It isn’t all that cold outside, the weather widget on my computer says it is 50 F. It is grey, damp and cloudy. The clouds are hanging low over the mountains to the North and there’s no sunshine that I can see. The sun was hitting the hills to the North for a while around 10 am. I don’t mind this cooler weather, I just mind the dampness of it. I like the cool crisp days with the sun shining a lot more.
Who wants some stories about Bacca? Well here are two:
Last Saturday we went to the Farmer’s Market and bought some bones for Bacca. $6 worth (2 medium sized ones and one HUGE hip socket) to be exact. Bacca LOVES these bones and will work on them for hours on end. So we brought the bones home for him and I gave him one in the yard. It was sunny, lovely weather and perfect for him to bask in the sunshine while chomping away. He probably worked on the one bone for about 3 hours. He didn’t ask to come inside, didn’t seem bothered by anyone walking past the yard, etc. Perfectly happy dog. Finally he got most of the meat off and he dropped the bone in one of the raised beds in the yard. I picked it up and hosed the dirt off of it as 1. He shouldn’t get into the habit of thinking flower beds = bone storage and 2. That bone was nasty lookin’
After the bone was clean he picked it up and ran around the yard with it and after I went back on the deck to read he decided to re-dirt-ify it. He went over to a different flower bed and rolled the bone around in the dirt with his nose. He didn’t dig, he just shoved the bone around in the dirt. I’m pretty sure he never realized I was watching him. After that he picked the bone up and carried it off to some unknown location. This was too good a story to pass up so I ran inside to tell Grant. We both thought it was pretty hilarious. Bacca might have made the connection to “dirty bone = fewer flies” or something along those lines.
By the time I got outside again Bacca had brought the bone up and placed it next to the chair I had been in while reading. Thanks for the present buddy, but you can keep it. I told him to pick it up and go play, so he trotted off all happy as can be and dropped the bone somewhere in the yard.
Yesterday (Wednesday) Bacca was out in the yard again working on bone #2 and possibly bone #1 as well. I saw him chewing away happily while his new friend watched with definite interest. About 4 ft away from him was a HUGE magpie. Bacca would drop some bits of meat from the bone and then get up and move a bit and the bird would hop over and eat the scraps, then wait again for more scraps. I only saw Bacca move twice, so I have no idea how long this went on. The bird wasn’t making any sound or demanding attention. . . perhaps they’d already worked out a relationship before I saw this. Grant said that today there was a magpie on the deck railing and Bacca would play with this bone/toy/whatever and then go sniff at the bird and then go back to what he was doing. The bird just watched and hung out. Interspecies friends, it happens. . .
Thanks Bacca for making us realize, in yet another way, that you really are a smart dog and friendly.
Now if only he’d stop with the, “I must guard Grant, he needs my protection!” German Shepherds, you’re never done training them, and they’re never done pushing your buttons.
