Maggie the exterminator

Maggie is our hunter; no doubt about that.  She has an impressive kill list, and for those with weak stomachs, well, this entry is not for you.


Maggie is extremely obedient, smart, determined, agile, and she eliminates vermin with a vengeance.  I swear she has the biggest canine teeth of our dogs, and she is not a big dog.  More than that, she knows how to use them.  She is the ruling bitch in the house, because she has the weapons and the moxie to use them.  Because she is smart, she has never to my knowledge actually had to use them.  She speaks softly and carries big teeth!

She will go after pack rats (for you city folk out there, these are the hoarders of the animal world, and they are real animals, large rats that like to chew on automobile wiring harnesses among other indigestible things, and that collect things from small tools to trash and carry them to their huge nest mounds.  Their nests are made of sticks, grass, bark and other materials and they can be 3 feet (1 meter) or more high mounds of stuff, with the stolen booty buried deep inside.  We have found screwdrivers, box cutters and children's toys inside a nest, along with plastic bottles and insulated wires.  Most nests are off the ground in the fork of a tree, but some are simply on the ground in a bush or corner of a seldom used shed.  We have had pack rats in the barns, chicken coop and windbreaks.  They are pretty rats, white bellies, large eyes, but very destructive.), opossums, raccoons, regular rodents like mice, rats, voles, moles, shrews and gophers, squirrels, rabbits (they are not rodents, of course), muskrats, the occasional birds (from sparrow to pheasant,as well as an owl once), reptiles (snakes and turtles are her favorites, but she will chase a skink now and then) and as of yesterday, even a woodchuck.

Woodchucks are not too common here in Kansas, but she found one in our shed, buried under a cabinet, and Maggie will not give up, when the hunt is on.

Poor dead chuck

Our arrangement it that she may keep the kill outside, and she keeps her end of the bargain.  Of course guarding the woodchuck is work.  Maggie is too busy to come on walks.  Maggie will only come when the other dogs are not nearby or when I use "the voice".

Maggie with her prize

Oh she is so PROUD

The other dogs have long learned their lesson - don't even try.  They seem to know exactly where the safe distance is.

 Skeeter tries to bribe her with a toy, but no trade.  

  

Fishing

While Decibel gets bored with being marooned in the house, haying has been a bit stressful for her humans.  The weather didn't play nice, and there are always tractors and trucks and trailers around the place, so we have to be careful when we release the hounds.  It cramps my style and makes me crabby.  I can't even go skinny dipping, since it might scare the natives.

Last night out neighbor invited us to fish at his pond, and that was a bit of stress relief.

Harold had bought some fancy lures that I was SURE wouldn't work, but they really did, even I caught a big mouth bass with it, and I haven't caught one of those in ages.  He caught several large ones and a bunch of small ones, and I got my share of sunfish with an old lure I have been using for a decade or so, so it was great fun.

This was the bass he caught on the first cast... phone picture, sorry.

We were visited by a snapping turtle that tried to steal our fish before we could get them out of the water and off the hook (all fish were released), so we decided to get it drunk.  Seriously the turtle was not shy at all, and seemed to like beer poured on it.  It kept coming up and striking at the bottle... one for the road?

Hay is BOOORING

Decibel checking out the bales

Compared to July, August has been only moderately hot, but unusually wet, which is a poor combination for haying.


With so much of the country experiencing drought, we had requests from a neighbor to hay some of the ground that we usually keep as prairie.  Naturally we agreed, which turned out to be a good thing, because while they didn't exactly bring in the hay dry, the neighbor that usually hays for us had worse luck.  After swathing we had a strong wind, which, no kidding blew half of the hay away, and then it poured on the rest of it.  It kept doing that at night, storms, lightening, rain, wind, all of which resulted in little sleep and no hay worth speaking of.

For the dogs haying is terribly boring.  When the big tractors are around, they must be cooped up in the house and yard, and that is no fun at all.  There are new people and best of all 'trucks' (for Ralph any noisy machine is a 'truck'), and being cooped up is just stupid.  Sometimes they even miss out on chores, since we don't know when people come back, so we can't have the dogs out.

Hay maze

Decibel tries to climb into the cab with me

How do you get up there?

This one pulls the rake

This one pulls the baler

This old one is mine, it moves the bales

Harold and I have taken advantage of the cool mornings and gone riding, which really adds insult to injury for Decibel and Maggie.  The girls suffer more of this imprisonment, since they are more active and determined to go hunt and check everything out.  Harold has been riding Sweetpea, with rather better than expected results.  She has not bucked him off, and his neck is not broken.  Actually Sweetpea has managed to walk nicely for Harold, and Molly has only gotten better, if that is even possible.

At least, once the bales are moved off the fields, the short grass promises to be great for racing and hunting.  Maggie and Decibel are looking forward to that.

Turning on the charm

Yesterday Decibel wanted some of Harold's dessert.  Nothing remarkable about that.

What is remarkable is how she can go from ordinary pretty dog to sparklingly stunning beauty whose wishes must be obeyed.

Ready?  Set....

CUTE!

She rounds out her eyes, opens her mouth, lets the pretty pink tongue show just enough to offset the pearly whites, and oozes charm and sweetness.  Then, with agonizing precision and control her paw lifts.  At first, it merely points at the person who could make her life better by sharing.  Then there is gentle contact.  Pretty soon she collects her reward and repeats.  It is a good thing she doesn't gloat.  We are pretty much hers for the taking.






Now you might say, oh, that's just the breed, but look at Ralph:

Hey, you got cookie?

Smiling, cute, but let's compare:

Decibel's high voltage smile outshines Ralph's.

It does amaze me just how well she can do in classes, when she pretends that we are in charge.  It is all prelude to another treat in her mind, I am sure.