Ranch report - day 53

I had a good writing day today, which means that the dogs spent most of the day bored. B-O-R-E-D! When I went out into the yard to see what they were up to, I found Rose rolling around on her back in the dirt (clearly feeling better) and Fenton reclining in the shade, chewing on an elk bone. After the whole Rose incident, I decided I didn't really want Fenton gnawing on an old elk bone, so I went over and took it away. This is how good this dog is. He is my size, he is quick and has big teeth and when I take away the elk bone? He just looks at me, like "Wha?" or "Please sir, may I have another?". And next time I looked, he did, pretty much right away. There are lots of elk bones in the grass in front of the house, so he just picked another. I took that away too. I know this is ridiculous, I cannot throw away ALL the elk bones that a dog with free range of this 120 acre place PLUS the adjoining National Forest Land can find, but I'm sorry, I just had to throw these two away.

He left the bones alone after that (okay, I gave him a little dog food to distract him) but his next activity was chasing the horses. Again, Rose, feeling much better, because she took after them too, like a dog half her age. For a while there, Rose was listening to me when I told her to be good around the horses, but today she was just gone. MaryEllen is the good girl, she stayed on the porch with me.

Until Fenton started chasing the cats- then she decided she wanted to play too. Smart MaryEllen, the cats are a much more reasonable animal to chase than a horse that weighs ten times what you do. They raced around outside for a while, the cats diving under the porch, much to Fenton's disappointment. Then the dogs settled back on the porch again.

UNTIL! I walked in and out of the mudroom again, and that inspired Fenton to have one of his standoffs with a cat who was resting on top of a cooler. Fenton will bark a little warning, trying to get the cat to run, so he can chase it. Some of the cats do, but one of the bigger ones has caught on to this game, so he stands his ground, and just gives Fenton a hiss. Then Fenton stands there, his snout inches away from the cat, who stares him down and stays perfectly still, all crouched up and looking ready to pounce. They stay like that for a while, these are really good staring contests. Two champion starers. Then Maybe Rose will come in or something, and things will shift around a little, Fenton will do a little hop, the cat will hiss again and back away more, then Fenton will bark and snap his jaws, ears forward, still looking like friendly Fenton, but really trying to get this cat to run. Then it gets exciting because Rose will start to whimper*, and then there is more hissing and barking and I probably hear a crash of some kind, and the cat gets away and Fenton gets his very short chase. That was the scene here this afternoon, because the dogs were bored, and I was writing.

* Rose, in case you didn't know, has a very different relationship with the cats. She sleeps with them, or they sleep with her. They curl up in her bed, they eat the remnants of her dinner, they walk under her nose, their tails tickling her face, and she does nothing. Except sniff them. The cats are Rose's pals.