Satan's Pony

Doesn't Neko just look the picture of innocence all sleepy in the morning sun? Isn't she sweet? Isn't she just the bestest little pony? Ha! Don't let her fool you for one minute. Neko has been busy devising devious plots and dastardly deeds!

The other day, at around 6:30 when it's still dark, I go to feed the horses. Usually there are two semi-visible silhouettes near the top of the field, eagerly awaiting their slops 'n' grub. This morning, I'm seeing Maggie and I think, "Oh, Neko must be in the barn or lower down in the field".  But as I round the barn, I see Neko and it takes a minute for me to decipher why she looks odd. Then I realize she's on the wrong side of the fence!

She herself seems a tad confused or embarrassed (yes, I'm anthropomorphizing) and follows me through the side gate, docile and hungry. I know now that this is not the first time she has escaped; last week, Bob announced that there were piles of horse poop behind his studio. I said, "Nay; it cannot be our horses. They're both present and accounted for"... which they were. A careful tour of the fence perimeter showed no signs of having been pulled down so we came to the conclusion that someone else's horse must have gotten loose and come to visit Maggie and Neko. But having found her on the wrong side of the fence, I now know better.

Neko's like, "Whaddyou lookin' at?" It still remains quite a mystery how she got herself through the ELECTRIC fence- unscathed- and back inside (last week). I realize poor Neko is certain she's starving to death and must escape from our evil pasture to find sufficient forage, but she really is a Houdini. She had no scrapes, no damage to her person, did not disrupt the fence. The fact that she got herself back in; I just don't know how she did it.

Hopefully, she will be unable to duplicate her recent nightly escapades as I ran out to Home Depot and secured a bundle of fiberglass poles and reinforced the fence line. (Like I really felt like doing this... I was hoping to go for a ride that afternoon.) She came to the bottom of the field and watched me insert the new poles, as I lectured her about her perfidy. I wish she were contrite!

Later that same day, I caught her with her big fat head pushed sideways, between the mesh fence and the hot electric line, bending another section of fence down so as to snack on the other side. Bob and I are in the process of replacing this fence line, as it is old and rusty. But now we're required to double up on the electric line. Ah! The joys of horse ownership!

Liquids and Solids

Yes, I stole the title for this post from a book someone else wrote ages ago, about their dog and (you can guess) the excitement involved in house training. Get it? It's all about liquids and solids. Bob and have had more discussions in the past week about canine bodily functions than most people have in an entire life. I have taken to keeping a note pad, complete with time and location of puppy byproducts. It certainly makes for fascinating reading!
Robin- despite having arrived at our house 100% NOT house trained- is doing remarkably well. She sleeps most of the night and it is me that rouses her at 2:30 or 3:00 to make a little trip outside to eliminate so no surprises happen on the bedroom floor. She is smart and doing a good job.
But she has been most unhappy when we attempt to leave her alone, an unacceptable state to a young dog! Let's face it: her entire thirteen week existence has been in the presence of her mother and litter mates and the other adult dogs at the breeder's house. So she has had zero experience on her own and has protested in all kinds of inventive ways. She sings, she howls, she leaves the above mentioned liquids and solids, obviously signalling her displeasure.
And she has proven to be quite the escape artist! Bob and I barricaded her in the kitchen (with plenty of toys ad blankets and reading material appropriate to her age and interests) but she pushed through a three foot high plywood partition blocked by kitchen chairs with ease. We then made a four foot high barrier on the stairway, with a board wedging the barrier tight. Somehow our little Robin- in an imitation of Spider Man- scaled or flew over this obstruction, and Bob found her upstairs. He sent an incredulous email to me at work. I dreaded coming home, and we both worried she'd hurt herself trying to escape the stockade that our house now resembled.

(The pictures, by the way, are of the very end of Robin's very funny tail. It looks like an etch-a-sketch drawing of a dog's tail, except at the end where there is this eccentric little twizzle. Totally endearing!) In any event, today we debated crate training (I've always been opposed) and Thunder Shirts (supposed to wrap the dog in a snug embrace and relieve anxiety) but decided to live dangerously and just leave her with the run of the kitchen and the upstairs hallway. We went out to run errands, hoping that she'd be happier with more room to situate herself where she felt secure and comfortable.
We came home and she was okay: at the top of the stairway squeaking and looking a bit perturbed, but happier than she had been. I went out again this afternoon, and Bob was in his studio, leaving Robin on her own once more. And do you know, she was once again better off with more run of the house... and no surprises in the form of the famous liquids and solids to clean up! Maybe we've found the charm.