Trust is tricky...

Myrtle has been trying to teach me about trust.  It is a tricky, tricky lesson to learn.

Take tonight.  Every night, when it is not too cold to run the fountain on the front porch, Myrtle adds water to it so that the pump doesn't run dry.  The fountain is set in a shallow concrete birdbath bowl because the deeper fountain bowl was broken by a visitor many years before I came to live with Myrtle.

Some nights, Myrtle will stay out on the porch for longer than I wish to be separated from her in order to also water the plants on the porch.  I will stand, paws and nose pressed to the glass of the storm door, whining and whimpering and waiting for my Myrtle to return ... basically begging to let me join her.

Throughout this summer, Myrtle has been working on trust with me, allowing me to sit with her on the bench when she is spending time on the porch savoring the fountain and wind chimes and GREEN growing things.  She used to hold me in one of the rocking chairs.  But because she knows I like the bench best, Myrtle has been letting me sit there, without the awful harness and leash, looking about to my heart's content.

Because we are in disagreement over my protestations of interlopers big and small crossing before MY HOME, often some of our time on the porch is spent working out this disagreement.  By working out, I mean Myrtle hushes me and disciplines me and tries (rather unsuccessfully) to train me to protest less, if not at all.

Over the past few months, Myrtle has started letting me walk out the door, trot across the porch, and hop up on the bench all by myself, instead of carrying me out with her and setting me down.  Because I have gotten ever so good at doing this, Myrtle had finally given in to my deepest wish to always be together as much as we when she is home and started letting me sit on the bench whilst she does her watering.

Life was good.
Until I blew it.
Trust is tricky ... and easily lost.

To my defense, I will say that it is not my fault Myrtle's trust in my obedience to remain on the bench when she is walking about the porch was broken.  Nope.  It was all Myrtle's NEMESIS' fault!

You see, there is this black cat that hangs out on the front porch.  Of course, I feel compelled to protest his trespassing, but my protestations, no matter how loud or how long, bother him not.  Instead, he happily perches atop Myrtle's beloved fountain, drinking water and breaking the fronds of her beloved tiny fern growing on top of the fountain and tearing off her beloved tiny bits of moss she's been encouraging to grow on the fountain with his claws as he leaps back to the ground.  Yes, Myrtle protests his presence as well.

She yells at him.
She sprinkles Cayenne pepper all over the fountain.
She chases him away.
She bats him with a broom.
She squirts him in the face with the spray bottle.

Myrtle's NEMESIS remains.

Well, as you very well may have guessed at this point, tonight, while Myrtle was watering the plants and trusting me to remain on the bench, her NEMESIS came sauntering up the steps.  What's a fellow to do?  I LOVE Myrtle and it GRIEVES me when she mourns over broken fronds and bits of scattered moss.  So, I promptly leapt off the bench and chased Myrtle's NEMESIS away.

I have never heard Myrtle call my name in quite that way.

Before I knew it, Myrtle had bounded after me, scooped me up, and shoved me back through the front door.  In no uncertain terms, my puppy momma made clear to me that I had completely and utterly lost my bench sitting privileges.  She is not certain when I will be able to go back outside with her, but I will not be going outside under my own power when we do.

Trust is a tricky thing to learn and to practice.  There are so very many ways trust can be broken ... say, for example ... if you had been trusted to remain on the couch next to food and couldn't resist cleaning the plate before Myrtle was done with it even though you had been able to resist dozens of times before.  That kind of trust also has to be rebuilt.

Of course, you could note that each time I let my puppy momma sheer my curls, I am trusting her ... because curls are not the only thing she sometimes cuts with her scissors.  But when I tried to bring up that point tonight Myrtle wouldn't listen.

She's still trembling.

I don't think it is because of fronds and moss.  Her NEMESIS never made it that far.  In any case, I have my paws wrapped around her neck and my head tucked beneath her chin as she is typing for me.  I feel a few snores coming on, but I am trying to hold out to make sure she gets this write.  I mean right.


This is my life with Myrtle.  Amos Adams signing off!