A gift from dog

Jason and I do our best as dog parents, but unfortunately because we're so busy, many days, the dogs don't get much more than food twice a day and a pat on the head. So they are left to their own devices for entertainment. Amos does pretty well. He doesn't seem to mind as long as he gets a little love and some food. He spends his day napping, barking at squirrels, napping, sniffing, sitting in the water trough, and napping. But, Velvet on the other hand, needs more to do. In efforts to overcome her boredom, she has become a digger. Not just a scratch scratch here and a scratch scratch there digger.... I mean tunneling-to-china, holes-big-enough-to-bury-a-horse DIGGER. So, because she has pretty much completely destroyed the dog pen, and occasionally tunnels under the fence and gets out (thank goodness this is not her daily goal or we'd never keep her in!), we've been trying to come up with ways to get her to stop or at least slow the digging. We've tried toys.... she just buries them. We've tried electric fence... she just digs deep enough that by the time she gets to the fence, she's too far under it to get zapped. We've even contemplated murder... but that seems a bit harsh.


So my newest idea is to get them as much exercise as possible. In theory, if she is able to burn up some of her energy, she won't want to dig as much. A run in the morning, a run in the evening, and when I'm here, I let them out as often as possible throughout the day. I want to try leaving them out to roam the property during the day, but we're hoping that our turkeys are nesting right now, and I don't want the dogs disturbing them, so being out all day will have to wait.

I've done this for a few days now and it seems to be helping--yay! Yesterday, the dogs "helped" me take care of my morning chores before work--water the garden, haul the trash down to the road for pick up, etc.--and then I decided while I was doing dishes and such--where I could see them out the back window--that I'd try leaving them out for a bit. They were great! I gave them each a chew bone and they settled down in the grass to chew. I checked on them every few minutes and they seemed happy to be hanging out in the yard. Then I looked up and Velvet was gone. Agh. So I called her, and I could hear her tags jingling, but she didn't come around the corner for a minute. But OH was she proud of herself when she did. She went and got me a gift and brought it to me and put it right down at my feet.

A slobber covered, terrified, closed up tight as it could be, box turtle! Cool! She was just elated about her find, (as was I!) and though I'm quite certain she wanted me to throw it for her, I rescued it, and put the dogs up for awhile.


The turtle stayed closed up tight for about an hour, before it started peeking out at its surroundings. Phew! No more dog! It took a good two hours before it ventured out for a stroll, encountered a curious cat, hid for a bit, then wandered off on its way.


Oh how I do LOVE not living in town!