Our neighbour at the top of our lane has two dogs. The mother, Hiris, was a very good friend of cats, RouXy in particular. He would spend hours near Hiris’s house (photo top of the page).

Hiris had two plethoric litters. One young female is left, which, and it is symptomatic, has no name. She was a puppy when RouXy died.

Now, she is an adult, and Hiris is kept with a chain because otherwise both dogs will go away and eventually be found several days later.

Last weekend Hiris was not tied and the nephew RouXy’s Master saw both dogs near the reservoir, 500 meters over the village, eating something. He came nearer, defying the growls of the younger bitch. They weren’t eating a young roe deer, they were eating a ginger cat! It is not really normal that dogs having food at their disposal at home attack a cat to eat it. And Hiris was used to cats.

What’s to be done? Tell Hiris’s Master? RouXy’s Master, who has known him since he was a kid, will go and tell him maybe, without illusions. Because which solution? Hiris was for his children but the children have gone … We speak about dogs and cats being abandoned on car parks of motorways, at entrances of stations or supermarkets. It is terrible. But there is another less rough but very harmful sort of abandonment for dogs: plenty of owners do not care for their dogs, except food, when they remember.