[Dailydrool] What Our Elsinore Did on Her Summer Vacation: A Report in Several Parts

[Elizabeth Lindsey]

Part I

**Stayed with Friends**
We went away for a week to a timeshare that doesn't allow dogs (but  
welcomes with open arms and no damage deposit all children, go  
figure), so Elsinore and young Charlie went to stay with our friend  
Jennifer in her brand-new house. It was finished this spring, and  
though it has a dinky yard in comparison to the yard at her old  
house, it has wall-to-wall carpet with extra-thick padding  
underneath. All the dogs think its marvelous. It's like having the  
whole house be one big dog bed. My hounds came home asking me why we  
can't have wall-to-wall carpet. The day Elsinore started throwing up,  
I was able tell her, "This is why we don't have wall-to-wall  
carpeting, okay?"


**Got Sick Twice**
In May and then again in August Elsinore got sick with some sort of  
stomach bug. Or maybe it was something she ate. The neighborhood's  
feral cat population has shot up again, and they look at my garden as  
a luxury toilet and Elsinore looks at their poops as gourmet treats.  
It's also been so hot here this summer (109! degrees in June) that  
birds were literally dropping dead out of the trees (see the next  
item on Elsinore's report).

Both times, Elsinore refused breakfast (always a bad sign), looking  
as if the very sight of food nauseated her. She wouldn't come inside  
either, choosing to self-segregate in a far corner of the backyard.  
And she threw up too much for my comfort as well as hers. Of course  
my first thought was bloat, so I read through all my information on  
that and was relieved that Elsinore didn't fit the profile in any  
way. But I still took her to the vet first thing the next morning  
both times, and both times the vet couldn't find anything wrong. She  
gave Elsinore some antinausea pills, and Elsinore was back to herself  
a few days later.


**Found a New Game to Play**
It's called "Survival of the Fittest." To play it you need to have a  
backyard where you aren't on a leash (so it's harder for humans to  
catch you) and some baby birds. It's like Solitaire in that you don't  
play it with a partner.

The first time Elsinore played this game, I heard a high-pitched  
screech and looked out the window to see her with something in her  
mouth. I raced out and was horrified to find it was a small bird.  
Even worse, when Elsinore saw me coming, she tried to swallow the  
little bird whole, still alive and fighting. It took some doing,  
because she wasn't interested in playing the "Trading Post" game with  
me, but eventually I was able to get the bird out of her mouth and  
relocate it to the other side of the dogs' fence.

That night Elsinore found and killed that baby bird, which had  
stupidly fluttered back into dangerous territory. I heard it screech,  
and when I raced out to save the day, Elsinore got a much firmer bite  
on the bird, and it died. Then she trotted up the dog ramp with its  
little limp corpse in her mouth as if she thought I was actually  
going to let her into the house so she could tear it apart on the  
good throw rug? Yeah, right. Think again, hound dog.

A few days later I heard another squawk, raced out to the backyard,  
and was again too late. This time Elsinore was a little better about  
not locking her jaws as tight, so it wasn't as hard to get the bird  
out of her mouth. I never could figure out where exactly these birds  
were coming from, but they looked as if they were from the same nest.  
While I was hoping they were the only two in that hatching, Elsinore  
hoped they came from a large family, all with very poor flying  
skills. She wound up spending quite a lot of time patrolling the yard  
this summer, looking for more baby birds to slaughter.

The night after her second murder, our walk with the hounds took us  
to the park two blocks away where the Nashville Symphony Orchestra  
was giving a free concert. We sat down near the back of the crowd,  
and the next thing we knew, people on either side of us were inviting  
Elsinore and young Charlie onto their blankets for cuddles. Our  
hounds are very happy to cuddle up close with perfect strangers. At  
one point, Charlie was flat on his back soliciting (and getting)  
belly rubs from people he'd never met before. When one of the women  
started fondling Elsinore's ears, I thought, "What if she knew that  
Elsinore's a Baby Bird KILLER. Would she still think Elsinore's such  
a sweet dog then?" I suppose the moral of this story is, be careful  
about patting dogs you don't know because that dog sucking up to you  
and looking as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth may secretly be a  
cold-blooded avian murderer.

To be continued, probably tomorrow.....

Elizabeth

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