We trained her to use the doggie door to take a break every now and then, but she always returns to her digs within a few short minutes.

That, however, was before yesterday.

It was still daylight when Babe left for his poker game, our weekly grocery supplement if and when he wins. I was busy in the kitchen but I heard Tallulah go out the doggie door right after he left. I only half-listened for the familiar flap-flap sound of her return. But after a while, when I still didn't hear it, I began to worry that she might have been dognapped. She is, after all, cute in a cockeyed cockapoo sort of way.

I walked outside and onto the deck thinking she might have wandered onto the golf course and got herself boinked in the head by an errant Titleist. I saw nothing. Not even a range ball.

Twenty minutes later I began to wring my hands in earnest. Babe wouldn't hesitate to turn me in to the SPCA as an unfit dog mother if I let anything happen to that neurotic dog.

If Tallulah had not always been such a lily-livered pooch quietly hovering alongside her keepers, I wouldn't have been more concerned. Long ago I realized she would never die happy until she caused me to trip over her low-lying, sidling body and break my fool neck. So where was she?

Wandering around in the front yard, I called her name over and over. It brought no better results than my previous efforts. It was not until I stopped hollering like a mountain mama and started listening that I heard her incomparable cockapoo bark. It sounded like she was miles away.

Convinced that some awful person had done the dastardly deed of stealing Tallulah Blankhead, I shifted into high gear. If I had owned a gun, if I had ever even thought of owning a gun, I'd have sprinted like an Olympic champion into the house to load it up with as many bullets as I could find.

But the truth is I'm a chicken. Tallulah, bless her stupid heart, was not born with a lily liver; she got it by osmosis - from me! I hate guns. So instead of pulling out a handy AK-47, I settled for my car keys, determined to rescue Babe's precious mutt, the one dumber than a box of hair.

Not even two blocks away, I spied her. She was snarling at a fire hydrant that some clever Southern patriot had painted gray and white to resemble a corpulent Confederate soldier. By the time I got to her, Tallulah had barked herself into a war whoop.

"Tallulah Blankhead!" I yelled, trying my best to drown her out.

She tore her eyes away from Robert E. Lee long enough to glance in my direction momentarily. Then she puffed up her chest and once again tore into General Lee as if he were drenched in Eau de Alpo.

Looking around, I saw nothing to indicate a dognapping in progress. So, armed with an attitude of "Hush up, dawg, before I give you something to bark about," I jumped out, yanked her by the collar and dragged her fat little fanny to the car. She had the good grace to hang her head and look sheepish.

It was not until we got home that I figured out why Babe's Cowardly Cockapoo chose to leave the familiarity of home and hearth only to get waylaid by a fire hydrant dressed in a Confederate uniform.

She ran away. Deserted her post. Went AWOL.

But why would a dog, who for eight years successfully ruled an entire household, suddenly take off? Were the recently introduced meals designed for over the hill, overindulged, overweight canines, not her cup of tea?

The answer was right in front of me all the time.

Enter Miz Sophie, a very lucky stray white kitten I had rescued from the clutches of the Grim Reaper. In only two weeks she has managed to launch a coup to rival anything ever cooked up by a Banana Republic.

Armed with outrageously large blue eyes and saber sharp teeth and nails, she came, she saw, she conquered. Overnight, she became Cappy's kitten.

Not unlike General Lee, Tallulah Blankhead has since decided that she's not yet ready to surrender. Apparently, she discovered a new source of strength and resolve while snarling at a fat fire hydrant standing watch on the corner of St. Andrews and Merion.

That corner has become Tallulah's Fort Sumter and she's banking on it being Miz Sophie's Appomattox. Me? It's liable to be my Waterloo.