Catpaw – diary of an angry cat

How do you know there has been an elephant on your lawn during the night?

Evidently that question has been answered by a woman who awoke the other morning and found a rather large elephant dropping on her front lawn and her bed of lilies savaged.

2 elephants got loose in Newmarket the other night, just a little north of Toronto. The circus is in town. Seems someone tripped over the plug that powered the electric fence that penned the elephants in and shut it off. All this occurred at around 3:00am – when all good little Torontonians are asleep.

So Suzy and Bunny Pachyderm did what any self respecting tourist new to town would do – go find the best eats in town. Unfort. it just happened to be the bushes, trees and flower gardens along a quiet suburban street.

I would love to have seen the look on people’s faces when they were getting their morning coffees and looked out their windows to see what the elephants left behind. According to the lady who’s lawn received the elephant share of attention:

“I opened the front door and I didn’t know what the smell was,” said [the woman] yesterday. “But not good. And then I saw it.”

Evidently the elephants tiptoed into the neighbourhood. Everyone slept through this bit of entertainment. One neighbour heard something but she thought the noise was caused by kids.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to meet any kid from that area if the neigbours mistake an elephant in the garden for them.

Anyway, the elephants were rounded up and back at the circus – I wish they had made it all they way to the elephant sanctuary in Tennessee. Elephants don’t belong in a circus.

The local police found it entertaining. Here is the initial call about an elephant on the loose:

D = Dispatcher with Newmarket Police

C = slightly worried caller

C: Hi, um, we found an elephant walking down the street near the community centre, the Ray Twinney.

D: (pause) Sorry?

C: We found an elephant walking down the street. (pause) Like, the ones from the circus that’s at the Ray Twinney Centre? One of them got loose and it’s walking down the street.

D: What road is it walking now?

C: What’s the street? Alex Stoner I think? Alex Stoner. Near the exit of Ray Twinney.

D: It’s on Alex Stoner.

C: Yah

D: (pause) How big are we talking here?

C: Like full-grown elephants. It’s like the ones they have at the circus that the people ride on and stuff.

D: Right

C: Yeah (laughter in background)

D: Is there anybody around it at all?

C: Yeah.

D: But like is anybody there: Like I guess, any sort of staff or anything there?

C: No, no, it’s just an elephant. Like one of my friends is like, it’s following him. And he’s leading it back there.

D: It’s apparently walking Alex Stoner?

C: Yeah.

D: What direction is it going in?

C: It’s heading back towards Ray … there’s another one out too. I think all three … we see two. We don’t know if there’s a third. There’s, year, there’s a lot of, there’s three elephants out here. They’re huge.

D: We’ll ah, see what we can do here.

C: Ok.

D: ‘Kay, thank you

C: No problem, bye.

Doesn’t it sound all too calm and polite? Perhaps they put sedatives in the water up there in Newmarket.

The police dispatch call to all units to watch out for the prowling pachyderm is quite entertaining – Police dispatch call.

Bunny enjoyed dining out in the big city, eating bushes, leaves, flowers all along making it quite easy to track her.

The circus did send someone out with a kingsize scooper to pick up after Bunny’s nightime wanderings.

And the poor owner who’s lawn had been used as an elephant litter box?

They only got a couple of tickets to see the circus. No one has offered to replace her lilies.

Stumble it!