I am just picturing this and laughing myself silly. Maybe she wanted to spare George the chore of thinning out later on. Used to have a dachshund who "helped" in the garden and one day killed the waterhose. Our cat, who was my cat when I had cancer, is now my husband's cat and stays with him. Thanks for the story.

Your action was pretty severe - cutting the vine down was likely unnecessary. FWIW, there are far more beneficial insects than there are bad guys out there and unless you had noticed damage to the plant from these critters, they may have been just temporary visitors. Regardless, most smaller insects can be disuaded from taking up residence simply by hosing them off the plant regularly with water. This works very effectively with aphids, which is possibly what you saw (although the time of year seems off for them). Over-fertilizing, producing a lot of fresh, lush, new growth seems to attract these beasts. Clematis climb using vining leaf stems or petioles - as these are pretty small, they need something small to attach to. You might try stringing some high test fishing line on your post. This is pretty much invisible and is very strong, yet small enough for the tenrils to grasp.

I knew a lady once whose Belgian sheepdog underwent a similar personality change in the last year of his life. She couldn't have peace of mind without knowing why her beloved companion for so many years became an aggressive stranger, so she had him autopsied and they found a large brain tumor. On the other hand, a victim of abuse may lash out once he is in a secure setting. Post traumatic stress syndrome affects animals as well as humans.

I have no way to determine exactly when the birds Who nest here arrive. Sometimes I am sitting by the Dragonfly pond in my back yard,and a hen will drop Down to the old dead cattail stalks to hover & pick Dried floss from the heads. They gather a beak full then shoot up to a horizontal Limb of one of the big pines in my back yard. They nest there.