Chica ventures into the dark forest

We occasionally doggy-sit Chica the little Jack Russel Terrier of our daughter Danielle. It's always a bitter-sweet experience as Chica has more brain power than most junior high gangsters. She knows where to find her own toys and each of their names. She understands just about everything we say, so we have to speak in code. But to off-set all the psychology we have to play, she is a lot of fun. Well occassionally Chica decides its time to explore the mysterious side of our property. You know, the side that has strange sounds at night. She will all of a sudden disappear into the dark woods and no amount of coaxing or threats will persuade her back to civilization until she is good and ready. In these cases Ana usually gets on the Yamaha Grizzley and patrols the retreat trails looking for the little rascal. This last episode lasted about an hour as we imagined Chica being stalked by bobcats and coyotes or getting stuck in some skunk hole with the skunk wanting out.

Here is what our eyes were treated to when Chica finally came prancing out of the underbrush.

Eek ! What is that the little princess is carrying ? A deer leg !?!! You never saw a little dog so proud of its treasure. She pranced around 5 or 10 minutes and finally went and laid the deer leg on the porch and seemed to say. OK what now ?

Ana pointed over to the garden grow box where Chica promptly combined our instructions and her own natural instincts and buried the leg for some future feast.

We figured that our neighbor must have shot and cleaned a buck and threw the legs he cut off out into the forest where our little princess sniffed them out. Good Job Chica , just don't take so long next time on the dark side of the stream.