Chapter two

It's a nice morning. Early spring is a nice time of year, as far as I am concerned. I don't like it too hot or too cold.
She doesn't like us to use the bushes closest to the house, so I usually head toward a patch of grass immediately out back. There used to be three big shrubs that we all used in the morning, but one day last year these men came with big chains, wrapped them around their trunks and pulled them right out of the ground.
I don't know why they took those trees. Major was particularly upset because the tree closest to the house had a low hanging branch that he would back up against so he could scratch his butt.
I hated to watch him do that because he would scratch himself until he bled sometimes. Like he was in a trance. Sawing back and forth.
Maybe that's why the trees went away.
This morning the cats are standing by their bowls. Sunday is sitting down with her back leg practically thrown over her shoulder while she licks her fluffy tail.
"How do you do that?" I ask her.
She stopped grooming, but left her leg in the air. Her light eyes narrowed. "Do what?" she said.
"Lift your leg like that. These days, I feel lucky just getting up."
"Well, how else am I going to clean my tail? How do you clean your tail?"
"Sometimes I can reach it when I'm lying down, but I definitely couldn't raise any of my legs like that."
She sniffed and then coughed. A tiny bed of moisture appeared on the side of her nose and she shook it off. "Sorry about your bad luck. Maybe Nulla can clean it for you. She's always rubbing on Brownie."
I wasn't looking for someone to clean my tail, so I left Sunday to her cleaning and walked toward the little garden in the back yard toward the fence. Not too close, mind you, because they had something put in the ground that causes my collar to shock me if I get too close to the fence. It doesn't really hurt, but it'll scare the bejeebus out of you if you've forgotten about it.
I think they got it because of Major. He used to wander into the neighbor's yard - well, we all did, really. But Major is one of those dogs who loses all track of everything when he puts his nose to the ground or catches wind of something interesting.
I thought I'd sniff the carport this morning, to see if there had been any activity overnight. Just a casual sniff, and I knew there was something wrong.