Sunday, December 3, 2017

Regal, but not welcomed


By Hobo Hudson


An unlikely guest visited my cafeteria last week. I felt honored that such a regal bird, a hawk, showed interest in the food I offer, but he must have received the wrong information of what is on the menu. I provide peanuts, corn and bird seed for my customers who are squirrels, ducks, pigeons and small birds.

Somehow, Mr. Hawk must have thought my customers were items on the menu. Luckily, none of them were around at the time of his visit, and I asked him in a stern barking to please leave my premises. He obliged and flew off grumbling that would be the last time he visited my cafeteria.
 
 
 
Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Collections for a high wall



By Sabrina Hudson


My kitty brothers, Thomas and Tiger, and I are going to build a wall, a high wall, a lovely wall, a very lovely and high wall. It will go up around our private domain to keep our doggy brother Wylie out of our bathrooms. He’s stealing our brown-tinted golden nuggets, and we cannot allow that.

I had a hard time convincing Thomas and Tiger to go for this outstanding, extremely outstanding project, but they finally agreed. Even my doggy brother Hobo is in on it, and so we have the best, the bestest consultant on our side. With his entrepreneurial flair and financial know-how, the wall will be an incredible master piece and the prototype of many more to come.

We haven’t decided yet on the design but have accepted an array of free professional samples, already put up, and are playing with numerous suggestions by renowned artists, also free of charge.

Any donation will be a well worthy contribution and will increase our own kibble fund so that we can start building the wall in earnest. We appreciate each payment sent to: hobo@pmail.com.



Sunday, September 17, 2017

My first experience with a hurricane


By Wylie Hudson
 

 

We all came through Hurricane Irma without many problems. In fact, I did it in style, having finally gotten my wish to sleep on the big bed.

The night Irma paid us a visit, my parents, my kitty siblings and Hobo and I hunkered down in the master bedroom. We all went to bed around 10 p.m., and by then, the wind had already picked up speed.

Mom sat down on the bed, and before she could say anything, I mustered all the strength I have in my legs, and with one jump, I landed next to her. To my surprise, she didn’t shoo me down and instead hugged me and told me I could stay. I snuggled up to Mom, then turned over to Dad and then found a comfortable place between them. But not before I pushed Mom to the edge of the bed so that she had to hold on to me to keep from falling onto the floor.

While Hobo kept sleeping in his own bed, Thomas and Tiger, my kitty brothers, joined us on the big bed. And then, my kitty sister, Sabrina, jumped on it and walked around and around asking again and again if everybody was comfortable. She did that for about an hour until she settled down somewhere when we lost electricity and our night light went out.

By that time, the wind was gusting at full force and lashing at the house. One time during the night, I heard a couple of loud bangs, and it turned out to be part of our fence that the storm had knocked down. The wind had also toppled our three papaya trees. We woke up to a dark and warm house, which would feel like an oven for the following two days, but everything else was OK.

All in all, and I think I can talk for everybody, it was a sleepover of which we’ll have fond memories.
 
 
 
 
Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Be careful what you wish for



By Wylie Hudson



I wish I’d known the meaning of the saying: “Be careful what you wish for” earlier. I would have been less tempted to pine for Hobo’s diet canned food. As is it, I got my wish but the hard way.

I had to get sick myself before someone finally offered me a similar food to what Hobo is eating nowadays. I woke up Saturday morning, not feeling well at all. Mom took one look at me and knew something was wrong. She said she could see it on my face. And she was right. I didn’t eat my breakfast and didn’t even touch a treat.

Now, Hobo can sometimes be cautious with his food, especially when he thinks it’s tainted with drugs, but I gobble down everything in front of me that looks edible without hesitation. So, Mom didn’t waste a second when I turned my nose away from the food, and off we went to the clinic.

The vet didn’t find anything alarming apart from my temperature which was a tad elevated. He gave me a few injections and then offered me something to eat. OMD, I thought, that smelled and looked almost like Hobo’s food, and I scarfed it all down and licked the bowl clean.

We went back home with a bag full of canned food for me and some pills for nausea. I didn’t need to take the pills and happily started to eat on my new diet. I feel better again but still a little bit sluggish.

This was certainly not the way I wanted to get meals similar to Hobo’s. I’d rather stick with my usual dry food than being sick.




Thursday, August 10, 2017

Recuperating takes time


By Hobo Hudson
 
 
 
I guess having been living together with cats almost all my life, I acquired their peculiarity of having nine lives. I don’t know how many I’ve used up already and for how many my last health scare counts, but it surely was a roller coaster ride.

A week after my kidney treatments at the vet’s clinic, I ended up at the clinic again. As before, I had stopped eating, and as before, without ado, Mom had hauled me to the vet. This time, I had a slight fever. The vet kept me for observation and gave me injections to bring my temperature and my nausea down.  A couple of hours later, I asked him for some of the sandwich he was eating, and not wanting to share it with me, he called my parents to pick me up and feed me at home.

I took a bite or two of the food Dad served me. This wasn’t anything like the meat I smelled earlier that was in the vet’s sandwich. On the contrary, this was the slop that came out of a can and made up my new, strict diet. I told Dad he could have the rest of my canned food. Dad wasn’t happy about it, and neither was Mom.

The next morning, I chomped down my diet food. My thinking was that it would be unfair to upset Mom and Dad even more by my refusing to eat than they already were. The food wasn’t really all that bad. In fact, my doggy brother, Wylie, and my kitty sister, Sabrina, said it was excellent while they were trying to steal it from under my nose.

