The Pickle Paradigm: an excerpt...sort of...

Our Whomping Willow

Those that follow me on social media know who this little face is, but if you aren't familiar with her, this is my AmStaff mix, Willow-Pickle. She came to live with us at the tender age of 9 months, after a repeat engagement at the shelter where she was returned for "being just too much." Any of you that have shared your home with any kind of terrier are probably nodding your heads in acknowledgment.

She is the living embodiment of getting what you need rather than necessarily what you want - we got her in November of 2015 and lost Daisy just over a year later. If we hadn't had her, I'm not sure Bryn (or any of us) would have made it through that awful time. She was patient yet insistent as she tried to draw Bryn out of her depression and eventually succeeded. They have been thick as thieves ever since.

But this post is not about any of that. This is an excerpt, hopefully, from WP's own book - she's been a supporting character in the books about her greyhound and wolfhound sisters, and really deserves her own story. This happened just this morning, and I will tell it from my perspective because she hasn't shared hers with me...yet. Enjoy.

In Which Mommy Discovers a Chicken in the Yard...Again

Now there have been other occasions when our neighbors (who CLEARLY do not understand the difference between city chickens and FREE RANGE chickens) have allowed their hens to run freely in our neighborhood and we have had to chase them out of our yard. Many. Other. Occasions. We had landscaping done and they ate some of the grass seed. They have pulled up the borders that Hubs put down in the garden. They walk back and forth by the gate to the fenced yard and, at first, would whip the girls into such a frenzy that I feared they would turn on each other...or at least Willow-Pickle and Ciaragh would. Poor Bryn just wants to see what they are and potentially make friends, if the bunnies she has followed through the yard are any indication.

This morning I was working in the kitchen and Hubs had let the girls outside, leaving the basement door open so that they could come back in when they were ready. I heard a very loud cluck but no growling or barking so I figured the ladies were just outside the fence as they often are, eating all the birdseed from the feeders. But then it happened again. CLUCK CLUCK. Still no growling but I could hear movement on the patio downstairs (thanks to my McDonald ancestors for my bionic hearing ability). I ran down the stairs and found a hen backed into a corner by a Willow-Pickle who was growling low in her chest and a very amused and happy-looking Bryn. No Ciaragh to be seen. Small mercies.

I ordered Bryn in the house and she did as she was told with all of the excitement of a child that is at 2.5 on a 3-count to go to bed. CLUCK CLUCK! I turned back and Willow-Pickle was so close to that hen that she could sniff it, LICK IT, and growl as she ignored me. 

My greyhound owning readers will remember the early days when you were advised to keep a can of pennies nearby to drop in order to break your hound's focus on the whateveritwas that they wanted to chase...well, if I had possessed one of those loud things I could have thrown it at the two and neither of them would have paid me any attention. I finally got as close as I could (Willow-Pickle had pinned the invader behind the Yellow Rose of Texas in the corner of the yard off the patio) and screamed her name. 

The look that dog gave me...Col. Pickle is the master of the side-eye, and she did not approve of me interrupting her game of "Hey, Chicken, why don't you Eff Around and Find Out" that she was meticulously playing with a view toward a chicken biscuit for second breakfast. In addition, the chicken didn't move a muscle, even when I grabbed the Pickle's newest bionic knee and pulled her backward. Reluctantly and slowly she turned around to face the house and I shoved her inside and THAT, MY FRIENDS, WAS WHEN COL. CLUCK-CLUCK MADE HER MOVE. 

That stupid chicken was going to just follow the dogs right into the house until Ciaragh appeared OUT OF NOWHERE and barked from across the patio by the vegetable beds. Well, this has just completed my morning, let me tell you. I eyeballed the chicken who changed her mind about checking out our basement, called into the house to let Hubs know I needed a leash, and then walked slowly toward my nervous Irish puppy to convince her to BACK UP SLOWLY AND NO ONE WILL GET HURT.

She'd seen the chicken. She didn't know what it was, but she wanted it. Mommy was in the way. And then, like the hero in an action movie, Hubs came out onto the deck and dropped her leash down to me. I don't know what its superpower is - maybe it would be like the Lasso of Truth if Ciaragh could talk, but I don't think ANY OF US want that. I put it on her and led her past the feathery foe and into the house so that I could open the gate to let it out.

Only it didn't want to go out until I gave it some gentle encouragement in the form of picking up a nearby vegetable cage and swinging it like a madwoman. Last time it hopped up onto the fence and then flew out of the yard. As God is my witness...