What Happened to Spring??

We've had a few nice weeks here of 60's and 70's weather during the day, but still pretty chilly at night. The past few nights it hasn't gotten below 60 and today's temp got into the 90's. What the heck? I thought I'd at least have another couple of weeks before I'd need to trudge off to Lowes to get a window AC unit for the bedroom. The animals spent the day on the porch with me while I worked as usual, but they laid about like a bunch of wet dish rags and didn't budge all day. It was even too hot to go inside to get a drink. I had to bring them a bowl of water (with ice cubes) -- which they promptly drained in a matter of minutes. I know it's hot when the hairless Ho is panting. I guess it's time to warm up the clippers and clip the hairy huskies.



On 5/13 I posted about a rabbit chomping on my garden and wondered why Zeus wasn't chomping on the rabbits. Since that post I haven't seen any evidence of wasically wabbits and I thought maybe Zeus figured out his job and took care of business. Now I think maybe I was giving the BDD (Big Dumb Dog) a little too much credit. I'm pretty sure I should be feeding kibble to the black snake that left this 6' skin in our back yard.





Zeus is as dumb as a box of rocks, but I did find one of his talents the other day. While out on the porch working our neighbor's cows made their daily escape and pilgrimage to our front yard. Usually I let them be because they stay up near the road and don't get too close to the house. But I looked up from my laptop the other day to find them about 20 yards from my garden and eyeing my maters! I called the neighbor's to let them know, then I yelled and waved at them like a fool. I was "on duty" at work so couldn't leave the phone to chase them out of the yard myself. This is when it hit me that I have four dogs and certainly one of them might be good for something. Had I let Cody off the porch he would have walked over to the tree to lay down in the shade. This is his job. Brie might have wondered over to the cows and sniffed them. Heidi has proven herself to be pretty bright about cows in the past. When at a friend's house visiting someone had left the gate open. We were in the house and heard Heidi barking up a storm. We looked out to find her in front of the gate barking at a cow that was meandering her way into the yard. The cow totally ignored Heidi because she lacks conviction (and large backup). I might as well send Jilly Bean out to chase the cows.

This left the BDD. Was he even smart enough to realize the cows were there? This is the dog that barks at EVERYTHING and here he was lying on the porch in a daze and not even looking at the cows. If he did chase the cows, where would he chase them to? Would they end up in my garden? Would he push them through the fence? Would they end up on the porch with me? The cows were getting closer to the garden and one of them was actually drooling. It was BDD or buh bye garden. I crossed my fingers, opened the porch gate, and watched him go. It was amazing. It was like he knew his job. It was like he actually had a brain. He chased the cows back up the driveway along the fence and out into the road. He stood there barking for a minute as if to say "Now don't come back!". Then he turned around and came back to the porch for a nap.

So even though I think he failed me in the rabbit department, he certainly proved himself with the cows. Maybe he's not a BDD after all. :)