Further Adventures of Fenton

We all had a nice walk today, without any barbed wire drama, much to my relief. On yesterday's walk, the puppy managed to crawl under the fence and found himself on the wrong side, away from me and the other dogs. The whining was pitiful. Every time I tried to go over and show him how to crawl under (he still fits, even though he is clearly bigger than he was when I got here, as evidenced by the fact that I had to put a bigger collar on him the other day), he just stuck his head through two of the strands of the barbed wire. Not what I had in mind! I even got down in the dirt to try and get him to do the same. Eventually we had to retrace our steps quite a ways to find the place where he came under in the first place.

Today was just wet, since there is a little wetland and a creek (stream? creek? these are the sorts of things I don't know about when it comes to Nature) at the far end of the pasture. The irises there are so pretty and it's fun to watch the puppy splash around, even if the result is that my legs get all muddy too.

Are you wondering when this is going to be about Fenton? Well, he's doing just fine, stitches look good and he's napping right now, as are the other dogs. Oh scratch that, there's the puppy, up and wandering around the yard looking for toys. Anyway, Fenton was not asleep at 5:30 this morning. I woke up to this thumpety-thump-thump that could only be the puppy on the porch, and Fenton, who was inside, pacing in front of the windows like a big cat in the zoo. I let Fenton out and went on the front porch to see what all the fuss was. It was freezing! The dogs were all alert, like there was something in the yard, and then all of a sudden, they were all together, after the same thing at the corner of the house. They had it basically treed in one of the eaves. I couldn't really see what it was, but I knew it had to be a rodent. More rodents!! I guess Barb was right that I was destined to experience them at the ranch, in spite of the wild barn cats who live here.

I have evidence! Again!

Of course, after all this excitement, I made Fenton the Mighty Hunter go back inside. The last thing I want is to have to deal with the puppy eating a mangey rodent, or with a mangey rodent body. Yech. Turned out to be what I think is a baby squirrel. The sad thing is, they scared the poor thing so severely that it's STILL there. I thought for sure it would escape when we went on our walk, but no. I don't think the melee that is feeding time here is going to help anything. Sigh.