Backyard Excitement

Last evening I had a bit of excitement in the backyard. I let the Greyhounds out to potty after I arrived home from the Smyrna Jonquil Festival. All were muzzled as is my customary procedure. My four girls plus three foster boys - yes seven Greyhounds!!

Well, in the middle of changing clothes, I (for some reason) decided they had been outside long enough to do their business or maybe I heard something that made me go to the backdoor but nonetheless, I get there and holler for everyone to come in. Remi, Sugar, Foster Lefty and Foster Indy all came running to the back door. I promptly undid muzzles as they each came inside. But where was Lucy, Sami, and Foster Fonzy? I stuck my head out the door only to see Foster Fonzy on the ground doing something - I couldn't tell exactly what - with Lucy and Sami standing over him watching. My first thought was Fonzy had hurt himself running around the backyard.

I ran inside to change into something more appropriate then ran back to the back door and then out to the yard out to where Fonzy was sitting down in the grass. Upon closer examination, I found he had tackled a squirrel. Well, it actually appeared to be lodged onto his muzzle but Fonzy definitely had a death grip on the critter. And, yes, they can grab things through the muzzle if a poop guard is not attached.

My first instinct was to get the other two, who weren't participants at that moment but who sure wanted to be, inside and safe from said squirrel. Now catching them all was quite a task as you can imagine. They wanted to stay RIGHT there with said squirrel. Everyone had their eye on the prize!!

After some maneuvering, I was able to grab Sami first. I drug her unwillingly into the house. Then, I was able to get to Fonzy who was still wrestling with said squirrel. He dropped it when I told him to drop it (after some coaxing) and then I drug him inside while Lucy then commenced to chasing the poor thing who then thought he was free. After getting him in, I went back to get Lucy who then had the squirrel cornered in the flowerbed. I grabbed her and drug her inside.

You could tell everyone's adrenaline had kicked in - everyone wanted a piece of that poor squirrel. I checked the flowerbed when I returned home from work and didn't find him there so I am assuming he ran off. He wasn't maimed but probably was scared half to death.

The sad thing about the entire incident is that the whole time they were chasing said squirrel, there was another up in the tree screaming his head off. It was probably his/her mate who witnessed the entire event. I felt so bad but thank goodness he/she did survive.

Last night when I let everyone out to potty after coming home from work, no one seemed to have remembered the squirrel last seen in the flowerbed. As Martha might say, that's a good thing!