whole arm into a gopher hole like she was doing last week, so I sat down beside her to try to get her more interested. I cleared some grass from around the whole, and stuck my finger into the hole to see if that would make her more interested. It sure did - she immediately tackled my hand! With her claws *in*, she wrapped her front paws around my wrist and tugged my hand away from the hole. She looked very worried when she did this, too, and made a rather distressed-sounding cry. I repeated my action, and she again pulled my hand away from the hole.

I guess she was worried that there might be a nasty, dangerous gopher-hole monster down there, and she didn't want her silly ignorant human purr-paw to get hurt by it. When I finally sat back down in my lawn chair she came and twined herself around my ankles and purred up a storm. I guess she was nice and relaxed and comfortable since I had finally figured out that it isn't safe for humans to play with kitty hunting areas.

Copyright © Dan Mahoney
April 22, 2003