Addiction stinks...

So my docile, predictable, laid-back dog is torturing me.

Now that we are busy with harvest, and the weather is punishingly hot, she has developed a new hobby.

Said hobby shows blatant disregard for the Number 1 Rule for Daisie Lee Duke Honcoop: DON’T DIE.

We have discovered that she has been CROSSING THE ROAD into Farmer Frank’s menagerie pasture. Farmer Frank has a goat, a burro, a Longhorn steer, 3 cows, 1 calf, 2 horses, an unknown number of chickens and a couple of dogs.

The menagerie leaves behind them (literally) a plethora of piles – a variety of manures, afterbirth, and other forms of rot.

Eeeeewwwww…

And Daisie has become an addict…a rot addict.

With blatant disregard for her safety, she delights in the various piles…And by delight, I mean she rolls in them…and ingests them…

So now, the dog that we trusted to hang out on our 60 acres; to go for a stroll, and return to lounge on her outside bed…now this dog has repeatedly and rapidly disappeared only to return panting, smiling and covered with foul smelling crap. She’s found her bliss…

And it is the foulest of the foul, I tell you…

Since Saturday, she has had 5 baths…mostly successful. However, yesterday we scrubbed and scrubbed but couldn’t defeat the noxious scents emanating from her. Finally, we lifted her ears and found that she had packed one full of…stuff…Have you ever looked in a dog’s ear and seen how many pockets and wrinkles are in there?

GOOD! NESS! It was…daunting. {gag and gag again!}

An intervention is planned for today.

Yesterday, she was on probation – some outside privileges – but today she has moved to restriction. And that is such a pain! It’s been so nice to have her hang around wherever we are working in the yard, or out in the field. Now The Sneak will have to be kenneled; and she will hate it, and so will I. She’s gonna work me over with pathetic looks and drooping eyes, and I will be worrying about her mental state…

But the alternative will be to worry about her death, or her smelling LIKE death – and more of those blasted baths that she hates too…

It’s going to be a hard fight to defeat her addiction…There it is, Candy Land, right across The Highway of Death…within sniffing distance.

Oh, Daisie…just say no…