Waiting for the rain

Penny is definitely the smarter of our two dogs.  Chloe is all heart but, sadly, not much on brains.  From the time Penny was young, when she would wrap herself around a tree on her tie-out, I could tell her to “go around the tree,” pointing the direction with a sweep of my arm and she would run counter to her original wind and free herself.  A pretty good trick if I do say so myself. 

Chloe, however will wind herself around the tree, and as I do with Penny, I will instruct her to “go around the tree.”  This interaction only serves to excite her.  She is so happy that I am giving her any attention at all just at a time when she is feeling trapped and forgotten that she begins to jump and smile and wag her tail. 

The more I try to command her, the more excited she gets.  Oh, yes, she has run around the tree as I have instructed her, but invariably, it will be in the same direction she went when she became stuck to begin with.  Eventually, I give up and tramp out in the rain to unwind and “rescue” her.  Oh, did I forget to mention that this is a rainy day trick?  I can’t recall a single time she has performed this one when it was not raining outside. 

As I approach, she will give excited little yelps and I can almost hear the trumpets in her head as her brain plays, “here she comes to save the day!”  Once I am close enough to help her, she becomes so grateful that she jumps up to hug and thank me, wiping her muddy paws all over my clothes.

Other favorite tricks of theirs that I enjoy are the Two Dog Tangle, the Unstaking of the Tie-out, the Tie-out Chew Through, and the Snapping of the Chain.  There is nothing fun about tying out dogs in the yard.  The escape methods vary, but dogs are pretty ingenious when they really want to “self walk.” 

Then there is the safety issue.  Chewing on a twisted steel tie-out can’t be good for the teeth and gums.  Watching a dog lunge on her chain as the mailman stops by is tortuous for me to see.  I can only imagine the damage being done to the trachea and spine.  Additionally, who knows where they go and what they do when they are gone?  I once retrieved them running down the main road with twenty foot cables and twisty, muddy stakes dragging along behind them. On one of Penny’s escapes, she returned about an hour after she left, soaking wet and reeking of chlorine.  Obviously, whichever neighbor’s pool she was in wasn’t home or I am sure they would have called to give me an earful, considering our phone number is on her dog tag. 

But all of that is about to change.  Yesterday, my husband installed deer fence around the perimeter of our backyard.  Because our back yard butts up to the woods and I would like to have a vegetable garden this year, a deer fence is a must have.  Better than keeping the deer out, however, is keeping the dogs in.  While I realize that fences can be jumped, dug under and chewed through, I am not sure my dogs are that ambitious.  Until they prove me wrong, I am enjoying opening the door, letting them out, going on about my business and then finding them on the deck waiting for me when I return. 

I can’t wait until it rains! 

The "Self Walk"

Me: It's raining.  Forget chaining the dogs to pee this morning.  They aren't going to want to stay out there.  I'll  just open the door, let them run out back and do their thing; they will be back on the deck wanting in by the time I put on the coffee.

Penny:  It's warm!  It's Spring!  I am not chained to the deck!  Quick, Chloe, where's the warden?  Do you see her?

Chloe:  Checking... nope!  No sight of her.

Penny:  Come on, Red, we're blowing this joint!

Fade in:  Two red dogs running down the street, muscles rippling, hair flowing, big goofy grins on their face, soundtrack to Born Free playing in stereo in their heads.

Cut to:  Stupid look on my face as I approach French doors to find no dogs waiting for me.

And that, my friends, is how the "self walk" happens at our house.

Spring is in the Air

Each day, I open the door to let the dogs out in the frozen tundra of our yard and am grateful I don't pee outside.  Some mornings, I have to push them out because it is just too cold to go.  I feel for them, sincerely.

I live in a suburb, but my yard backs up to the Cleveland MetroParks.  The sound of the woods in the winter is almost silent.  Sometimes there is a rustling but not much else, aside from the traffic that passes down Valley Parkway.  The woods are teeming with animals still, I'm sure, yet it seems the noisy ones are either hibernating or have flown south.  There is not much stirring out there aside from a few deer.  OK, more than a few deer.

This morning is gloomy and grey, but something is different; there is a stirring.  I can faintly hear the river behind us rushing its way to open waters somewhere.  Familiar birds have returned and are squawking, and there seemed to be movement aground, even without any breeze.  Scurrying hungry little critters in the bramble, perhaps?  As I write this, I hear geese.  Geese!

