Tuesday, August 6, 2013

The Successful Thief

Yesterday we went for a walk with the dogs. It was supposed to be the usual, innocent walk we do all the time. Nothing special, nothing unusual.

There was also nothing special or nothing unusual about Mouse´s disappearing from the beach for a while. She does that on such a regular basis that it is not really a big deal. That´s just the way she is. It´s her usual "husky thing". 

There are lots of reasons for Mouse´s disappearances, mostly it is a fresh track of a moose or a deer, or the nearby seagull nest, a fleet of ducks, the new outhouse at one of the summer cabins, or some nice rotting bone or crops in the woods. In the case of the last, she usually brings the "reason" of her disappearance back to show Krtek and us her "trophy".

The other day it was a dead young magpie. Bones of different sizes and shapes are a very usual subject, already really boring for me to get surprised by and definitely not worth writing about.

This summer Mouse developed a new fun idea and skill - disappearing and reappearing with something huge in her mouth, in fact so huge that she´d be dragging it through the rocks and sand of the beach, then marching proudly and provocatively pass Krtek and then starting to munch on it with expression of someone who just got served the best steak dinner. That "thing" always turns out to be a large piece of drift wood. What a little trickster! :)

Well, this time she sneaked out on Nugget, Krtek, Jachym and I, for a good half hour. We were too busy to notice at first, as we did some photo sessions of the mirror-like, still water, portraits of Nugget and Krtek bathing. Plus, just a bit further down the beach, we found mushrooms. Really beautiful, healthy mushrooms, so of course our collectors´ minds and the vision of the next day´s dinner menu were too occupied to notice Mouse took off.

The usual recalls, then shouting, then threatening did not work this time, so we decided to slowly head back home, calling the rascal occasionally.

About half way home I heard something (or someone) galloping towards us from behind. She carried something HUGE in her mouth and her overly proud expression was visible from distance.

This time no legs or partial carcasses. Neither the driftwood, camouflaged as a leg bone to confuse us. This time it was something much, much bigger. And heavier. And more expensive in the value that humans understand. It was a mega-huge rawhide bone!!!

Yup, the one you get ONLY in a pet shop. The largest XXL size available. Expensive. And most definitely belonging to another dog!!! Which, given our geographical location with population of 5 (humans) and 60+ dogs can be explained only one way. The little thief stole it from one of the summer cabins where people come spend their holidays with their city dogs and their expensive pet shop toys and rawhide bones.

OMG, I have always raised my (four legged - I don´t have any other) kids to be honest, and truthful, and nice to each other, to play nice and share toys and not steal each other´s food and dead birds and rats, pieces of wood, old poop and other toys. What went wrong in my education program that one of the kids turned out to be a thief?! Aaaah, the kids today. The society is all wrong....

This morning I went ahead and ordered all the bestselling books on dog parenting, clicker training and ethology, written by world´s most successful behaviorists and trainers. Hope they will help to find out what did I do wrong. 

At least one thing tells me I did not fail completely as dog mom - Mouse did not fight over the bone with neither Nugget nor Krtek. In fact, she even let me catch her and put her on the leash, and she walked with her buddies side by side, without even growling. There is hope that not all is lost, after all...! :)

P.S. My sincere apologies to the dog who lost his rawhide bone yesterday. I am deeply sorry. If I knew where you live, I would send Mouse to personally return it to you, with an apology and invitation for dinner.




Mouse was EXTREMELY proud of her hunt!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wow! That is a HUGE bone!