For those of you who aren't familiar with cairn terriers, they're a 200+ year old dog breed that was originally bred to ferret out foxes and other small prey in Scotland. To this day cairns are typically very feisty and tenacious. Our old cairn boy Ollie was always on the hunt for squirrels and loved treeing them. Pepper girl, now seven, would join along with Ollie in his quest for squirrels. She also branched out to the lizards that lived in the river rocks in the landscaping beds outside the family room windows at our old house. She was excellent at tracking them down, and even caught a few along the way as trophies.
Our youngster cairn Finn, who turned one in April, appears to be an equally avid hunter. We seldom have squirrels here in our inner fenced yard that occupies about one acre of the five we own, so he has branched out to bugs. When the occasional scorpion gets in our house, I can rely on Finn to locate it and bark his head off until I deliver the death blow. He has been stung a time or two now, which has made him an even more vocal and determined scorpion warning system.
This week, Finn and Pepper spied this rather large lizard on the back porch slinking along. After a lot of whining and pawing at the back door, I let them out to run it off. Or so I thought. Unfortunately, this ignorant lizard decided to duck under the leg of a patio chair, whereupon Finn commenced to bark and scratch at it. By the time I grabbed a broom to intercede and try to save the lizard from Finn's antics, he was able to run the lizard out into the open. At that point, Finn grabbed it in his mouth and gave it the death shakes. When I tried to get him to drop the lizard, Finn decided it was a game and ran out into the yard. That's when he started gleefully throwing the lizard around like a toy. After a lot of threats and arm waving from me, Finn finally dropped its lifeless body and I kicked it out of the fence where he couldn't have at it anymore.
Then we had even bigger excitement mid-week when the younger daughter spied a snake on the back porch. She was getting ready to leave for her intern gig around 6:45 am, and casually mentioned it. Once I got a good look, I realized it was a danged coral snake. You know, the red and yellow kill a fellow sort. It was only about 18" long, but the dogs soon spied it out of the doors leading onto the back porch and were eager to get at it. I could just envision Finn snatching up the snake and dying for his efforts.
Still wearing my sleep pajamas, I threw on my flip flops and headed into the husband's garage for the big shovel. By the time I walked around to the back porch, the dogs were barking their heads off because the snake was right outside the door. Thank the Lord for long shovel handles. After nudging our local coral snake off the door mat, I leaned in to give it a whack and ended up severing off the final four inches. Which probably just made it even madder. Thankfully, my second blow took off its head. I left it out there for a good fifteen minutes to finish the death wiggles before pitching the three body parts into the four acres of the yard that we don't maintain.
I've been paranoid since the snake incident, as you can imagine. I swear it's like Wild Kingdom around here lately. This afternoon, the husband discovered a large armadillo rooting around the fenced back yard over near the guesthouse and well pump house. Fortuitously, the husband warned me about our armor-coated trespasser before I let the dogs out to potty. The husband opened one of our wider fence gates and was able to run the dillo out. I've gotta admit, it was entertaining to watch the armadillo herding, with the befuddled critter running this way and that, jumping straight up every few seconds. Meanwhile, the dogs spied this most recent critter in THEIR space and about tore down the back door trying to get at him. Lord have mercy, y'all, I'm about ready to retreat to a high rise to get away from the local fauna.
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