Florence is wrong. The dog days are just beginning. If, by dog days, you mean, the days when the dog makes a pain in the ass of herself.

Now that it’s getting warmer, we’re spending a lot more time outdoors. I know, this sounds unusual. Normally we wouldn’t engage in such frivolity, but Abigail apparently enjoys it. Go figure. She demands to eat outside every lunch, dinner and snack, if she can get away with it. The advantages, from her perspective, are clear. First of all, she’s outside. As mentioned, she likes that. Second, she’s noticed that there are clearly fewer restrictions on leaping up from the table and running around the grass with food in her mouth when she’s outside. It’s unclear whether this is because she is outside or if it is because the table it two feet tall, but either way, this seems to be true.

One of the disadvantages of a two foot table is that everything is directly at Maggie height. She’s usually pretty good, but we have to watch pretty closely. We’ve seen what can happen when she eats a lot of cheese. That’s not happening again.

The other factor that comes into play with outside eating is that the sliding door is often left open, which makes it easy for the cats to make a break for it. Now, we’ve gotten used to the idea of Henry going out. We even went and got his shots and everything, so that if he gets beat up by another cat, he won’t die of leukemia or … feline … fur disease. Or something.

Anyway, Henry is in the clear. All the same, we like him inside at night since we didn’t inoculate him from Coyotes. And Limbo’s system is apparently too fragile for shots, so outside is no good for her at all.  I believe she was where all the extra, unused genes ended up in her litter.

When we leave the door open, the cats get out. This isn’t usually that big a problem because we can corral them back into the house. Naturally, if you’re a dog and you see your owner corralling cats, your first thought is to offer assistance.

This is not helpful. In the unlikely even that you are a dog and you are reading this, please remember: This is not helpful.

What does a cat want to see when running back into the house? The answer is not a large dog, ears up and alert, ready to snap at the next furry creature to try for the door. This is, in fact, a disincentive to a feline.

Maggie will dutifully go into the house if told to, but the second the cats start approaching, it’s time to pitch in once more. You have to give her credit for wanting to do her part.

I anticipate that this will be an ongoing problem for the next few months.