step #693 of Infinite Patience

This morning we were eating our Quinoa while watching the Brown Towhee with her big fat spotted baby on the lawn, in the hedge, and at the feeder.  That baby bird is a bottomless pit. All of us were transfixed, even Meat Pie and Luna, who were watching out the screen door.

Luna was sitting closest of course, she being the closer-than-close dog.  Wayne noticed how when she sits, her butt does not touch the floor, and said something to that effect.  I noticed that she was beginning to twitch.  Not a good sign.  No, not at all.  I made the "Ah-ah!" sound, which usually means, "Stop that now!" and she started, and reared up and banged the screen door at the handle and it slammed open and Wayne yelled, and she lit in the middle of the lawn and stopped!  Opportunist Meat Pie, of course took this moment to slip right out, whaahoooo!

Luna took a quick circle, kind of like the Lipizzaner stallions that we saw Wednesday evening at the Fairgrounds, in the center of the lawn.  When she looked at me I said, "Good Girl!  Come!" which in some strange way is supposed to tell her, "Look!  I am Patient this morning, and not dog-homicidal!" so then she would come to me, right?  Oh beans.  I just can still see her, whirling like a dervish, hitting the grass finally on all fours, and then to my amazement, she bolted straight into the hedge!  She flailed around in there for what seemed like kind of a long time and came out on the road side.

  

And there at the corner was Bob and Chili.  Oh Goddess, this was starting to go downhill.  Bob swung at her with his newspaper (is he beyond training?) and so she loped off, and I could hear CHICKENS SQUAWKING.  Both Meat Pie and Luna greeted Bob, and I really wish he'd just leaned down and taken one of them by the collar.  And, he has seen them drag me across the lawn as though I was the sled, so he didn't.  Now they were gone.

I went up the chicken's driveway in time to see Luna going pausing at the back gate.  I noted that the chickens were behind us (yay!), and went around the house to the backyard.  There was Wayne, with leashes, and Meat Pie in the chicken coop sniffing for poop and compost, and Luna was over in the flower bed.  I called her, "Come, Luna."  adding a few "Good Girls" for good measure, and stayed calm.  She did not come directly, it took about three times, but she made 3 circles in diminishing circumference to a "sit" at Wayne's feet.  I calmly snapped on her leash, and Wayne fished that Lab out of the compost.

SHE DID NOT CHASE THE CHICKENS!!!

We finished our breakfast.  I kept the leash on Luna and had her stay in "down," which she did very willingly.  Wayne asked me, "Did that scare you?  Were you panicked?"  

Dammit.  My biggest concern was that I was in my nightgown, not prepared to be chasing the blinketyblank dogs all over the neighborhood in plain sight of everybody.  Maybe this whole dog-thing is normalizing.  I just wish I had a picture of Luna diving into the hedge.

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