The air seemed to be warmer and the smell was a little different too.  I detected that fresh, oh so Spring-like scent of wet mud.  Warm wet mud that will soon give way to little green things that, after so long of white and brown, are like soft kisses for the eyes.

I wasn't the only one who noticed, either.  Normally, Chloe bounds off the back deck and drops to pee the instant her paws hit the lawn, while Penny daintily prances off the deck to sniff the yard and detect any intruders in the night before relieving herself.  But not today.  As I surveyed the changes and allowed the romance of Spring to swirl in my head, I glanced over and noticed both my girls standing with me on the deck, nostrils flaring, wistful expressions on their furry faces.  I could only guess at the runs, swims, and chases they were imagining.  We are all so ready for the Spring!

Brave Little Animal

First, I will tell you that I am the proud owner of two dogs and two cats.  If I were running a contest on which animals do a better job at protecting the family from harm, intuitively, I would hand the award to the dogs.  If anyone even thinks about walking past our house, they both lunge at the window and bark their fool heads off.  But a recent discovery may have changed all that.

This morning I awoke and, as usual, headed for the back door to let the dogs out.  As I passed the French doors in the dining room, I spotted a long, black, furry thing on the carpet.  I thought, at first, that it was one of the dogs toys that Chloe, our Golden Retriever, had chewed all the stuffing out of and had then continued to chew the fur carcass until it was soggy and slobbery looking.  This is not an unusual occurrence with her.  But I couldn't recall having given her a toy with such dark fur.  I didn't see any stuffing lying around, either.

I moved in closer.  I could see a paw.  With claws.  There was a tiny amount of redness at the middle of the thing, so I deduced that it had, at one time, contained blood, not fluffo-fill.  I look at Chloe.  She is looking at it and then me.  The expression on her face is one of guilt, although, I believe it is guilt because she knows she was licking the thing, not because she killed it.  Chloe is a poor inbred puppy mill victim with severe hip dysplasia.  On her best day, she might catch her own tail.

Penny, my Chow mix is standing behind me.  Her expression is one of confusion.  She doesn't appear to even realize there is a dead animal on the floor.  She had been shut in my bedroom with me sleeping and we got up together, so she is apparently oblivious to the current situation.  She simply wants to know what the hold up is.  Why haven't I opened the door and let her out?

The cats: Boo, the black and white male, is MIA and Wookie, our grey stripy female, is acting curious. I head to the kitchen to get a paper towel to pick up the dead thing and see if I can figure out what it is.  Wookie follows me.  I put the dead thing on a bed of paper towels on the counter and Wookie is all over it.  I push her away and try to get a good look at the thing.  It appears to be a black squirrel by the tail, but I am still not sure.

I put the thing in the garage for my husband to ID when he comes home from work.  I email him the situation.  He believes that the dogs probably found it dead in the yard last night and brought it in when he let them out for their final pee.  His theory is flawed, however.  Chloe is very impulsive and can't leave a chewy thing alone.  When we give the dogs chewy treats, Chloe eats hers immediately and without reservation.

Penny has always liked to savor her treats.  When she was young, and before we had Chloe, I would give her a chewy treat like a bone, and she would lick at it a little and then walk around the house with it in her mouth, setting it down here and there until finally she could get outside with it.  Then she would bury it in the back yard for later.  Sometimes later would never come and doing yard work, I would find buried a green pig's ear or something.

She's an old girl now, but she still likes to take it slow.  Unfortunately, she doesn't hide her treats anymore and the minute she looks away, Chloe, having already inhaled her treat, steals Penny's and devours it.  Penny's a good sport about it most times.

Anyhow, after the dogs came in from their evening potty break, they laid at our feet and slept while we watched TV and then went to bed.  There is no way, if there had been a kill in the house, that Chloe would not have been caught licking the stupid thing all night.  So where did it come from?

My only theory at this point is that, somehow, the squirrel broke into the house and one of the cats, most likely Boo, did their job and caught him.  He broke into a house with two cats and two dogs.  That is like a burglar breaking into a house where a cop with his loaded service revolver lives.  That was one brave little animal... and dumb, too.  Score one for the felines.  Viva la Cats!