So how is it that you don’t own a half dozen of Dharma’s offspring to keep the rat population under control around the Lair? It might cost more in dog food, but think of the savings in Jeep repairs. Oh lawsy. No reward is too great for Dharma – who saved you all from yet more rat problems.
And Dharma is completely on board with that. I just saw her and Landlady off back to the city, and – not for the first time – first we had to coax her, and finally drag her, out of the Jeep because she knew what time it was and she emphatically didn’t want to go. Dharma loves the gulch. She’s excited to arrive and depressed at leaving.
But no way she or any of her hypothetical offspring is ever going to come live with me. No way. I’m not even available to dog-sit. I’m much too old and low-energy to ever keep up with that dog, we’d drive each other batshit.
I don’t remember if you ever mentioned what kind of dog Dharma is… What breed? I don’t remember seeing a picture of her here either… But there are actually a good number of other breeds that would gladly hunt rats… and maybe one of them wouldn’t be the ball of energy she is. Comparing them to LB, of course, +leaves a LOT of options. LOL
She’s some sort of cattledog. I don’t have a picture of her.
Oh yes… cattle dogs. High energy, indeed. My neighbor’s son used to have one and it drove her nuts while the young man was at school or work.
Don’t know why I had the idea that Dharma was a little noisy ankle biter. 🙂
Me too, ML. For whatever reason, I thought that Dharma was a Shitzu or something similar. There’s a nest of baby rabbits in the woodpile at our forest house, so I won’t be bringing either the cat or the chiweenie with me when I’m out there to work on the house. Our best ever ratters were toy poodles and boy what a team they were.
No, no, Dharma is a fairly good-sized dog. Just a little smaller than Ghost, though far lighter.
That’s much less entertaining than the mental image of a shitzu or Pomeranian trying to tear down the house to get at the rat.
If Landlady is reading this, put me down for a sizeable donation (vet fees, food) if you breed more like Dharma and give them to Joel to clean up the rat population, which he has been too soft-hearted to do (remember the good old days of… they aren’t doing any harm…) He’d be surrounded by a litter of little adoring Dharma-wannabees who would put life and zip into his elderly hermit days, save the Jeep from further depradations, save Joel from exposure to all kinds of interesting and expensive diseases like bubonic plague, and increase Joel’s available funds a LOT when the Jeep was left unmolested for long periods of time. Oh FOMCL and ROTF. Yehaw. Bring it on. Dharma, you are the Greatest.
Alas, my first act as Dharma’s mom was to haul her to the vet to have her spayed. Even if that weren’t the case, though, I wouldn’t do that to Joel. She’s an Australian Cattledog (aka red heeler) and has the energy level of a coked-up Jack Russell terrier. She’d need to breed with a sloth to make puppies that were tolerable by normal human beings.
That said, she does do a great job with rats. 4.5 kills this weekend alone!
Tsk, too bad. I will write a haiku in honor of Dharma to celebrate her contribution to harmonious life in the Gulch and a Jeep that starts reliably because it isn’t being consumed by rats and mice every time Joel leaves it alone for an hour.