Fighting like, well, cats and dogs, but the robin still sings

WE have a hallway that extends from the dining area to a rear bedroom that is covered in linoleum flooring done in an attractive checkerboard pattern. Well, half of it is. The dog ate the other half.

I am talking about Sophie, the 5-month-old pointer mix who we rescued from an SPCA outlet a few weeks ago. She will eat anything and lick anything. The dog has an oral obsession.

She comes at you from five or 10 feet away with her licking mechanism already lapping at the air, dying to shower you with affection. Shower is the operative word here. It is not a dry lick. Although not as watery as a drooling St. Bernard’s, her licks are nonetheless sufficiently liquid to require wiping with a paper towel.

“She loves me,” Cinelli says, as she gently pushes Sophie away.

“I love you too,” I say, “but I don’t leap onto your lap and lick your head.”

“It’s probably just as well,” she says.

On the whole, I guess I would rather have Sophie licking than eating the house. She sleeps in the enclosed hallway on a blanket covered by padding large enough to accommodate her size. She isn’t a very big dog, but she’s long and pointed and sleeps stretched out to her full length.

One morning I opened the hall door to let her run in a yard and couldn’t believe my eyes. She had somehow managed to gouge up and tear into shreds about half of the linoleum flooring. It was scattered in various size chunks from one end of the hallway to another.

Sophie trotted out of the war-torn area as though nothing had happened, licking the air and waiting at the back door to be let out into her yard and run barking at the nothingness.

“She’s trying to tell us something,” Cinelli said, observing the mess.

“Maybe her mother was a crack addict,” I said. “Peculiar behavior is often rooted in....”

“Don’t go there, Martinez. You can’t say crazy things until after 6. Remember our deal.”

I had agreed one day in a spirit of conciliation to remain as sane as possible until the clock struck the happy hour. Well, actually, it chirps the happy hour. We have a clock that registers each hour with a different birdcall. I think it’s a robin at 6 p.m. When the robin sings, a martini calls my name.

Our cat Ernie the Assassin explored the damage Sophie had done, sniffing ruefully at the shards of linoleum. Ernie has his own room. The cat and the dog are not yet able to be free in the house at the same time. The cat goes after the dog as though she were nothing more than a little-larger mouse.

We had Sophie for only a day when Ernie leaped onto her back, sending the dog yelping and cowering into a corner, wondering what she’d gotten herself into. It hasn’t improved much since. We tried once to help them get to know each other by holding Ernie tightly and letting Sophie roam. Ernie broke free and stalked the dog, the way a hit man sets up his intended victim. Then: leap, growl, yowl, cower.

When Sophie has the run of the house, Ernie sits behind the glass door of his room, glaring. Sometimes he scratches frantically at the door, mad with the frustration of not being able to get his teeth into Sophie. His claws screech across the glass like chalk on a blackboard, setting our teeth on edge.

At times, when we can’t stand the animal tensions or the licking, we put them in their separate rooms, but then they both scratch at their doors, setting up a racket not unlike a mass breakout at San Quentin prison. Then Sophie goes after the linoleum again. Wearying of that, she chews at a toy that screams in pain.

It makes a noise that sounds like “eeeyodiyodihoohoohoo.” When I first heard it, I rushed to a window to locate the source of the agony. “It’s a Swiss bear,” Cinelli explained. “He’s yodeling.” “That’s not a yodel,” I said, “it’s a cry for help on the edge of death.”

“It’s a yodel.”

I know yodels. Cowboys yodeled in old westerns when I was a kid. I guess when you’re out there on the lone prairie with nothing but Texas longhorns, or whatever, for company and coyotes are yelping over the body of a prairie dog, yodeling might seem appropriate. In the mechanism of a dog toy, however, it’s a major distraction.

But I am adjusting to the intrusions of dog and cat into my peace of mind, albeit slowly. If the dog doesn’t eat the house and the cat doesn’t eat the dog, trans-species accommodations are always possible. Meanwhile, I take comfort in knowing that, in the core of my stress, the robin will always sing at 6.

Al Martinez’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He can be reached at al.martinez@ latimes.com.