F&FF: The Candy Cane Problem

The rawhide candy canes were a mistake.

After all the extensive dog (and cat!) blogging I've done in the past week, I was hoping for some nice Christmas Day photos for Feline and Furball Friday, of Cayenne and Pepper interacting with decorations and presents. It didn't happen, partly because I was busy with other Christmas activities (imagine that!), but mostly because the dogs don't like the aluminum tree when the motors on the stand and color wheel are running.

Cayenne will sort of tolerate it, especially if there is food to be had, but even she was freaked out a little, especially after John and I opened a couple of Christmas crackers John found at Target. (This is not a food item, but a British party favor kind of thing, with a tiny amount of explosive that goes off when you pull open the cardboard tube. Inside is a paper crown and some little toy prize.)

Pepper didn't want to come into the den at all on Christmas Day, and spent much of the day on the bed with one of the rawhide candy canes. As I say, they were not a successful gift for the dogs. Neither one wanted to actually chew on the things, but they both were determined to keep track of them, lest the other dog take possession. John was convinced that one of the reasons Pepper stayed out of the den was that Cayenne had one of the candy canes on the floor near the entrance to the den, and was intimidating Pepper any time she approached. John eventually took away the candy cane, and it seemed to help - except that Cayenne was interested in the shelf where the candy cane was, and I worried about her jumping or climbing to get the useless thing back.

From the Picasa album Hermitage No-Kill Shelter

Be sure to check (sometimes)photoblog every Friday for links to the week's cat and dog photos. And just this once, here's a F&FF cat photo from me, left over from my trip to the Hermitage Cat Shelter last week, which was a highlight of my Christmas. (Uploading this and four other photos this morning also increases the number of photos in the slideshow in the previous Hermitage entry.) As you probably know, I'm very allergic to cats, but I managed to photograph a number of them with a wall of glass between me and the dander. Enjoy!

The Weekend Assignment entry will be up in a couple of hours. Probably.

Karen