Doin' What Comes Naturally

Daisy is sulking. Usually, she sleeps curled up next to me; last night, however, I actually got a good night's sleep, but didn't know why. After I tracked her down, I realized that Daisy slept in the guest room. She rearranged the afghan to make herself a little nest, curled up, and spent the night sulking, a definite sign that she's still upset with me for what I did yesterday.

While I was outside doing a bit of yardwork, I noticed a steady stream of water coming from a pipe next to the house. I called B, who came over to see what was causing the water stream, and it turned out to be a split pressure guage. He fixed it, we played with the dogs, B noticed that birds had made a nest in the eves, and all was well with the world.

A couple of hours later, Daisy sneaked into the house quietly, not her usual flying object approach. When I turned my head to greet her, I noticed that she was carrying a dead bird between her teeth, head down, and steadily moving toward my living room carpet.

"Oh, no! That is not going to happen! Daisy! Drop the bird!"

Sure, that was effective. Daisy planted her front paws, lowered her head even more, and started that low, intense growl that clearly sends the message: step away from my bird. It's mine.

I shooed her outside, but she was determined to keep the bird. I limped along behind her all the way around the house, until I cornered her at the front gate, where we had been working on the broken water line. I was able to fling the bird over the fence into the front yard using a stick, but boy, was Daisy upset. She started leaping straight up, trying to get over the fence, and I actually thought she was going to make it!

After limping all the way back into the house, I went out front to bag the bird and saw that B had left half his tools from the pipe repair, which made the whole bird incident a bit better because had I not gone to retrieve the dead bird, I would not have seen B's tools. And, after depositing her kill in the garbage can, I petted Daisy and told her what a good girl she was, yada yada yada. Made me feel better, but she's still pissed.

Daisy was just doing what her natural instinct tells her to do, but I took away her prize for doing well. It's not easy to hunt down and kill birds, but Mia takes out a pigeon about once a month, and now Daisy is demonstrating that she, too, can provide for her master. As much as I'd love to allow both of the dogs to play with their kills, it isn't going to happen on my watch or in my living room.

So, Daisy is sleeping in the other room, clearly sulking. She'll get over it the next time I haul out the bag of chicken-flavored doggie treats, but every female deserves a good sulk now and then, so I'll wait her out.