Here are Mickey (Westie) and Laddie (Mr. Attitude Scottie).
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They have to juggle many daily tasks. Laddie has to announce to the world that he is now outside! Everyone in the neighborhood knows when he goes for a walk. He also wants to keep the squirrels and kitties from taking over the world, but, darn it all, they just sit there and laugh at him.

Mickey's most amazing talent is to provide an anchor to every walk. We say that we take Laddie for a walk and Mickey for a drag.

Another important task is to keep an eye on the fishies. They get so excited when I say, "Who wants to go feed the fishies?"

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I have been thinking about taking a series of pictures of their most amazing talent - Syncronized Sleeping!!! This thread will prompt me to do that. Watch for pictures in the future!
Anne

Awwww. What a couple of cuties, Anne! LOL @ Synchronized Sleeping! Can't wait to see the action shots! :-)

This is our Zorro. {{gwi:173074}}

He may be *the MOST* career driven of our kitties. He has many side jobs. He's the official dog washer {{gwi:135042}}

He's also the greeter for any and all the new arrivals into our home. He's the first to accept and to play with everyone. :)

Here's Zorro resting before ... {{gwi:173077}}

...embarking on his true life's passion. Training to be a Sumo Wrestler: {{gwi:173079}}

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Boa's job is a watch cat. She watches for when I stand up so she can race me to the kitchen for food.

McLovin's job is to remind me to feed the fish. This all started when my son bought her a can of soft kitty treats. He would shake the can to get her attention. Of course the fish food I buy comes in a round can just like the kitty treats. So McLovin spends most of her time sitting next to the fish aquarium and reminding me to feed the fish (she gets five treats whenever I feed the fish. I can't resist her begging eyes). It's a good thing I'm her boss, though, and I can draw the line at three times a day.

I discovered another one of Willow's jobs over the weekend: garbage bag warmer. Someone kept getting in the garbage, and since it's only been happening since Willow came to live with us I assumed it was she. Well I assumed right, but I also assumed wrong. I was standing at the dining room table yesterday when I heard the rustle of the garbage bag in the kitchen. When I walked into the kitchen there was Willow curled up asleep in the middle of all the garbage in the garbage bag. She doesn't go into the garbage to eat leftovers she goes into the garbage to keep it warm while she sleeps. Of course I immediately plucked her out. Not only is it dangerous (she may suffocate) if I don't see her I just may throw her out in the trash come Monday night. She wasn't too happy when I plucked her out. Just to spite me she went in the corner where I had Powerade in plastic bags to return to Target and proceeded to chew big holes in all the bags till I had to pick them up off the floor and put them out of her reach. So I guess you can say she is a plastic bag shredder too. There is just something special about this kitty I can't put my finger on. Seems like everyday she does something to amaze me. As well as giving me new stuff to worry about. Now I have to make sure all plastic bags are out of her reach.

Jenny

Lol! Those plastic bags are truly all purpose aren't they. I have given up counting the number of feral or wild animals that use them for bedding material. I worry about the ones that get hung around the necks of the critters but the problems mostly are from the plastic holding together 6-pacs. Those get over the head way too easily. I try not to leave them where Ginger can get to them but once in a while I hear her getting the cupboard under the sink open and I get to see a whole bunch of uses for the bags. First she drags one very carefully over the leftovers from her last meal. It gets scratched and patted and pushed around until it covers the plate just so. If it isn't perfect, the food dries out and she won't touch it again. She uses another as an extra cover up of her litter box and she tries to put her toys into bags but she just doesn't have the hang of that yet. She is quite happy to store her spare catnip in a plastic bag until the bag is so full of holes it leaks like a sieve. Then she wants a new bag with fresh catnip, please. Piles of them wind up in odd corners as her new beds. When I come in from the grocery, she attacks the bags until she finds the ones that have her food or treats in them. Her head stays in that bag until I empty it and then when it has only what belongs to her in it, she sits on it.
The raccoons and opossum collect what bags they find and stuff them under porches as bedding. A neighbor used a storage unit in her breezeway to store excess trash in large plastic bags. Bad move. The stinky stuff piled high was a heap of condos for hundreds of field mice. It seemed every plastic bag contained many plastic cups and each cup had it's own little nest of paper or plastic shopping bags chewed into soft shreds for the babies. A woodchuck who lived in my garden stuffed the end of one of his escape tunnels with the shopping bags and a squirrel's nest high in a Hickory tree in our yard boasts several bags mixed in with leaves each year. What did they do before the plastic bag? Sandy

