Hillcroft Collies Blog: Harley

Last week, we said good-bye to our 16-year old cat, Harley. His full name was Harlequin, in reference to his black and white coat, but he was known by other monikers--H-Man, Toughie, Jungle Kitty, Bush Baby (he had a tendency to not clean his coat after walking through shrubs) or simply, H.
Very often, Harley was referred to as "that cat ain't right". Perhaps his mother dropped him on his head as a kitten but he had such a unique personality that everyone who met Harley would utter that sentence in one form or another after a first encounter. The kids in the neighborhood said it so often that I jokingly said "that cat ain't right" was Harley's middle name!
Harley earned that description with his odd behaviors and traits. He never mastered the ability to use a litter box but would cry at the door to go outside and use the mulch. He didn't clean his coat, face or paws, plus was a sloppy eater to boot, so he'd walk about with canned food on his whiskers. He would track in all mud, grass clippings and yard debris on his coat from outside . When our sons were young, they would frequently put Harley in the bathtub for a good scrubbing. He would meow softly but never attempt to jump out or scratch the kids while they lathered him up.
After we moved to our current house in the country, Harley would stalk the deer and wild turkey, completely confident he could bring down something many times bigger his size. He walked through the woods as if he was a lion on the prowl, coming into the house afterwards with chiggers in his coat and mysterious scratches on his nose. Once, he poked his nose too far into a fox's den and was chased out of the woods by the vixen. Harley was crying and running for all he was worth with mama fox right on his heels, snapping and growling. When I yelled at the fox, she snapped at Harley one final time and gave me a look that said, "keep your cat out of my den"! Harley immediately forgot the danger he had just escaped and came strutting up to the porch, cocky and full of leaves and burrs, as usual.
Harley probably hung around the foxes so much because of our collies. He was one year old when the first litter of puppies arrived and by the time of the fox chasing incident, Harley had "raised" about three more litters.
As part of the socialization process, we would introduce the puppies to Harley when they were about 4 weeks old. Harley was always excellent with puppies, would discipline them with a smack of the paw, but never scratch or bite. He would play with them, herd them and wrestle with them. All the puppies learned to respect Harley and never try to bully him, even when they were twice his size.
Harley was most involved with our first litter of puppies. Almost every evening ended with a wrestling match before the puppies were crated for the night. The four puppies would line up and Harley would take them on, one by one. He would grab a puppy, flip it, then pin it to the floor. After a couple of weeks of this, I suspected the puppies had learned how to flip themselves into the pin position as they were so big, but they all enjoyed the game! Harley would be proud of himself, strut about the room and the puppies would be worn out.
We're going to miss you Harley! Raising puppies won't be the same without you!