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Critters, Part I

I spend almost every weekend out at our farm in Paducah taking care of the animals.
I say this, and most people think it's an easy, typical affair. A few buckets of dog food and cat food and I'm done.
I only wish it were that simple.

The farm has become a menagerie.
We've got two dogs now, old and new, who don't get along. There's the outdoor cat family, mom, dad and three kittens, and the indoor cat, who also don't get along.
Then there's Cherry, my 6-month-old calf who we've almost weened.
There's the family of rabbits, three or four of them, and Roadie the roadrunner.
And that's not counting all the spiders, bugs and other critters that live there.
It's quite exhausting, really, but I guess they do keep me company each weekend.
Let me introduce the cast of characters:

OLD DOG:
BD, which stands for Bad Dog or Big Dog.
We've had him about five years, give or take. I think one of my sisters bought him at a flea market, but I'm not sure.
He's some sort of lab mix, and he's the most gentle, patient dog.
He's also kind of King of the Hill at the farm. And even though there are cats, cows, rabbits, roadrunners and everything else within paw's reach, he doesn't chase them.
He's above that, he seems to say. He's too cool to chase and instead likes to sit on the porch, surveying his kingdom.
And everything was great until the new pup came along.

NEW DOG:
Tentatively named Red.
My mom brought him home from a friend that was trying to get rid of him.
I have no idea why anyone would want to get rid of this dog.
I have 1,000.
He's just a huge, silly, goofy 4-month-old pup, and it's grating on my last nerve.
And BD's. BD has little tolerance for Red's antics.
Red chases everything, chews everything and jumps up on everything.
We have to chain him up when we drive away from the house because he'll chase the pick-up all the way down the one-mile road to the highway.
Of course, after we unchain him, he's even crazier than before because he's been cooped up so long.
He certainly doesn't understand the hierarchy at the farm, where dogs don't chase cats or birds.
"But I'm a DOG," he looks at BD, as BD just sits on the porch.
The farm was a calm, collected place before Red showed up.
I took several pictures of him to post on this blog, hoping that I'd capture his zest/zeal. I wanted one of Red looking kind of crazy and demented.
I think this pic does the trick.
He's been out at the farm for two weeks, still on a trial basis, Pop says.
Red has upset the casual, come-and-go attitude that the rest of the animals had before. Now, cats are chased up trees and bunnies scurry.
I'll keep you posted.

Posted by Lara Richards at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)