Monday, July 4, 2011

Very Scary Things

Maybe some of you remember the story of the pig ear. It isn´t on the blog, but in the news archive on our website.

The story of the spooky, suspicious pig ear, that haunted Krtek during her teen age became one of our "Halloween Classics". 

Once in a while, we like to forget we live on a very tight budget and buy the dogs a bag of pig ears (thank goodness to whomever thought to pack the bags with exactly 50 pig ears! They must´ve had our kennel in mind!). 

Anyway, one day we came home from shopping and brought the furries a bag of pig ears. They all went crazy, because they all love pig ears. 
Well, all, but one. When I threw the pig ears into the pen where Krtek and Snowy lived, they jumped up in the air and backed out from those stinky, suspicious things. It was hilarious and I almost peed my pants laughing. They both carefully (and I mean really CAREFULLY) investigated around the laying pig ear, and very gently aproached it, just on their tipy-toes, ready any second to run for their lives, if that partially hairy, smelly thing decides to attack. 

As the braver (and crazier) one, Snowy took charge and showed some real courage and character. She went on to "kill" that thing first, and when she made sure it´s really dead, she decided to eat it. I really nearly peed.
Krtek decided that day that it was too much for her and wouldn´t touch the offending intruder.

It took around couple of years before she finally decided to follow her sister´s example and any time she´d get a pig ear, she´d make sure that she killed it properly before she would eat it.
Only about a year ago, I finally saw her "going for it" and eating it right away, just like the other (normal) dogs.

This story reminds me of all the crazy antics the siberian huskies have and what I actually love about them so much. They have so much dignity and are real aristocrats among the sled dogs. But they have their craziness and character, so typical for their breed. 

The story of the spooky pig ear is just one of dozens that we experience with our dogs, by sharing our lives with this big pack. 

Once, when we still lived in Czech Republic, Darky went on to bark like crazy one late evening. We kept going to the kennel and couldn´t quite figure out what seemed to be the problem. We simply found nothing suspicious. Until we finally realized, she barked at a very suspicious piece of plastic foil, that was wrapped around some stuff to protect it from rain. It´s been there for ages and we couldn´t quite figure out why would Darky decide it was an "immediate danger" right that time. But she was convinced about it´s evilness and all we could do was to remove it, otherwise she´d wake up the whole neighbourhood.

I came to think of these stories today, when our handler Adela and I were doing some chores in the kennel, while all the dogs were running lose and playing in the yard. Suddenly, they all went into a frenzy. They barked with the typical suspicious tone, hysteria breaking out and fear with frustration going from one dog to another. I thought some stranger arrived at the gate, or a some big animal apeared. They were all staring towards the garden and house, so I went to check it. It was Jachym, carrying a big wooden latter. Yup, my brave, rough-tough sled dogs got freaked out by Jachym and a latter. 

Silly dogs! Gotta love them all!

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