Joyful Transformation

My dog Shelby is a collector. She really is not much of a hunter, but she does like to collect dead animals, fish, birds, hammers, nails, bottles of Round Up, stuffed animals, life jackets and a host of other things an industrious dog might find in a lakeside community. I have never seen her hunt and kill anything except this one time when we had an over-population of kittens.....but I still think she was just trying to play with them. Obviously they did not respond too well to being tossed around and scooped up in her mouth.

Most of the neighbors are weekenders so I am sure they don't miss their stuff. The funniest thing had to be the day she brought home the hammer and the next day brought a bag of nails. Evidently the noise was interferring with her sleep.

I am sure she was the deliverer of the dead POSSUM (obviously we Alabamians are supposed to drop the O) that I found in my yard on Sunday. Thankfully the carcass was flattened to frisbee state, thus the odor had remained where the prize was initially discovered. I tried gently removing the body with a stick, but Shelby thought the stick was for her to play with. Eventually I just grabbed the big old long tail and tossed it! One of the joys of living in a remote area with a high bank is that you can toss stuff off of it. I just hope the retreiver in Shelby don't resurface and convince her to bring the thing back!!

She has come to expect that I will give her a treat when I leave and that I will stop and scratch her back when I get home. But she is always giving back, I am sure she don't understand when I don't appreciate her "finer" gifts.