We have a patterned glass front door. It blurs visitors; but you can see exactly who they are.
Through this door, every day, a minimum of twice a day, the dog steps for his forest romp.
He stands in the porch, with the wellies and the bicycles, and the ex-tv cabinet which now doubles up as a shoe rack because it seemed a shame to throw it away, and he whines noisily and insistently. When you want to put a lead on him he spins round and round and round, not to be obstructive, but rather because he simply can’t sit still.
And then you open the porch door and you’re off, along the path and through the gate, and out into the great outdoors.
Yesterday morning, I let the dog off the lead almost immediately. Yet he did not do his customary bullet-out-of-a-gun impression. Instead he performed a strange slinky sideways silverfish move which took him into neighbouring invasive rhododendron bushes.
I happen to know it’s the haunt of the local deer.
Deer are experts at reverse psychology. One day at a deer council meeting someone from the forward planning committee must have pointed out that the place humans would be least likely to look for deer would be right next to the main road. And ever since, that is where they have made their home.
So I strode on off the path, ready to break into a run, when no dog appeared.
This happened quite a lot for the next five minutes.
I started calling for him peremptorily, like those sheepdog handlers, and progressed to wheedling. By the end of the five minutes I was hollering furiously and turning beetroot.
After ten minutes the dog put in a brief appearance. And he was delighted, for he had found his favourite thing in the world: something furry and long dead.
And then he saw my dismayed face and he thought: quick, scarper. And he ran back where he had come from.
Some 15 minutes later I was so hoarse, the dog thought that meant I had forgiven him. Miraculously, the furry long dead thing had gone. He trotted happily round with me on my short run, and we repaired to the house, the dog stopping only to pick up his prize on the way.
Curses.
So there I was, horrified, with a lead attached to a dog attached to a long dead piece of what I estimate may have been deer.
Have you ever tried to prize dead deer out a terrier’s jaws? Don’t. It’s unspeakable.
So horrified was I, that I left it where I managed to get him to drop it. I couldn’t go near it. It sat there on the drive, and every time Macaulay returned from walking he would re-clamp his jaws around it and we would play horror-tug-of-war and I would run inside and wash my hands obsessively and if possible shower.
That was yesterday. This evening, Phil came home from work.
The dog stared pointedly and unremittingly at him. Long after my husband had finished the chicken pie he was eating.
“Has the dog been walked this evening?” he ventured.
No, I admitted sheepishly, he hadn’t.
Phil took him out, and they came back. And through the patterned glass was the impressionistic figure of my husband and a dog, stolidly clenching his precious. Phil hadn’t noticed.
“You’re not coming back in,” I said stubbornly. “Not until that dog has jettisoned the dead thing in his mouth.”
I watched Phil, indistinct,come to the same aghast realisation that I had. It was like watching Marcel Marceau.His whole body cringed at the dog’s find. The dog just stood there. I’m not putting it down, his whole being emanated.
Exclamations and bad words later, the thing had been prized from the dog. My husband shot past me shuddering, bound for the cloakroom and the soap. And the dog was all silent reproach.
We had taken his precious.
Kate Shrewsday 
hahaha, so good to see others battle with the dead
Cat owners know all about this
It’s the prizing from determinedly clamped jaws that makes it so grim, Sidey…
Trigger is keen on dead things and the lanes around here abound with dead things. I suppose vegetarians would experience a similar horror in a Texas BBQ pit:)
There’s one magic element which makes these things irresistible to a small dog, Roger: decomposition.
*Shudder*
Perhaps that’s why dogs like slippers so much—they look and feel (if not smell) like furry dead things. The wild child (errr, dog) is still in there.
He is, Jennifer 😀 I like the slipper hypothesis. It might explain why one of Mac’s favourite places is next to the clothes Phil has worn for the day.
Although, best not to think about that too much.
Oh yuk … and if you don’t confiscate it Precious hangs around becoming more and more noisome each day … !
Tough love, I say, lots of tough love and nights out on the porch. But somehow I relent after a few hours, thinking of the snake that came by, or the neighbours’ sleepless night for the whimpering and crocodile tears (Maggie has a repertoire straight from vaudeville) and a bit of a wash around the chops and she’s right back where she wants to be, on the bed, head angelically resting on her own pillow, snoring sonorously while Miss and I look on in astonishment!
I must admit it’s times like these I’ll bet you’re glad you put your foot down about his sleeping arrangements!
Mac has a secret anti-porch weapon, Wanderlust. He barks. And barks. And barks. Until the Council are called and they call us and we let him in.
