Monday, October 10, 2011

Timmy's in the well!

The man came home, ate and went to bed.
I spend my days now with Roxy for the most part.
When its raining,
she tends to ignore me and goes to nap in her bed.
Rain is back for my neck of the woods to stay until next spring.

I spend most of my time in the shop.
Out there I can carve and not worry about getting chips on the floor.
I've got a TV and sound system.
Its cozy.
Meanwhile I don't have to worry about being quiet so that the man can sleep.

A few days ago Roxy went outside,
then quickly ran back into the shop to dance around.
I thought she wanted to play.
I was preparing to set down my carving when she began to bark.
She rarely barks unless a person is in the yard.
She insisted that I follow her.

"What Lassie?  Timmy's fallen into the well?"

I followed my crazy dog outside.
No stranger in the yard.
Good.
The problem seemed to be under my house.
She was running frantically from vent to vent to
bark, look at me, bark some more and then snuffle the air through the vent.

Now as I type, 
she is currently snuffling along the place where our deck meets
the house.
She sounds like a freight train.
She keeps looking at me like I should do something.


The day after the Rotor Rooter Man was here,
Todd came over to show us the hunting map for our new spot.
Roxy followed the guys to Todd's truck for something.
And vanished.
She has never tried to go anywhere...
except for the day when I was hacking my way through the Amazon on the side of the house to get to the access door.
She was closed off from me by a gate to the side yard.

Roxy is quite a jumper.
We knew this, so when she jumped the barrier to the shop,
which is fairly low and showed up in the berries from the other side,
I knew what had happened.
That was the day she became fascinated with the vents.

When she vanished,
I decided to check the berries on that side and found that 
someone had left the access door open.
I was sure she was under the house chasing whatever she thinks is in there.
The man and Todd both tried to find her with a flash light.
No dog.  No other critter.

After that began a search of the neighborhood by cars.
No dog.
I was very worried and upset.
She was gone for hours.
As it turns out, the neighbor kids decided to invite her into their house.
Roxy was kicked out when their mom came home.
She wiggled back into the shop...
and warm, dry and happy despite the rain.

I was very unhappy.
We know that Roxy loves people when she is with us.
What if one of the kids had played too hard?
She is not allowed around children unsupervised.
She can be dangerous with those jaws.
Its our responsibility to keep her from getting into a situation that will cause her or anyone else harm.
Fail!

Right now Missy Moo, as we call her,
is on notice.
Obviously we cannot trust her not to run off,
even though no harm was done and she came right home as soon as she was able.
The man had a serious conversation with the neighbor and their kids.
Not mad at them, but cautioning them not to assume that all dogs are going to stay friendly.
The mom gladly backed him up on that.

I don't know what's up with my wacky dog these days...
her foe under the house and leaving the yard like that.
Who knows what she smells under the house...
but every day now is a "Timmy's in the well!" day.
Once she gets me to go out and look, she is fine.

I just hope its not a repeat of the raccoon issue...
but that's another story.
=:]

18 comments:

  1. Well glad that Missy Moo is back home where she belongs. And we are enjoying the rain as well. Nothing but rain for the last week or so. Good times.

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  2. Mr.Shife- You and me both! That dog is such a huge part of my world. I don't know what I would do without her craziness.
    Rain, rain, rain. Good times indeed!

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  3. I'm glad Missy Moo is back home. We lost one of our cats a month ago and we're still reeling over it.

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  4. Oh you poor thing, I can well imagine just how frantic you were - my Jake is always trying to hitch a ride from visiting vans/cars/trucks - if I turn my back, he'll hop in any open door!

    Let's hope Missy Moo has learned her lesson (ha, as if, eh)?

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  5. Glad she made it back home. I think it was a good idea to caution the kids - you can't be sure whether a dog is safe, and I know you want her home with you.

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  6. there's nothing wrong with roxy. she doing the stuff that dogs do.

    when we got ruby she was a great jumper but after a few years she was too stuffed to jump.

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  7. The last dog I had was kind of high maintenance. Not a whole lotta fun. Hope roxy's not becoming that way. It's good that she's kind curious. The sign of a smart dog.

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  8. Hope there's nothing hideous under the house! Or, if there was, your good pooch scared it away!

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  9. Cube- I'm so sorry about your cat! I'd be reeling too. So far Missy Moo is behaving, but we're on top of her now. I hope there isn't a repeat or we will have to go the route of an invisible fence set up.

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  10. Shrinky- Our Missy Moo does that too! She loves to go for car rides and she loves people.

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  11. secret agent woman- Absolutely! I learned the strange dog lesson pretty young when I tried to pet a happy looking dog with wagging tail and it snapped at me. The thing about Pits is that everyone thinks they are vicious to the point of wanting to outlaw them. I don't want to lose my dog to being put down.

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  12. Suldog- We have racoons and opossums here, not to mention stray cats in the area. I don't want whatever it is to die under there. Ick!

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  13. We know a very nice family who lives near where we walk our dogs. The mom will pet our dogs (A huge female German Shepherd and a medium female Doberman), but when Mr. Cube walks my sister's female Pitt, she refuses to have anything to do with her. I hate that such sweet dogs get such a bad reputation, but it's out there.

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  14. Cube-
    It is an unfortunate fact that a Pitt can do great damage because of the strength in their jaws. Roxy chews on fire wood to keep hers strong.

    But I have to admit that the worst dog bite I have ever personally seen was from a normally gentle basset hound! There was a female dog in heat, he got out and my mom tried to stop him. Yep, our own dog.

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  15. The scariest set of choppers I've seen are my Doberman's. I don't know if it's because of her slender snout, but when she bares her teeth, it's scarier than when the German Shepherd does it and she's almost twice her weight.

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  16. My sister got bit on the face by a big husky when we were little. Yikes! Fortunately we were pretty young, so she didn't scar. Still...

    There was a big friendly husky in the neighborhood known as "Lucky." We were at a playground and she ran over and gave this husky a huge hug.

    It turned out to be the evil twin "Unlucky."

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  17. I'm never comfortable around babies or children around dogs. They need adult supervision.

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  18. yikes, that is a little scary about the neighbor kids. glad it worked out and the man and the mo agreed on the issue. as for the message....well, my cousins dog may have saved my aunt's life this week. she is diabetic and all her meds were messed up. the dog woke my cousin up whining and liking her hand until she went to check on my aunt who needed to be rushed to the hospital.

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