Louie and Penney run the front yard. They sleep in the garage because they will try to kill all the other dogs if they somehow get into population. By their own nasty attitudes, they're forced to be kept alone together. They have the front yard where they can monitor horses and tractors and trucks and normal people flowing by on the road out front. It's also understood that Louie and Penney are the post-sacrificial dogs who clean up any bird brain chickens who fly over the fence from the free range area.
In the morning Ms. Donna lets Louie and Penney out of the garage into the front yard. I normally do that but I haven't been normal lately. So as soon as Ms. Donna lets them off the leash, they're running around, nose to the ground, inspecting whatever might have crossed their kingdom overnight. One thing they look for right away is those dang-blasted crappy little squirrels.
Squirrels are maddening. They tease the dogs. They get up into the hickory trees (we have a bunch of them) and they throw hickory nuts at them. That's O.K. since all the dogs love hickory nuts but they also love to bark at squirrels. Sometimes they'll bark all day at squirrels if they're not barking at horses or bulls or other country stuff. The squirrels though, are the constant bane of those poor doglings, Often the squirrels get down the tree just above the line where the dogs can jump up and get them. The poor dogs go crazy and Ms. Donna gets noisy trying to get them all to shut up.
Sometimes the dogs will actually get a squirrel. Penney is the one who ends up with it but I think that's only because she's bigger than Louie. Penney is a bird dog and Louie is handicapped. He's a corgi. He's not really handicapped but you'd think so when you see the two together. He's long and short with the huge ears - not normal corgi ears but huge flappy ones. He's a wonderful dog but he's very limited by his shortness. I think he's a better hunter than Penney and I've always thought he is the one who gets the squirrels then Penney steals them.
Well, here's what happened this morning as told to me by Ms. Donna.
She let the dogs out. They were inspecting the yard as usual. Louie surprised a hapless squirrel and grabbed it. Now Louie, being a corgi, is not a whole log bigger than a squirrel but he's solid muscle and absolutely and totally able to control any old squirrel. Ms. Donna loves animals and she has that Bambi syndrome. You know, she roots for the worm when the chicken is chasing it - stuff like that. So when she saw them with a squirrel she looked away in order to avoid seeing the inevitable. She said that she did see Louie in possession of the luckless creature and Penney was running around the perimeter, trying her best to get into the fray. So Donna turned away. Then she heard a squealing, a yelping, a dog in distress. She turned back around and found Penney still running around a wrestling match between Louie and the squirrel but poor Louie was crying in fear and pain. The squirrel was giving Louie the old What For. I don't know if Louie couldn't let go of the squirrel or if the squirrel wasn't releasing Louie. But Ms. Donna was pretty sure that the squirrel was making the dog regret the grab. It was apparently a terrible wrestling match and Louie wasn't winning.
I don't know if the squirrel let Louie go or if Louie finally broke away or what but the tussle ended with Penney in possession of a recently dead squirrel and poor old Louie was off in the corner licking his wounds.
Now Penney will keep the carcass for days until I can trick her away from it to throw it away.
Poor Louie.
Uh, poor squirrel.
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