Oh yes, I see! Maggie, thank goodness, seems to be content with making me feel guilty by the occasional whimper, or cry of alarm … 🙂
Laughing hard here, Kate. Love it. Precious! It so reminds me of Roly And The Pizza of Wandsworth Park but also of a great story told when I was on a Dog List (you get drawn into these things on the internet, I find).
It was a story of a woman who loaded her two dogs into her pick-up and drove off to some scenic spot in America (vague, sorry) for a walk. So the dogs found this elk carcass… and disappeared inside it and absolutely wouldn’t come out. So, after hours waiting, she felt she had no alternative but to haul the horrid thing on to the pick up and take it home slowly, with the dogs still inside! She unloaded it on to her back yard and it was another day before the dogs finally emerged.
Now this may be a total myth and I have summarised it but the way it was told made me hoot with laughter so it was probably worth it whatever the truth!
That is hilarious, and makes me feel a little better, Jan 😀 Thank you!
😀
ugh, deer carcass! Gwynn once found a still-fur-covered deer foreleg half-frozen to a pile of dead leaves – took me a while to realise that the ‘stick’ that had suddenly become his most beloved posession on that walk had once been a leg. *shudder* And nothing like prying a dog’s mouth open and blindly grabbing the thing inside, only to find ones hand full of giant rotten fishhead. Dogs – if the weren’t such adorable characters, they’d never have gotten into our houses.
You’re not wrong, Lexy 😀
Oh dear (or should that be ‘oh deer’). Will someone have the courage to sneak out under cover of darkness and remove Precious to the bin? :O
Hi Elaine! Very good question. When Phil had removed the offending ex-item, he placed in into the bin, never to be picked up by the dog ever ever again 😀
I am laughing and shuddering at the same time, Kate. Jazz once stole the neck from the turkey I was making for Thanksgiving, and she bit me when I tried to take it away. I don’t know how she bit me with the thing still wedged in her mouth, but she did it.
I think they just beam up onto PLanet Dead Thing, Andra, and the whole world just goes away.
Oh, gosh, Kate, we’ve found enough deer remains here on the Cutoff that I am cringing at the thought of this discovery by Macauley. Oh dear!
Our cats used to bring assorted critters to the door, look in with what I am certain were smiles, waiting for me to open the door and congratulate them. Of course, they were never around when a mouse was sited.
I shall never forget one of mine who left a cat on the bottom stair just where we trod, Penny. We can’t be that bright: we kept falling for it. Squelch.
At least my cat only brings his FRESH kill home. Still is nasty and occasionally headless but it’s fresh!
You have hit the nail on the head, Kate! It is the decomposition which makes the whole business attractive to a dog…
Tis times like these that our petless existence seems the better choice.
It sure does, Lou. Thank your lucky stars Macaulay doesn’t live with you!
Oh, Mac…
Goes to show, though, there really is something for everyone.. er… dog.
We all have our niche, I suppose, Cameron.
I just wish Mac’s wasn’t unspeakables.
I am ever so grateful that Annie merely finds something utterly objectionable to roll in, but doesn’t bring it home.
How can you be so unsupportive of your spouse? Letting him go all innocently to his doom like that?
*Hangs head in penitence*
Rightly so!
Please tell me that you were wearing gloves when you were playing tug of war in your attempt to pull that piece of revolting deer carcass out of Macaulay’s jaws. I can only imagine what his breath must have been like afterward.
We have a don’t -go-near-him policy for times like that, Lame. The dog is a four-legged pariah for at least 12 hours after such an incident. I have never managed to make him drink mouthwash, though.
Maybe you can get him to sink his teeth into a mint flavored bone on occasions like this.
There’s a niche for something like that…
Clive Bond has asked me to send you this message about that niche, “Yes, it’s Mac’s mouth, when it reeks of dead deer. Somebody get me a cat-sized gas mask, please!”
Nasty and ghastly. Poor Mac. Poor you. 🙄
I don’t think Mac was too put out, Nancy. He is philosophical about the whole thing. And for us, it’s part and parcel of the revolting world that is Planet Terrier.
Oh my gosh! I am just so sorry! It’s horrifying, really! I have never been through this with a dog, but I’ve definitely been horrified more than once with what the cat brought to give me as a prize. How about an entire litter of opossum babies? I was so upset I cancelled a performance in a piano recital! What a story, Kate!
We will never quite get the wild out of our pets, I suppose, Debra. They share our lives but everyone has their dark side.
eeewww
Mac is so lovely, but somehow he has a dark, doggie, side 😉
You speak the truth, Fiona. The whole business is very Twilight Zone.
You just brought make the memories of my first dog – we would visit my Grandmother’s house which was in the woods and we let the dog frolic for the afternoon. I remember several times pulling a moose or deer limb from his teeth. It was disgusting!
We adore our pets except when they behave like animals 🙂