THE FACE OF A KILLER

My little 12 lb. doodle (dachshund/poodle mix) is a total love bug. The first thing he does whenever anyone comes to my house is brings them one of his toys so they can play with him. He loves to play fetch. Now, if the person doesn't follow his lead then he starts coaxing the person by "talking" to them by making his cute noises until the person pays attention. Hey, wake up! You're in my house and there's certain rules one must abide by in this house and playing with the doodle is one of them. It's mandatory.

His name is B.A. which doesn't mean anything. B. A. = Be Anything, but after the other night I think it needs to stand for BADASS.  My Shih Tzu, Fenway is the Queen and the alpha dog of the house. She runs the roost.  Fenway weighs about 16 lbs. Libby is a Dandie Dinmont Terrier and she weighs about 16 lbs. Although Fenway runs the roosts, she doesn't have what I would say is an aggressive personality. She's just bossy! Libby is generally pretty laid back until she's provoked or agitated and then she becomes very aggressive. 

One of the first things a person notices when they come here is the amount of toys my dogs have, but the toys aren't for my dogs. They belong to B.A.!!! You see, if B.A. didn't have those toys to chew on, we wouldn't have a house. When he was younger, he chewed everything! And when I say everything. I mean EVERYTHING! He ate my box spring to my bed. He ate the living room carpet. He ate countless comforters on my bed. He ate eyeglasses. He ate my mother's false teeth. He ate furniture like he was a beaver. The question should be what didn't he eat?  He doesn't do that stuff now, but he has his toys to chew on and he "husks" his toys.  By husking them I mean he pulls all the stuffing and the squeakers out of them. And once he husks them we can't throw them away. So we have a toy box filled with toys in various stages of being destroyed, but to B.A. they're still great. He still drags them around like they're brand new.

One of B.A.'s duties is to protect the house and the yard and he takes that job very seriously. He has no idea that he's only a 12 pound lean mean fighting machine. Each time he goes outside he patrols the backyard and the inside of the garage. It's really funny to watch him follow the same route each time.  He goes in back of each bush and sniffs everything all over. Nothing happens in the yard that he doesn't know about. He's on top of everything! Once he killed a mole and brought it inside for us to praise him. When we tried to take it away from him he took it under the bed. Yuck! He doesn't bother the birds or squirrels and that surprises me. But I think that may be because he sees me interact with them. Libby chases the squirrels, but they're too quick for her to catch. Fenway wouldn't care if an elephant was standing in the middle of the yard, but she will bark if she hears a dog down the street barking. She wants them to know where the queen lives. I suppose in their own way they do their jobs and that's what they're supposed to do.

The other evening after dinner I took all three dogs. I go out with them even though I do have a large fenced backyard. Before we knew it Libby and B.A. had cornered a raccoon, and then B. A. got it and killed it. I tried my best to intercede and tried to get B.A. to release the raccoon, but he wouldn't let go of it. He had a death grip on it and kept shaking it. By the time he did let go, it was dead. The other racoon kept trying to crawl up my pant leg because it was terrorized. I finally got it to leave before Libby noticed it and I hope it got scared enough to not come back in the yard again.

What freaked me out was how ferocious B.A. was. He's only 12 pounds...he kills rats, he kills moles. Who knows what else he kills. I know he runs off feral cats, but I think he'd have his hands full with a feral cat if he got in a fight with one. I realized once I started feeding the birds, the birdseed would attract other creatures, but I don't want a whole zoo in my yard and I definitely don't want my dogs fighting with wild animals. Sigh! I guess I need to start paying closer attention to what's happening outside in the menagerie before I let the killer hounds outside at dusk.

And I still feel horrible about the raccoon...
I'm an animal lover
Well, I don't love rats and stuff like that, but raccoons are cute.
And I know B.A. was only doing what his instinct told him to do, but it still made me feel bad...