[Dailydrool] Saved by the bell

[Val lbrewerzwick]

Today I was out doing errands and had locked the three dogs in the house so that they wouldn’t go on an uninterrupted barking jag while I was out.  When confined to the house, the dogs are still able to go out  into the fresh air but not the yard through a partially open sliding  glass door onto a second story balcony lanai in the back of the house.  (We live on the side of a hill).  when I returned home, all three dogs waggingly greeted me at the door and Mariah presented me with a still alive sizeable pigeon.  I gratefully accepted her gift and placed it out the front of the house by the side at ground level over the fence, hoping I had come home just in time and the poor bird would survive.  There are feathers in every room of our house.  I just checked a few minutes ago and the bird did survive and made its exit. I don ‘t know how Mariah does it.  she must have snuck up on the bird as it temporarily perched on the railing of the balcony and snatched it (or else it flew into a window and dropped stunned onto the balcony).  Mariah gets one about every other week.  And she is in a fenced yard.  Usually the pigeons don’t survive. (Mariah kills them and ten our notabassert Ipo eats them and the only evidence left is a large pile of feathers and the legs left on the lawn.  When a repairman occasionally leaves the gate open, Mariah and Ipo leave as a pair to hunt feral chickens.  Luckily this rarely (but too often) happens.Both Mariah and Ipo lived on their own for awhile sans humans and they both survived.  I am actually somewhat impressed with their survival skills. Our third, basset Mila, would surely starve to death without “the magic food cabinet” in our kitchen.  But then  Mila is smart enough not to leave the yard if the gate happens to be open.  She has some appreciation of her survival skill level.

Val Brewer