Sandy:

Ginger gives new meaning to the all purpose plastic bag. My daughter and s-i-l's cat, Peanut Butter, got her head caught in one of the handles and jumped up into the rafters in their basement and almost hung herself. Keep an eye on Ginger when she is doing plastic bag crafts.

Before my Kuvasz, Grieco, died he was terrified of the plastic bags that the squirrels were so helpful to hang in the trees. I used to jog 4 miles with him in the morning. He would come to a dead stop and wouldn't budge whenever a plastic bag was blowing in the trees. I got him for protection. All someone needed to do was wave a plastic bag at him and he would have hid under the nearest rock.

Anne:

I just love the pic of your puppy watching the fishies. Looks like he is ready to jump in.

C3D:

Zorro hiding behind his cape of many colors if hilarious. You better be prepared to order him a diaper if he makes it to sumo wrestler.

Willow is also an exterminator. She is what I call a "green exterminator". She doesn't use chemicals. She uses her mouth and eats whatever she exterminates. She even stole a centipede from McLovin and ate it. Before she came to live with us we had spiders in every corner and centipedes in every crawl space. Now my corners are clean, and my crawl spaces are vacant (except for the half eaten centipedes I have to clean up). She even cleans the spider webs. She uses her face. She is having a blast with my pond plants in the basement. I brought a bunch of baby spiders in on them. They didn't have a chance. She lives down the basement now patrolling for bugs.

Jenny

Gretchen is our Greeter. Also our Guest Inspector. We try to remember to warn our guests to arrive early, because they and their bags will be subjected to a thorough sniff test when entering the premises. Friday she started her new job of Halloween Candy Inspector (this is a very seasonal part-time job). She took her job very seriously, inspecting the candy containers of every visitor that she greeted at the door, even though none of them actually came inside. She also checked that the candy we gave out was worthy of being consumed by minors.
Gretchen is also in charge of keeping an eye on pond cleaning supplies and inspects the mud&crud as it gets scooped out of the settling chambers. She especially makes sure there aren't any live fishies or frogs out on the grass.

:) Mary

Jenny,

I have to watch the boys so carefully because they will walk right out on the rocks, teetering away as they check out the fishies. I yell, but Mickey is deaf and Laddie just looks at me as if I'm a blank wall.

This is the new pond location before I had any plants in.
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Anne

Okay.. Are you ready? Here are the official Synchronized Sleeping pictures. Mickey and Laddie are almost ready to try out for the Olympics. They just have to learn to not lift their heads when I am standing in front of them with a camera. Other than that, they are a shoe-in for a team Gold Medal!!

First we have two examples of the "INWARD DOG". If you look closely, you can see the slight variation on this most difficult position:
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Next we have the "CLOCK-WISE ROTATION". They only do clock-wise rotation, never the less desirable counter-clock-wise rotation:
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And a slight variation of the "CLOCK-WISE ROTATION" is the oh-so-difficult "STAGGERED CLOCK-WISE ROTATION". I was lucky to be able to catch this movement on film:
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And.... last, but by all means, not least, is the finale, "BUTT TO BUTT":
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And, then they continue even after all these difficult practice sessions by taking turns as "OFFICIAL GLENS FALLS PILLOW WARMERS". They have to take turns and rest between stints of pillow warming since this is such a strenuous task.

This first picture shows all three of my "Boys" hard at work:
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And so that you can get the full effect of the strain on Mickey's face, here's a close-up. Jon, of course, is paying close attention as he is the coach:
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Brought to you by their public-relations director: Anne

LOL! Those are great! I see Olympic Champions written all over them!

Thanks for the previews. :-)