Category: pets

My dogs have it pretty good. Since I work from home, they are seldom ever home alone.

I do work, though. Which means there are times when the dogs get bored because there may be long periods when I am too busy to do much for them, like take them outside, play with them or otherwise entertain them.

Today was one of those times. I spent a lot of time on scheduled phone calls. So the girls felt neglected. I’m not just personifying here, I know they felt neglected. I have proof.

When Belle is bored, she empties the toy basket. I took this picture right before lunch. It cracks me up when Belle does this.

If you look closely, and count, you’ll see eight toys scattered about. She’s not destructive or anything. She just pulls her toys out and leaves them laying around the house.

So, why isn’t Belle in this picture? Because she was “busy” laying outside. Since I’d finally left my office long enough to open the sliding door for her, I guess she figured she’d take advantage of it.

I don’t blame her. It was a nice day. I would have joined her if I didn’t have more phone calls to make.

Take note of the weird way she’s laying. She’d just done about 73 laps of the yard on her special track.

Before we decided to adopt our youngest dog, Belle (who we’d learned of on the American Brittany Rescue Web site), we considered changing her name. Neither of us were crazy about “Belle.”

Until I met her. Once I’d seen her in person, I knew the name just fit.

She’s a pretty little Belle, that’s for sure. What we weren’t convinced of until now was whether or not she is Southern. Belle sounds like a Southern name, but she was living in New Jersey when we met her.

Now that we know she’s a NASCAR fan, we know she has to be Southern.

How do we know she’s a NASCAR fan? She’s building her own, scale-model track in our backyard.

Let me back up a bit and explain. Here’s the view of the yard you get when you look out the sliding glass doors off the kitchen. Whenever Belle goes outside, she runs to the left of the birdbath, to the right of the rabbit as she vaults over the wall, through the woods and around the left side of the shed, around the right side of the shed, and along the fence. She takes the same path, at top speed, just about every time.

Here you can see Belle as she runs along the fence.

So where’s Belle’s NASCAR track? In the back corner of the yard, behind the shed. You can see a bit of the track here.

In this picture, you can see the banked turn.

This angle affords a slightly better view. Like I said, she runs the same path at top speed almost every time we let her outside.

She asked if she could borrow some of Eric’s old Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars to scatter around the track. For added “flavor.” But they’re pretty small. I was afraid she, or Meg (most likely) would swallow one.

So she just has to keep using her imagination. She’s got the race car sounds perfected (you should hear her cute little growl!). And she’s got the speed. What she doesn’t seem to realize is that she’s running backwards. Apparently she never noticed that NASCAR races are run in a counterclockwise direction.

We’re not going to tell her. Why spoil her fun?

Faithful readers know all about Belle by now. Our cute little princess of a dog that is super sweet. And cuddly. And charming. And really very special. She’s just a neat little dog.

And boy is she ever fast. She loves nothing more than running around the yard, playing with Meg and chasing critters.

She spends most of her day laying at the kitchen door, watching the many birds and squirrels that frequent our yard. She sits, waiting patiently, watching. She lives for the moment when I emerge from what has started to feel like my cave of hibernation (aka “office”) and open the door for her. That’s when the fun really begins. When all the little critters scatter in fear as Belle flies around the yard.

Today, something different happened.

Today our little princess caught a squirrel.

I’ll warn you now, the squirrel did not survive the encounter. In this picture, it is actually still alive. Barely.

And when Meg went to investigate, it grabbed her. She yelped. I was laughing hysterically, of course, and didn’t manage to capture that particular Kodak moment.

Belle promptly grabbed the squirrel and shook the rest of the life out of it.

She was quite proud of her squirrel. She was prancing all around the yard, head held high. It was pretty funny. Until I realized, that is, that I was going to have to get the thing away from her.

She was really prancing. Just look at her.

I called Hubby, gave him the scoop. I was thinking he might have some ideas on what to do.

First, he said, “Don’t let her take it in the house.”

He followed that bit of wisdom with, “You are taking pictures, right?”

I’m sure glad I called him.

Lucky for me, I do have a brain. Sometimes I even use it. I just grabbed a plastic grocery bag, grabbed Belle, and managed to get the bag around the squirrel.

That’s when things got a bit gross. She didn’t want to let it go. So I had to really grip the thing to make her let it go.

Ew, ew, ew!

There was a bag around it. But still.

She was not happy about giving up her new toy. And I was stuck with a dead squirrel in a grocery bag. What to do? Set it aside until later, of course.

The top of the gas grill seemed like a safe spot.

Apparently Belle has a brain, too. And a nose.

Turns out that wasn’t such a great spot after all.

Are you thinking, “At least the grill wasn’t on?”

Unfortunately, it was. I’d used it to cook dinner the night before and had forgotten to turn it off.

At least the squirrel wasn’t all cold and stiff when I went and retrieved him half an hour later. That’s the bright side.

I’m still left with a dead squirrel in a grocery bag, though.

Know any good recipes for squirrel? No hurry. He’s safely ensconced in the freezer for now. Just let me know when you have found a good recipe or two.