<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal 'Lucida Grande'; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0F0410">Part I</font></span></font></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal 'Lucida Grande'; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0F0410"><br></font></span></font></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal 'Lucida Grande'; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0F0410">**Stayed with Friends**</font></span></font></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal 'Lucida Grande'; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0F0410">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?"</font></span></font></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal 'Lucida Grande'; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0F0410"><br></font></span></font></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal 'Lucida Grande'; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0F0410"><br></font></span></font></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal 'Lucida Grande'; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0F0410">**Got Sick Twice**</font></span></font></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal 'Lucida Grande'; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0F0410">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). </font></span></font></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal 'Lucida Grande'; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0F0410"><br></font></span></font></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal 'Lucida Grande'; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0F0410">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.</font></span></font></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal 'Lucida Grande'; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0F0410"><br></font></span></font></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal 'Lucida Grande'; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0F0410"><br></font></span></font></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0F0410" face="Arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal; ">**Found a New Game to Play**</span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0F0410" face="Arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal; ">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.</span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0F0410" face="Arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal; "><br></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0F0410" face="Arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal; ">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.</span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0F0410" face="Arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal; "><br></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0F0410" face="Arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal; ">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.</span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0F0410" face="Arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal; "><br></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0F0410" face="Arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal; ">A few days later </span></font><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal; color: rgb(15, 4, 16); font-family: Arial; ">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.</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0F0410" face="Arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal; "><br></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0F0410" face="Arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; ">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.</span></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0F0410" face="Arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; "><br></span></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0F0410" face="Arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; ">To be continued, probably tomorrow.....</span></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0F0410" face="Arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; "><br></span></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0F0410" face="Arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; ">Elizabeth</span></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0F0410" face="Arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; "><br></span></span></font></div>
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