Dry leaves are racing

Across lawns and down the streets —

What is their hurry?!

— haiku by Lura Osgood, Pleasant Hill

Dear Gary:

We hope you can give us some suggestions about keeping our cats from playing in their water bowl.

Our cats take great delight in scooping out the water in their bowl and getting the water all over the floor and tracking their paw prints around the house. We've tried different bowls, some bigger, some deeper, but they still play.

We also tried putting plastic mats and rugs under the bowl and even resorted to putting the bowl in a large flat aluminum baking pan. That didn't work either.

When they take a drink, they use their paws to hold the water and lick it from their paws. Cute, but messy!

Richard & Janet Arlie, waterlogged in South San Francisco

Dear Richard & Janet:

Cats like moving water — flushing toilets, running bath water, showers. That's one of the reasons they like to play in their water bowls.

Getting them a cat water fountain (fancy bowl with running water) will sometimes distract cats from swimming laps around water bowls. Most pet stores carry these fountain bowls. (Learn more by Googling "cat water fountains.")

If the running water doesn't solve your problem ... do what I do and put their water bowl on a BIG towel.

Dear Gary:

Just finished a Trivial Pursuit game. One question was, "How many

Betty, Concord

Dear Betty:

There are actually two known "poisonous" birds in the world — both in New Guinea. They are the Pitohui and the Ifrita. They reportedly have a nasty toxin in their skin and feathers that makes life tough for parasites and predators.

Boy, if the wild turkeys hear about this, there goes Thanksgiving.

Dear Gary:

My 5-year-old female Dachshund has suddenly lost her eyesight. She's been diagnosed with SARDS, an eye disease that has no known cause, is irreversible and causes total blindness in a matter of days.

I am heartbroken, but she is a beautiful, healthy little dog and I want to give her the best life possible as long as she lives.

This is a rare syndrome in dogs, I'm told, and I wondered if any of your readers have experienced this same thing.

I'd appreciate speaking with others who live with a blind dog or who know about SARDS.

Betty Bailey,

cyberspace

Dear Betty:

Anyone with blind dogs or knowledge of SARDS can e-mail me any helpful information, along with their phone number. I'll forward e-mails to you and print anything that's interesting. You can call back anyone you want to talk with further.

I know there are people out there with blind dogs because we've discussed it before.

A final note

Gary: A few years ago I planted a half acre of pumpkins in Sleepy Hollow (Orinda). As the fruit ripened, deer began sampling them at night, taking one or two bites then moving on. I tried all kinds of repellents to no avail.

Then, my great idea: I stretched a long extension cord to the middle of the field and plugged in a small radio, tuned to a talk station.

Voilà! Four nights in a row and no deer. On the fifth night I went out to observe my field under the light of a full moon.

And there to my dismay were four deer gathered near my radio, eating pumpkins and listening to Larry King.

True story, honest. (Jack Cutter, cyberspace)