Doggie Sitting

During the Thanksgiving holiday we have welcome again in our home Gorgeous, the brindle dog we looked after last year for a nice month or so. Gorgeous is approximately the same age as Oakley and as Oakley she's of the "Heinz 57 sauce" breed... a.k.a. a pure mutt. The best kind of domesticated wolf! Gorgeous and Oakley seem to like each other, they eat, play, eat, sleep, eat, snooze, eat, run around, eat, beg for human food, eat, play, and -- almost forgot -- eat together nicely. At first there is always a little jealousy on the part of Oakley, but it last less than 24-hrs and then it's all good... best partners in crime.

Gorgeous is well behaved like Oakley; she may venture around through the woods and hills, but does not usually strays far and comes right away when called. The other day as i was cleaning up around the sheep quarters in the wooded top pasture (i.e. it will become pasture), i called onto Gorgeous as i usually do when she's not under my eyesight, but this time she did not come back. Then i called again, then again, then again. Then i moved to the barn area and called onto Gorgeous again, then again, and again.... nothing still. Darn dog where could she have possibly gone!?! She's such a good beast... doesn't make sense, back to calling and calling.... nothing. Try howling, then howling more, then again howling... nothing. I almost lost my voice, but gave it another change calling the dog again and again... nothing. Then i gave up. Then right before the vet came by to check up on the sheep (they're all well and healthy) Gorgeous miraculously shows up; it's all good. I see Gorgeous in the distance playing with something, possibly a stick of wood or something like that. But the vet has just arrived and Gorgeous seem to be doing fine. The vet and i go to the sheep and the dogs remain outside the fence doing their own thing. When done with the sheep as the vet and I discuss billing, we both notice that Gorgeous' toy consists of some bone-like object with dangling pieces of meat and tendons -- i noted that we do not have bones kicking around on the homestead and she must have found something around. But looking at the fun Gorgeous was having trashing around bones, tendons, and meat, we couldn't resist and had to go take a look. Sure enough it was a deer leg... or whatever remained of it, which actually was a nice remainder sample with 3 full bones, meat, tendons, skin, hairs, and hoof even. Poor deer... at the very least it was already dead thanks to a hunter as we're in the thick of hunting season. In any case here's a photo taken after Gorgeous had already decimated half of the booty!