Everyone Likes a Job

At least I think so. And I have found a good job for Nico.

First, you should know that rat terriers were bred to be a poor man's all purpose dog. They were supposed to be excellent family pets, although their tolerance for children is not limitless. They are good at killing small mammals- think rats. And they are supposed to be good at herding.

Nico has shown an amazing patience for family life. He can get a potty mouth when he feels he is being handled too much, but he has not offered to bite anyone in retaliation. He DOES nip hands when he's excited, but never with the intention to hurt. He mostly wants to sit in a lap when he's inside, so much so that one could think he's a couch potato. However, if anyone is going outside, he will beat them through the door and follow them wherever they are going. He is the perfect companion dog.

As for killing small mammals, I believe I've reported before that he takes care of any moles that happen into our yard. The cats tend to kill the mice and shrews. Fortunately, I have no idea if he would kill a rat, but I like to think he would.

I have seen many signs that he is willing to herd, but it has often been a frustration rather than a help. He gets so excited when we're moving chickens around that he will run them every which way. I know if I could train him, I could teach him to drive the chickens the direction I want. With the cows, he has been a little help. The cows are not afraid of him, but if he darts in at just the right moment, he can push them down a lane they had been balky to move along.

Last summer, we realized that he is much better than we are at chasing the chickens out of the barn-like structure where we store hay. I worried sometimes that he might try to get a mouthful of chicken, but he never did. And the more often he is called on to do the task and given a command to stop doing it, the calmer he gets executing the herding of chickens. With the thaw, the chickens are now ranging over the entire property. We want this for the most part. However, I do not want them in the yard or in any of the gardens. The flex-net we're using around the garden was pushed down in a couple of places and I could not put it back up until the ground thawed.

Enter Nico.

He is quite smart and seems pretty able to figure out what we mean when we say, "Get the chickens out of the garden!" Then, he's so delighted with himself. Also, the more he often chases the chickens out of the yard, the less likely the chickens are to keep coming in the yard, as they have many other places to go. Interestingly, the result is not that Nico then chases the chickens every time he sees them; he really seems to grok that he is only to chase them when we say so. He seems quite pleased to be called on for this job, and a working dog is less likely to give you other trouble.

Skunk!

One evening maybe two months ago, Jason and I saw a skunk crossing the pasture. It was just about dark, and we might not have seen him if not for that glowing white stripe. Still, it was no big deal because he acted the way skunks are supposed to; he ambled the other way. And we acted like we were supposed to- we locked up the chickens and skedaddled!

We have seen him a couple more times- usually first thing in the morning, right before the sun is up. He has not caused any trouble, and I kind of like skunks. Yes, yes, of course, they can stink, but if you leave them alone, they just go about their business. They're not like raccoons or any weasel cousins. They will kill a chicken, but they mostly don't kill grown ones.. They will steal eggs, but they don't climb for them. I think they can dig in the garden, but I haven't seen any evidence of it. And, if you keep bees, they'll stand right by the little bee door and eat the bees just as fast as the bees will fly out.

Mostly, our skunk seems to keep house for us by cleaning up spilled chicken food or if the children have left something like melon rind in the yard it will disappear by morning. He has been a pretty good neighbor, and we have given him wide berth.

Until tonight...

My friend and I were enjoying a bit of knitting and a brownie. Jason was gone (as always seems to happen when a skunk causes trouble). It had gotten dark and she was saying she should start home soon because she cycled here. Suddenly, the room was awash in that special skunk smell that isn't exactly bad- it's just too strong and too pungent and too everything. Nico was at my feet, so I knew Elmer had once again been skunked.

Now, he's locked in the garage. I'll deal with him in the morning and we'll be a bit more careful about letting him out in the evening. I am thinking hopefully that the smell that wafted in the windows will dissipate before I turn in for the night. Oh! to be so lucky!

Dogs and Children

What if the big secret to having dogs and children you enjoy is simply to spend enough time with them that you each develop habits that work well together? What if that's also the secret of a good marriage or lasting friendship?

Nicodemus

Nico for short. Although with his strong preference for the hearth or even under the stove, Cinderella might have been more appropriate.

The Path to the Three Pound Cleaver

We switched Astryd to a raw diet many years ago. When she was a wee puppy, she ate fairly normal kibble, but she got a rash. Then she ate kind of expensive kibble and the rash improved but didn't go away. Then, her vegan owners cooked dog food for her for two or three years; that was weird. It was this vegetable/beef melange that smelled pretty darn good, even to a vegan. We DID try one time to substitute soy protein for the beef, but the extremely smelly results brought beef right back into her diet. When I got pregnant, we discovered a kibble that had almost no grain in it, and she ate that- rash free- until we moved to Vermont and could no longer afford that really expensive dog food.

What were we to do? Maybe you did not know Astryd, but she was a beautiful, sleek boxer, and bumpy skin was just unacceptable on such a beautiful dog. A new friend in Vermont told us about the raw food diet, and after having cooked for her for some years, it wasn't much of a jump to switch to a vegetable rich diet that consisted primarily of raw chicken carcasses (the part left after they cut off the bits you buy at the store). It was so easy and fairly cheap; I scraped whatever was left from our meals into her bowl, with a few exceptions, and gave her a chicken carcass once a day.  She was very happy and her coat was lovely.

However, on a long enough time line... She still died, despite her excellent diet.

Elmer, our current dog, has eaten the same way since he came to live with us. So far, so good. He is not quite the glutton Astryd was; she would eat anything, salad, fruit, bread crumbs, bits of rice off the floor. Elmer is not that interested in food unless it is meat or something rotting in the compost pile. I gave up deliberately supplementing his meat with any vegetables because he insisted on some nasty foraging. He's healthy; I guess it's working well enough.

Then came the cats.

If you think about the size of a cat's mouth, you can immediately see that most parts of a chicken are going to be a problem. They can very handily eat small rodents, easily up to the size of a chipmunk. But think of the chipmunk's little backbone and then think of the hulking backbone of a chicken and you will see there is a problem. The cats just cannot seem to deal with chicken.

So, we bought a three pound cleaver. It's an awesome tool, frightening in its heft and efficiency. The nightly chore of chopping some part of a chicken carcass into cat food is one Jason and I both avoid. The blood always splatters around which is surprising when you consider how little blood there is in a carcass. There is always the tingle of fear that you won't keep your fingers well out of the way and the certainty that a three pound cleaver could go swiftly through the bone of your index finger. There is the hacking and hacking necessary to reduce the carcass into cat food. It's a loud, messy process, but we find ourselves doing it.

We find we cannot stand to give kibble to the animals when we know how much garbage goes into it. We find we cannot support an evil meat industry even to feed the animals. We find that we just cannot convince ourselves that cats need corn or soy in any form. So, we try to make friends with the cleaver, and then wipe up the mess, and get on with our lives.