Being a stay at home mom is HARD.
I like to line the dogs up and feed them bites of canned food off a plastic spoon.
It teaches them patience and to respect each other, builds trust in me, and it makes the food last a lot longer for them than if I just divided it up and put it down in bowls. I tell them they are good dogs the entire time. I always time it so that Delta gets last bite. Sometimes Bunny will try to cut in line and sit between Delta and Fur to get a bite out of order and all I have to do is scold her a little ("Oh, hell naw!) and she goes back to her place. Most of the time I feel like I am filming a canine version of that show Pretty Wild on E!.
So we had done that, and since it looked like it was going to rain later, I decided to take them out to play in the yard. I was pretty deeply involved in my "Dogs As Children" fantasy when I saw a big piece of black drainage hose drug into the yard from the back fence. Hmmmm. Both ends were chewed to hell and back. Hmmmm again. I picked it up and shook it a little and all sorts of nesting material, acorn shells, and tiny turds fell to the ground. Uh oh. That had been someone's home. :( Thinking the occupant must be long gone I drug it over the fence closest to the garbage cans. When I slung it over the fence even more nesting material shook loose. Oh well. It was good to be rid of it, and while walking back around the house I saw that we have another giant PVC pipe with no purpose under the house and made a mental note to tell Dutch that we need to drag that out as well. My spidey sense tells me it is bursting with shrews.
Since I wasn't throwing the ball during this time, the dogs had found something to amuse themselves:
It's a wet squirrel, if you can't tell. I took a pic of the side that still had his eye. You're welcome. Yes I did play with it a little. Dead things outside don't cause the panic of MUST DISPOSE OF NOW like dead things in the house.
It's a boy!
I'm glad this one is a boy. Travis has been taking out entirely too many pregnant or nursing females.
I had locked the pups inside when I went to get my camera, but sure enough, look who comes walking by...
Coincidence?
"How did that get there?"
I don't think he had much to do with this one. The dogs are obviously the ones who dragged the pipe up and chewed the ends of it. And a tube is like a pre-dug hole for weiner dogs to hunt in.
I just wish I knew when this all occurred. I was in the back yard with them very late last night but I didn't look over in that area. Clearly we need more motion detector lights because I think that will discourage the wildlife from hanging out in our yard at night. I think we can replace the one on the side of the garage with a double bulb one to shine into the back yard.
Has anyone ever tried those decoy owls? I'm going to look into that as well. This area has Great Horned Owls and Barr Owls (and tiny little screech owls) so the rodents should recognize it as a predator.
As much FUN as all this is, I'm really not up to doing this for the next 2.5 years.
And I don't want the cops sniffing around either.
It teaches them patience and to respect each other, builds trust in me, and it makes the food last a lot longer for them than if I just divided it up and put it down in bowls. I tell them they are good dogs the entire time. I always time it so that Delta gets last bite. Sometimes Bunny will try to cut in line and sit between Delta and Fur to get a bite out of order and all I have to do is scold her a little ("Oh, hell naw!) and she goes back to her place. Most of the time I feel like I am filming a canine version of that show Pretty Wild on E!.
So we had done that, and since it looked like it was going to rain later, I decided to take them out to play in the yard. I was pretty deeply involved in my "Dogs As Children" fantasy when I saw a big piece of black drainage hose drug into the yard from the back fence. Hmmmm. Both ends were chewed to hell and back. Hmmmm again. I picked it up and shook it a little and all sorts of nesting material, acorn shells, and tiny turds fell to the ground. Uh oh. That had been someone's home. :( Thinking the occupant must be long gone I drug it over the fence closest to the garbage cans. When I slung it over the fence even more nesting material shook loose. Oh well. It was good to be rid of it, and while walking back around the house I saw that we have another giant PVC pipe with no purpose under the house and made a mental note to tell Dutch that we need to drag that out as well. My spidey sense tells me it is bursting with shrews.
Since I wasn't throwing the ball during this time, the dogs had found something to amuse themselves:
It's a wet squirrel, if you can't tell. I took a pic of the side that still had his eye. You're welcome. Yes I did play with it a little. Dead things outside don't cause the panic of MUST DISPOSE OF NOW like dead things in the house.
It's a boy!
I'm glad this one is a boy. Travis has been taking out entirely too many pregnant or nursing females.
I had locked the pups inside when I went to get my camera, but sure enough, look who comes walking by...
Coincidence?
"How did that get there?"
I don't think he had much to do with this one. The dogs are obviously the ones who dragged the pipe up and chewed the ends of it. And a tube is like a pre-dug hole for weiner dogs to hunt in.
I just wish I knew when this all occurred. I was in the back yard with them very late last night but I didn't look over in that area. Clearly we need more motion detector lights because I think that will discourage the wildlife from hanging out in our yard at night. I think we can replace the one on the side of the garage with a double bulb one to shine into the back yard.
Has anyone ever tried those decoy owls? I'm going to look into that as well. This area has Great Horned Owls and Barr Owls (and tiny little screech owls) so the rodents should recognize it as a predator.
As much FUN as all this is, I'm really not up to doing this for the next 2.5 years.
And I don't want the cops sniffing around either.