Bud, a/k/a “The Little Bastard” found the swamp today. I always had the foolish and naive stereotype of the small dog in my mind as a kind of lap dog and couch potato. After all, they are quite small, do not have great stamina and are sensitive to extreme weather.
Bud has altered these notions.
He is sensitive to weather, and does not have the stamina of a border collie, but he thinks of himself as a ferocious tiger and will challenge and pursue every living thing around him – chickens, cats, donkeys, sheep, mice, bugs, chipmunks, geese and birds.
Yesterday, he jumped up in the air and ate a moth. Poor thing, he never knew what ht him. He also loves to eat spiders when he finds them.
I spend half the morning chores shouting at Bud to come back out of the woods, or out of the swamp, or away from the donkey manure pile, or the chickens or the gardens, and especially the manure pile, which he views as his own personal drive-through McDonald’s.
Bud always does come back, he never runs off, small dogs are no fools, they don’t dump a good thing. He usually returns after eating some vile thing that will show up later on the floor or somebody’s lap. He is, in so many ways, a disgusting dog, and I haven’t even gotten to his flatulence, which fills the house with small dog gas (those small intestines).
Sometimes I think we should ship him right back to Carol Johnson in Arkansas, she says he was a couch potato there. But that was before he landed on a farm and got his heartworm fixed. His heart is quite strong these days, even in the heat.
When it rains, Bud wants no part of going outside, and will dump on the bathroom floor if we aren’t vigilant. He is often impervious to training or discipline. At least he has the decency to go there.
In the house, he is generally an angel, except when he is pouncing Fate, stealing her toys, wrestling with her under the dining room table.
Of course we are odd people as he is an dog, and we love him and he loves us. This morning, after I stopped him from humping Minnie the barn cat (he is in love with Suzy, one of the Romney sheep), he suddenly discovered our muddy wet swamp and plunged in, perhaps in pursuit of a rabbit or mouse.
He is yet to catch one.
I started yelling for him to come out of the swamp (just imagine the slime), and he was not responding, so I upped the volume and he suddenly popped up out of the marsh, which is very wet and muddy.
No problem for Bud, he came out covered in black mud and good, and then threw up some vile thing on the grass, it looked to me like a part of a frog.
I think he has added the swamp to his growing list of stops, I call it the Mayhem Trail.
My Aunt & Uncle had a farm, with a Border Collie for the cows and. Boston Terrier as a house pet for my Aunt. When Penny the Boston went outside, she was tied up. I always thought they were worried she’d be hit by a car on the busy road, or otherwise hurt on the farm. Maybe she was being restrained from following her own Mayhem Trail!
Ah, the joys of owning a terrier. Big (my Airedale) or little (Bud), they are experts at finding the most disgusting and vile places to go and things to eat.
Just a thought: I wonder if he’d take a hint if a plastic box of earth appeared in the bathroom on rainy days, strategically placed over his favorite spot in that room. Two of my dogs ignored the cat pans in the house. The third thought of it as a buffet unless I put it in a place she couldn’t get near. My cat pans are kitchen sink size, so much too small for my 40-45# Aussie mix dogs to even consider getting in for an aim, but Bud wouldn’t have that problem.
My Bostons are no dainty things. Mud, slime, goo and any animal offal or dead things get fully explored. Not eaten but thoroughly rolled in. They come running with filthy collars and the smelliest bodies. Ladylike they are not but rain is a total turn off to them. Thank goodness for dog shampoo!