Cat nuzzles a friendship with deer herd

They should have known something was strange when the cat started chasing the dog.

Sure, Lucy the year-old calico does typical cat things such as leaving live grasshoppers on the bed and only listening when she’s good and ready. But she also bullies her family’s old Dalmatian. Then there’s this business of communing with the deer.

“I honestly don’t know what’s next. The cat’s a real crack-up,” said Ron Plush, Lucy’s owner, or at least her landlord.

It started a few weeks ago when Ron and his wife, Charlotte, looked out the window of their Pleasant Valley home near Garden of the Gods and saw Lucy shambling up to a herd of deer that grazes the neighborhood.

“She came right up and went nose to nose with this little old doe,” Charlotte said. “Then she just kind of nuzzled the muzzle.”