Lost and Found

Last night I had a wee bit of a scare. I opened the garage door after dinner and sent Zama out to take her puppies for a little romp in the snow. Well I guess I got distracted and when I went back to close the door, there were only five puppies sleeping in the pool. Uh oh.

I got the flashlight and headed out into the dark calling, "puppies! Come on puppies! Where are you puppies?" for nearly an hour. Zama was no help at all. She disappeared into her dog house. Good place for a neglectful mother. I heard a little puppy cry and found one trying to climb into the dog house with her. Gathered him up and took him back to the garage. One found, three still lost.

I headed back into the house and put my kids to bed before pulling my boots and coat on again and trudging back outside. I searched everywhere. Under the shed, in the cow feeder, around the house, in the window wells, in the woods, down the driveway... nothing. I had seen a set of what I thought were puppy tracks heading up into the top field but I thought there was no way they would have gone so far. I was wrong.

I heard some puppy crying way in the distance and quickly jumped the gate to the cow field and followed their path up to the waterer. There were three black shapes scampering towards me from the upper field. Boy, was I relieved. So I called them and they barked and whined and followed me back to the gate. Along comes Chocolate. Apparently cows are grumpy at night because she tried to gore one of the pups. The other two fled- one back to the waterer and the other to the feeder. I was screaming at Chocolate meanwhile she is rolling the pup around on the ground with her head. Thankfully she didn't try to step on it. I didn't want to get too close though for fear she might turn on me. When she stopped I quickly swooped in and grabbed the terrified little thing screaming over my shoulder, "you stupid b*tch, Chocolate! You are going in the freezer!" I'm sure all the neighbors in a five kilometer radius heard me swearing at the cow.

All the pups were fine, even the one who got tumbled, and were put back in the garage safe and sound. Puppies have short memories because they accompanied me on my chore rounds this morning and were scampering about with the cows. Either they have short memories, or Chocolate has a Dr.Jekyll/Mr. Hyde complex. Whatever the reason, she's ground beef next Fall!