More Sacrifices to the Nature Gods

This burnout is real, friends, and anything I say is mindless complaining to folks who can't help. As usual, I have to resort to my backup: Animals!

Big Dog caught two squirrels this month. The first we thought was a fluke. He's never been fast enough to catch a squirrel. Then Lemur saw him catch the second. Friends, my Husky-Beagle is smarter than he is fast. (That's not exactly fair - Little Dog is freaky-fast. Big Dog can keep up, but then he gets lazy.) Squirrels are flighty on a good day and slow in the winter. A distracted and slow squirrel in my yard is a dead squirrel.

The trick to keeping Big Dog from eating the poor dead squirrel is constant chasing. Little Dog would only help him tear it to pieces, so we had to get him back inside. Then, the long and tiring chase ensued.

Lemur gave up after a couple of rounds and told me I'd better get my dog so he doesn't get parasites (I hadn't joined the chase yet because, despite Lemur already being home from work, I was still working at the day job...imagine that). At first, Big Dog wouldn't let me anywhere near him. He'd take off running for the other side of our football-field-sized yard with purpose. I'd close in again, and he'd head back to his starting point between a tree and the fence, his Home Base. Around and around we went. I am not a sprinter. My thighs hurt, friends. Worse, my feet hurt because my snow boots have zero support and there's a good six inches of snow still on the ground.

Finally, with the help of an extra-special bone-shaped chicken treat and a leash, I wore him down enough to grab him, leash him, and coax him away from the squirrel, but not before he tried to crunch it and swallow it whole. This squirrel was way too fat for that, thank the nature gods, so he only succeeded in making me want to puke. Once he dropped the squirrel, Lemur scooped it up and tossed it over the fence.

Now that we have our fence, the animals come to us instead of the other way around. The nature gods must be appeased.