Janet knew she was going...
Illustration
Janet knew she was going to have to face her husband's wrath over the cat. But she just couldn't help herself. Of course, it had been the same thing last year with Inky, their black cocker spaniel. He'd come to their door begging for attention, obviously hungry, cockleburs in his fur. Janet had not only fed him, she had brushed him. Well, of course, by then Inky was sure he had been adopted, so he wouldn't leave. It was obvious to Janet that he had been abandoned. Her husband didn't think so. But Janet couldn't let Inky (though at the time they just called him "The Dog") starve! She had continued to feed him while she waited for any response to an ad she ran in the paper about a lost black cocker. There was no response. After two weeks her husband had said, "We've got to do something about The Dog." "I am doing something," Janet had replied. "I'm feeding him and giving him a place to be loved." "No, not that," Justin had answered. "We have to do something. We certainly can't keep him." "Why not?" Janet had responded. "Because we don't need a dog; I don't want a dog!" had come Justin's reply. "Well, then," Janet had told him, "you can take him to the animal shelter yourself. I simply cannot do it after caring for him the last two weeks." As it turned out, Justin couldn't bear to take The Dog either. So they had kept him, named him, and now enjoyed him together. Janet knew they'd go through the same process with the cat. But it was so hungry. As she set the bowl of dry catfood on the porch step, she heard an admonition her mother had often repeated to her when she was small: "Feed a stray and it will never go away!" Janet knew the truth of those words out of her own experience. -- Fannin
