It’s Hard Being Keela

It all started so innocently…

I watch her.  I have her within my sight almost all day every day.  So many times I see her sitting there, dead still, sometimes for almost an hour, waiting for the rabbit to get close.

I have the attention span of a gnat.  I am so jealous.

I speak of my dog, Keela.  Keela has a VERY strong prey drive.  I think she was less than six months old when I saw her catch her first rabbit.  She ate the entire thing within about ten minutes. Gross, but impressive.

She climbed her first tree a few weeks later while chasing a squirrel.  She fell out of the tree and broke her foot.

Ouch.

That didn’t dissuade her from climbing trees.  More than once (WAY more than once) I’ve looked outside to see what the fuss was about only to see her eight foot up a tree with a seriously freaked out squirrel about two feet over her head.

Oh my.

Like a tiger. I’ll wait here until you get close enough to catch, my little pretty.

Who knew, but squirrels are easier to catch than rabbits.  However, rabbits apparently taste better than squirrels.  So Keela gently, graciously shares the squirrels with me.  Hey lady, look what I brought you.  Aren’t you impressed?  Uh, NOOOOO.  But when I walk in and find a dead squirrel that looks like it’s asleep (no blood, no teeth marks) on my kitchen floor, I must admit my reaction is a mixture of shock and awe.

This time she waited for me outside…PICNIC!

Fences?  In the pursuit of squirrels and rabbits, Keela climbed over our original 4 foot welded wire fence.  We installed a 5 foot welded wire fence.  She climbed that too.  We added extensions and extra fencing until the perimeter of our yard looked like Alcatraz.  Still, up and over she went.  We tore all that out and put up a 6′ wooden picket fence.  Yep, she climbed that as well.  The dog trainer recommended a wire overhang on the top of the 6′ fence.  You guessed it – she got over that too.

When she was over the fence she would run absolutely wild chasing rabbits all over our neighborhood.  For hours.  No treat would persuade her to stop.  No. Treat. Worked.  This would happen in zero degree weather in the winter.  And blazing hot afternoons in the summer.

I would want to wring her neck (figuratively, folks) when she would finally come to me and gobble the big hunk of ham I’d been carting around the neighborhood forever.  But she would look at me with such exhausted joy, such wrung-out elation.  It was like a runner after a marathon.  Man, that was AWESOME, she said.

No rest for the weary. Oh, wait! I’m a dog! I can rest in the cool sand all afternoon. Sweet!

She doesn’t go over the fence anymore, thank goodness.  She hasn’t gotten a rabbit in a while, but not for lack of trying.  The squirrels still show up in the kitchen on a regular basis.  She is nothing if not vigilant.

We just celebrated her “kinda” fourth birthday on May 1st.  The puppy rescue people made an educated guess about her age, so the day is arbitrary.  Twenty-eight years old in people years must agree with her.  Yes, she still gets up every morning and goes to work trying to make the world safe from squirrels and rabbits.  Although now, she takes more time off.

Yesterday it was ALMOST warm and I took my laptop to the backyard and sat in the sun to work.  She stretched out beside me and let a squirrel shriek in a nearby tree.  She looked up at me as if to say, We’ll let that one go, ok?

All love, all the time.

Yeah, Keela, we can let that one go.

(Shared at Clever Chicks Blog Hop, Homestead Barn Hop, Backyard Farming Connection Hop, Down Home Blog Hop and Frugal Days Sustainable Ways, From the Farm Blog Hop and The HomeAcre Hop!)