A dog's life

Back in Chicago Pepper used to beg for rawhides - fake bones purchased in big bags from Target, which I kept down by the washing machine and gave her almost every morning when we returned from our walk.

Last night I proffered one of these rawhides, thinking she deserved a treat (she really is a very wonderful and special dog). She politely took it and chewed a few chews on each end - to please me I think - before abadoning the rawhide in a corner of the bunkhouse.

No need for this dog to chew the fake stuff anymore. In the afternoon she and Bill had gone on a long walk along the Little Cottonwood. One of Pepper's discoveries was the leg bone from a small deer. She carried it to Bill, proud of her find, and acting as if she was going to drag it along for the rest of the walk. I wouldn't have blamed her if she had. And she did keep it for a while. But then something else must have been more tempting. Or she just decided in favor of complete freedom of movement.

Last week out walking with me she did about the same thing with a smaller, juicier bone of I know not what. On another walk it was the vertebrae of a small mammal.

So say hurray for another line item eliminated from the budget! The prairie will provide.