Dennis' dedication to "his little boy" is amazing. He loves to educate and assist Vino in the hunting of all sorts of small critters around the house. It happened again last night.

Dennis noticed a small lizard on the wall in the living room. He pointed it out to Vino, who immediately jumped up on the back of the couch and chattered excitedly at it. The lizard retreated into the upper corner of the wall and there was no way that Vino could ever reach it from the back of the couch.

So Dennis picked up Vino and held him up to the lizard. Vino was *so* excited! He batted at it and chattered a mile a minute. Then the lizard started running along the wall to the opposite corner of the living room. Vino wiggled out of Dennis' grasp and with 2 large leaps, jumped over the TV and stereo and onto his cat condo. The cat condo is quite high and from there he was able to pounce on the lizard and get it. This is an amazing feat because those buggers are *fast*!

So anyway, Vino got down on the floor with his catch and proceeded to play "release and re-capture" with him until the poor lizard's tail broke off. It was the freakiest thing, because the tail kept moving, wiggling all over the hardwood floor! Vino couldn't believe his eyes, he dropped the lizard and pounced on the tail. Then he noticed the lizard moving so he dropped the tail and pounced on the lizard. Then he noticed the tail moving again and dropped the lizard again. This continued for quite a while, and Dennis and I were gasping with laughter. The look on Vino's face was priceless, the excitement, the confusion!

After a while, the murderous cat managed to squeeze the life out of both lizard and tail and neither moved anymore. Bored, Vino walked up to Dennis, sat in front of him and said: "Meow!" in a demanding voice. Dennis cleaned up the smushed lizard bits and a pie-eyed Vino followed him everywhere for the rest of the night hoping for another lizard to maim and torture.

Copyright © Britta Wilson
November 28, 2001