Un Chat, une Abeille, et une Nouveau Langue*

"Look," said Gregg, pointing out the front door.
I looked. The phantom pee-er, and Moonie's and Hugo's nemesis, was back, strolling across the front porch.
"C'mon Ray," I said urgently.
The blind dog hurried over, his body tense, his head up, every fiber of his being alert. I slipped his collar over his ears and opened the front door. Ray shot out and seemed to go in two directions at once.
"This way, Ray," I said as I moved towards our back gate. I gave the retractable leash a little tug. Ray took his cue and rocketed toward the fence
The black cat easily leapt to the top rail of the gate and stood, his back arched and his tail puffy, looking down at the dog. Ray reached the fence, stuck his nose in the air, and pranced back and forth yelling his heart out.
The infuriating cat did nothing; his back went down, his tail un-puffed. He was giving Ray the classic cat look that says "Really? That's all ya got?"
As I got closer to him, he casually walked along the top rail of the fence, following it to the far backyard.
Ray stopped his dancing and furiously scratched at the gate, eager to follow. I unclipped his leash and flung open the gate. Ray took off, narrowly missing obstacles that are usually not a problem for him. The cat was still on the fence at the end of the yard, waiting for the dog to catch up.
Ray hit the grassy part of the yard and took a wrong turn.
"Other way, Ray," I said, as I headed toward the cat.
Ray corrected his path and raced past me to the fence and the cat. He started yelling. The cat just stood and watched. Ray was beyond yelling. He danced and bellowed. And bellowed. And bellowed. He was using his insides-liquifying-noise. The cat stood and watched him for a while longer, then, bored, leapt onto the roof of the shed in the yard behind ours and disappeared from sight. Ray continued bellowing.
I left him to his job and went inside, then five minutes or so later, went to retrieve the still-bellowing dog who by now was at the opposite end of the yard.
I called to him to come. Ray ignored me. I called to him in German to come. Ray ignored me.
"Hey, Gregg, can you come and call Ray to see if you can get him to come," I asked my lovely husband who was in the kitchen cooking dinner.
Gregg stepped outside and called to Ray using a few short German sentences (I think one of them was about blowing up bridges - as Gregg said in a previous comment, he gets all of his German from WWII movies). Ray stopped yelling, obviously wondering if explosives would be an effective measure against the intruder, and looked over but didn't come.
Gregg went back into the kitchen.
"Try using a different language," he said to me as he entered the house.
"Viens a moi, Ray, vite!"** I yelled across the yard.
Ray came, quickly. (Don't ask me. I have no explanation).
I led him into the house and closed the dog door. Ray was charged-up; pacing and scratching at his newly-closed exit. After a couple of minutes, I relented and opened the dog door again (it was still pre-curfew); Ray was through it and at the back fence before I had finished sliding the panel out of it's track.
Gregg and I retreated to the family room to eat our dinner. Not even five minutes later, Ray was back. He dropped something on the carpet and started playing with it, his tail wagging and his head tossing.
I got up to look to make sure it wasn't a live animal. It was, of a sort, Ray had caught himself a large carpenter bee.***  His prey had escaped so Ray had to make do with a bee. Kinda sad really but just one more example of this blind dog's adaptability.
(And who knew he was trilingual?)


*A Cat, a Bee, and a New Language
**Come, Ray, quickly
***The bee was immediately rescued and returned to its native habitat by my lovely husband.