Puppy versus Nature

Poor puppy is confined to the garden while she recovers from her little op to prevent unexpected population explosions. Her Labrador instincts are telling her to roam as far as the horizon and chase two categories of things. Anything that moves and anything that doesn’t. As you can imaging, she is not taking confinement well. Her horizon has shrunk to the size of our back garden. She seems to be taking her frustrations out on her fellow creatures.

Here is her week so far –

• capture and eat a buff-tailed bumblebee. Fortunately I caught her before the bumblebee met with a slobbery end. I wasn’t so quick when we were on holiday. You would think she would have learned her lesson, following a sting to the lip and the resulting swelling.

• Capture and eat a fully grown hedgehog. I needed my industrial strength gardening gloves to deal with this one! Hedgehog is fine. As Puppy wouldn’t give up her grip on the poor hedgehog, minding its own business, she was treated to the full, prickly sphere defence. Oddly enough, she dropped it!

• Last night she managed to locate and fetch a common toad (UK species). This find she was not so keen to drop. Her usual treats failed to entice her back. She was on a mission. As she pelted round the garden at top speed, she changed direction unexpectedly and dashed into the lounge, dropping poor toad in her haste to acquire cheese (my last resort). Toad was rescued and return to his damp habitat while I check puppy for damage. Other than waterfall-style drooling she seemed fine. Reading up on other dogs who have been in similar situations, it seems that some dogs actively seek out toads, licking them to get high on the toxin.

• Today’s targets are flies, or, as puppy views them, sky-treats! She tracks their aerial acrobatics, patiently waits, picks her moment and pounces. If she catches one, she’ll play with it until it resembles nothing more than a dark splat.

I hope, for the sake of my garden wildlife, she gets the all clear from the vet as soon as possible.

Thanks to Linda for her Friday prompts

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS July 8/17

Here are the rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The’,” or simply a single word to get your started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.

8. Have fun!