Riley has actually caught several cats in his chases. It's rarely as much fun as running them up trees. Generally, if he catches up to the cat, he swerves off a few feet from contact and stops and stares. But when they run, he simply loves it.

Standing in the back doorway this morning, enjoying my coffee, I heard a complaining meow coming from the back yard. So I stepped out onto the porch and looked around the yard a bit. Standing in the middle of the back half of our yard was a big black and white male cat.

"There's another cat stuck in our yard," I called inside to Michelle. Since I ran chicken wire through the bushes, cats have been getting stuck inside the bushes daily. We've seen half a dozen different felines wandering up and down the shrubbery, trying to find an escape route. For years, we figure, they must have been wandering in and out of those bushes with stealth and ease. The introduction of the chicken wire has thrown them all for a loop.

Michelle opened the door and peered into the yard.

"Where?" she asked as Riley squeezed past her legs.

"Right out there, past the tree." I pointed. Riley followed the line of my extended finger and took off with a shot. The cat bolted towards the bushes then ran along the chicken wire into the back corner of the lot where it quickly disappeared into the bushes.

Thwarted by the wire, the cat sprung back into the yard, directly in front of Riley, and raced back past him, straight at the porch. And us. With Riley close on his heels, the cat let out a screech and skidded between the two of us and behind a cabinet sitting out back. Both Michelle and I jumped back, concerned that the cat might actually run straight up our legs as it bolted past us.

As Riley hit the porch, mere steps behind the cat, I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and began laughing as I dragged him inside. "Go ahead, show him the way out," I offered to Michelle as I kept Riley at bay.

Eventually, the poor cat found its way around the wire and out of the yard, but not before a healthy dose of Riley. The cat gone, I let Riley back out into the yard where he strutted to the back corner and scratched his feet in the earth as he let out a few signature woo woos.

Victorious, he returned to the porch and rested at the top of the steps, ready for the next challenge.