Belle meet Peppermint.
Peppermint meet Belle.
You two have a lot in common:
You’re short.
You’re smart.
And you’re the bane of my existence.
NickerNews readers may be familiar with how Peppermint livens up the farm.
Click here.
So please forgive me as I indulge the parallels that came creeping into my mind after a recent outing with Belle. Like the pony, this dog made me laugh and grind my teeth at the same time.
Belle is half Basset Hound, half dog-next-door. I discovered her from a flyer posted at the local feed store several years ago. I’d never owned a hound. Hounds have a tendency to run off, my mom pointed out. I shrugged.
Such a cute puppy!
Ha.
And I'll train the hound out of her!
HaHa.
Short One has seven-inch legs and her body, from nose to tail tip is nearly five feet long. This confirmation suits her well for barging through the underbrush. But greyhound, she ain’t.
We headed out for a walk with the other dogs. Unlike the others (all non-hound dogs), Belle heads out on her own route, following her nose. We usually don’t see her until the end of the 20-minute walk, when she predictably and faithfully reappears and seems to say, “I had a great tour around the woods. How ‘bout you?”
This time, though, within minutes of her routine departure, we heard yelping. Belle was excited and moving south fast. My first thought was of a porcupine. But her yelps faded quickly. This was a chase. And the chase was on.
We called in the other dogs and I jogged in the direction of her last yelps. When I listened for her again, the barking was at least a half mile away. Or more.
[
Photo of fox taken by fixed, motion sensitive camera a few hundred yards from my route.]
I stood in the now quiet woods. Time passed. Then I started hearing her yelps again. Amazingly, they were coming closer and closer. I strained to look through the trees and brush. There, pacing towards me on the diagonal was a beautiful red fox. It crossed my path 20 feet in front of me, kept jogging, didn’t break stride or even bat an eye.
I imagine the fox was having a little fun with Shortie. His Sunday stroll had turned into a Sunday jog. No big deal. And when he glanced at me, he almost seemed to say, “Gave her a test drive. Brought her back. You take her now.”
A minute later, an exhausted, exuberant Belle trotted toward me. I took off my belt and looped it through her collar as a leash. She seemed almost thankful that I'd thwarted her pursuit.
Like pony and her little escapades, the hound just couldn't help herself.