the adlards

We have a P..P..Pigeon Problem. Well, not so much us as our bird-brained but rather dear dog, Ruby.

A couple of weeks back we woke – two mornings in a row – to find that Ruby had mined the area around the beanbag she sleeps on. She’d taken the added precaution of ensuring the deterent was of a consistency that gradually spread itself evenly over the floor. Both mornings, fortunately, we switched the lights on before entering the room. Nuff said.

We adopted a two-pronged remedial approach: we changed her diet immediately and started feeding her in the morning. The first measure she took to just fine, but the second change has failed. Entirely. She runs to the front door to go out in the morning, looking famished, then watches the pigeons eat the food out of her bowl. She begs again mid-afternoon and does the same. After dark (no pigeons) she repeats the process and eats her food. I put it down to idiocy for a while (hers) and persevered in the hope she would suddenly realise that breakfast was better than dinner – specially if there’s no dinner to be had. I now think it may be something other than idiocy (hers).

She really has driven the argument far beyond the realm of what might be considered reasonable. If I walk outside at any time of day, turn and look back at the house, my eyes are met by the hopeful cocked-head stares of clans of hopeful pigeons lining the apex of the roof and the gutters. It’s a little freaky. Really.

Now there are a few things to note here:
1. She’s beaten us
2. Either she’s terrified of pigeons or a completely selfless philanthropist
3. She is almost certainly a supreme canine strategist
4. She’s beaten us

We’ll feed her after dark from now on, but if she soils the floor we will close her in a kennel full of pigeons with a single dog biscuit until she taps out. If reality TV can do it, so can we.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 10th, 2009 at 8:47 pm by james and is filed under Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.