But the main reason I chomped it down was because I was suddenly hungry. Dad couldn’t have slipped an appetite-boosting pill into my mouth without me knowing it, could he?

Anyway, I’m on high alert now for anything that I swallow to make sure it’s not drugged. Otherwise, I’m eating more or less regularly again, but my appetite isn’t what it used to be. I think gobbling down a big, juicy steak for a few days at dinner would bring back my passion for food in no time.
 
 


Sunday, July 30, 2017

Retirement comes with unexpected surprises


By Hobo Hudson

 

 
 
Wow, I had another close call and suffered from a health problem due to old age. It crept up on me like the pancreatitis last year and then made its sudden appearance by giving me nausea. I quit eating from one day to the next. It was a red flag for my parents, and without waiting to see if I got my appetite back, they took me to the vet. A blood test showed that I had kidney failure.

For two days, I spent most of my time at the vet clinic having my kidneys flushed out. Mom took me there early in the morning, and Mom and Dad picked me up late in the afternoon. Even though I received excellent care from the doctor and the staff at the clinic, I hated to stay there and wasted what could have been a productive day at home. Despite being retired from the corporate life, I’m a busy dog and have important things to do.

I am back at home for good and trying to regain my strength. My kidneys are working better again, but the bad part is: I have to follow another diet. Last year, it was a low-fat diet—I loathed it—now, it’s an even more restrictive diet, limited to special canned food for kidney problems. It doesn’t do much for whetting my appetite, but I force myself to cram it down my throat.

To make matters worse, the vet prescribed antibiotics for me to take. All my explaining that I don’t do drugs is like talking to a brick wall, and Dad has been determined to spurt liquid medicine into my mouth. So far, I have let him win our fight twice a day, but I have the feeling by the time the bottle of antibiotics is empty, I’ll be the winner.
 
 
 
 
Thursday, February 16, 2017

Accepting applications


By Hobo Hudson

 
The latest fashion upheaval pulled me back out of retirement. I just can’t resist the opportunity and am ready to jump right into the rat race after another fashion designer—I don’t want to name any names—lost out.

When I ran across the fashion sample while perusing the business section of our newspaper, I knew it would be right up my alley. Even though it isn’t one of the designer’s trademarks that caught my eyes, it kindled my entrepreneurial spirit.

My jeans business, before I sold it to a British company, had been such a hit among the young folks that I’m sure this new line of fashion will follow suit. And the best part is, I would go back using the same kind of crew that I have experience with and that made my former business a success: cats.

Now, I already hear some of you ask: But what about all the headaches they gave you and the strikes they organized while they had been in your employment?

Well, I doubt it will happen this time. The care package for my employees will be to their satisfaction, and since there will be no shortage of cats eager to work for me, I’m sure the one who will stay employed won’t stir up trouble.

But now to the job description. The work would entail roughing up the edges of human garments. I haven’t quite decided yet on the wardrobe I will offer, but it will include any kind of pants, shirts, blouses and maybe skirts and dresses. Later, I might expand my line to home decoration, such as blankets, bed linens curtains, and so on. 

In the meanwhile, I’m taking applications from any cat interested in the job. I’m not discriminating, but cats who have been declawed won’t be able to do the ripping of the material, at least not to my liking. They can, however, apply for the less challenging job of flattening and evening up the ripped hemlines.

To give you an idea of what I have in mind, I include my own fashion sample my kitty sister and retired foreman, Pogo, was kind enough to do for me.






Tuesday, January 31, 2017

How to outtwitter the president

Satire

By Hobo Hudson

As my readers know, I am the richest dog in my small town and have a reputation of almost never making a mistake in the bone market. However, I have been losing my tail recently. It seems that every time I make an investment, the stock suddenly starts to fall.

I have been racking my brain trying to determine the cause and have finally decided that my misfortune is due to our new president’s Twitter account. He suddenly tweets that he’ll do something or other and certain stocks rise in reaction. Five minutes later, he tweets the exact opposite and the same stocks fall.

While mulling over my problem, I decided to take a walk around my backyard, and a no-see-um landed on my nose. The little guy was so tiny you could barely see him, and I immediately decided he would be the perfect spy to report what our new president was thinking, and so I made a deal with him to fly over to Mar-a-Lago and crawl into our president’s ear then tunnel into his brain and report what the guy was really thinking.

This plan went awry when I received an email saying both ears were filled with concrete and it was impossible for anything to get through into his brain. I returned the email with a suggestion that he enter by crawling around his eyeball and try to enter via the optic nerve. The return email told me the eyes were blocked with a rusty old pair of steel shutters with a tiny hole in the center of the right eye shutter that was too small for even him to squeeze through.

After learning all this, I concluded the guy was operating on very old information and it would be impossible to predict what he will say next and, therefore, I am selling all my investments and will keep my assets in bones until he has operations to remove the concrete and shutters so that he will be able to receive and process new information.



Books

About Hobo


This was Hobo Hudson, my doggy brother, a little terrier mix with black fur. He became famous after his first attempt at writing stories, which was an article published in the newsletter of our local animal shelter, the same shelter in which I ended up years later before Hobo and his parents adopted me. Hobo’s fame quickly spread as he made a name for himself as a business dog and an adventurer. To keep his memory alive, my doggy sister, my three kitty siblings and I, Wylie Hudson, are continuing his blog. Our mom is the blog’s editor.

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