Its raining cats and dogs

I was at Amy’s the other day and she tried to give me her cat. Why…? It appears that since there are now two dogs living in the house, the cat is ticked off and shows it by marking its territory in the old fashioned Boy Scout method of peeing on everything. I respectfully declined but wondered what had gone wrong. As a parent, I had held fast to the rule of no pets. No dogs, no cats, no reptiles and certainly thought my children as they grew to adulthood would see the wisdom in the no pet rule and follow suit. No such luck.
Amy has two dogs and a cat. Sarah has 52 cats if you count all the barn cats plus two cows, although one is borrowed. Eric has two dogs technically, since one is currently buried in the back yard. You can tell where, because the weeds grow really tall in that spot. Matt has three dogs including the one that belongs to Uncle Sam. Sounds like a Korean buffet doesn’t it.
It has been my opinion for some time that cats simply allow you to feed them and all dogs should be eaten. This line of thing was reinforced many times during my career as a personal injury claims adjuster for State Farm. Laws vary from state to state but generally if your dog (animal) bites someone or does some property damage, you are responsible and have to pay. In Wa, it doesn’t matter where the dog is at the time. You are responsible. In Oregon, the law says you are responsible if it can be proven that the dog has a propensity to bite, maim or rip asunder. In other words, in Oregon your dog gets one free bite.
I handled a claim by a process server against one of our insured’s who claimed the homeowners dog bit him. The homeowner described the dog as a cuddly, friendly, sweet tempered house dog. To me that meant a large, aggressive, ill tempered pit bull. The process server pretended to be vacuum salesman and when he got on the porch the dog dragged him into the bushes for a friendly discussion about his presence on the property. My guess is the dog didn’t like vacuums. He said he had severe wounds so I asked if we could get some photos. He declined but finally came in two weeks later to show a slight red mark on his calf. I offered to settle the claim for $60.00 to cover the cost of his torn pants and some new clean underwear. He said he would see me in court. The statute of limitations has run on that one so I feel pretty safe. I hope he got the clean underwear. After that experience I am also of the opinion that all process servers should be bitten.
Thanks for listening, I feel much better.