Several years ago, my wife, Julie, and I adopted a Kees from Peak to Peak Keeshond Rescue in Colorado. Originally, she had been a “Christmas present” purchased at a pet store in a Denver mall who’d got her from an Oklahoma puppy mill. That original home didn’t last long. Then she was sold to another family where she lasted less than a year. When we first inquired about her from the rescue website, she had been in a foster home for as long as she’d been anywhere else.
We were her fourth family. Her presenting issues were that she was “stubborn” and had “failed to bond” with any of her previous families. The woman who turned her into rescue had “thrown” her at the foster mom and had walked away without even saying goodbye. Having had a Kees mix before, my wife and I assumed that her earlier families had been treating her like a Labrador Retriever, which just doesn’t work for the breed. Either that, or they were all on drugs.
When we adopted her, she was nervous and afraid. She didn’t really know what was expected of her. Her nature was to love and be loved and (truth be told) to take over the home and manage it for her convenience and comfort. We cut her a lot of slack.
Our friends told us that we were “spoiling” her and that she would take over the household. We thought to ourselves, “What’s the downside to that?”
We’ve had Murphy for almost five years now, and she brings us more joy than just about anything—including our college-age son—and she doesn’t’ cost nearly as much as he does.
Her most recent escapades involve our garden. For years now, she has set herself the task of keeping the yard Safe From Squirrels. It’s gotten to the point where we only have to whisper the word “squirrel” and she’s off to Save Us From Cute Vermin. More recently, she has been trying to eradicate mice from a retaining wall in our back yard, and therein lies a tale.
In the winter, we feed birds. The feeder in our back yard/garden is one of those tube affairs with several perches for small little neat birds; only problem is, not all our birds are either small or neat. A significant percentage of them fly onto the feeder and rip huge batches of seed out that falls on the ground where ground-feeding birds enjoy the bounty. There is even a flicker who’s been around for years that has come close to pulling the feeder off the pole. We call him “the chicken.”
Anyway, with all that seed on the ground, it’s not surprising that the mouse living in the wall on the other side of the path discovered the bounty. He’s been scurrying across the flagstones to the area under the feeder to feast for weeks now. When the weather was warmer, Murphy first discovered him sitting on the retaining wall and looking into the house. He was a sort of “punk” mouse, with a fur crest on his head that looked sort of like a Mohawk. Murphy saw him looking in at her and almost lost her mind. It’s a wonder we didn’t have to replace the double-paned glass; as it is, I don’t think some of the dried dog slobber will ever come out.
The past few days, it has been snowing mightily here, and only the bravest creatures have been daring the cold to find food. Including the mouse, who tunneled under the snow to the patch under the feeder. Murphy watched from the door while all this was happening and made moaning noises before spinning around in the family room and knocking magazines off the coffee table. (Are Keeshonds the only dogs who “spin”?)
When we finally let her out, she pounced immediately on the mouse’s burrow under the snow, then proceeded to chase him under the feeder and try to dig him out (evidently, he’d dug an escape route, or at least a hidey hole). We had a delightful afternoon watching her dig and sniff and sneeze and bounce and dig some more. Her ears were up and she was alert to every movement under the snow. My wife and I watched it all from inside and laughed and gasped and laughed some more. “She’s a busy little dog,” Julie said. “She needs a hobby.”
The bird feeder pole is listing due to Murphy’s excavations, but that’s a small price to pay for the fun of watching our little girl have fun in the snow, free to be herself and cavort. Later tonight, most likely she’ll come into the parlor and interrupt me while playing the piano. She tends to bite me on the foot using the sustain pedal. “To hell with Beethoven,” she says. “I’ll spin around until you get off that bench and rub my butt. You know I have displasia and this cold makes me sore.”
