The Lion Killer

Today lets start off with a little history lesson about Rhodesian Ridge Backs.  This is a breed that was created to chase and kill lions on the savannas of Eastern Africa (i.e. Rhodesia or modern day Zimbabwe). Their combination of speed, strength, and desire to please man made them the perfect hunting/protection dog for the cattlemen of the African plains.  That's enough history.  

This story begins 30 years ago in a far off land known as the North Texas Panhandle.  It involves a very handsome, intelligent, debonair, verile, romantic, polite, devoted, ( I could go on and on)  young cowboy and beautiful, tan, slender, brown headed city girl who made a little black bikini look darn gooooood (please cover your children's eyes when reading the bikini thing).  They fell in love and were married.  They discussed many things as newlyweds do.  Things such as how many children they want, where do they want to live, what will their house look like, where will the kids go to school, what's the best brand of fishing poles, who makes the best shot gun, what's the best breed of roping horse.  You know, all the normal newlywed stuff.  One thing the young bride asked of her new husband was if they ever bought a home in the country she could have all the cats and kittens her heart desired and he lovingly agreed.

Now flash forward 30 years.  This young married couple is older now and just moved to a new community purchasing a home on the edge of town.  They have 3 acres of land and a couple of small barns on the property and depending on where they are standing, they can be inside or outside the city limits in seconds.  They are surrounded by beautiful homes but still inside the city limits.  Apparently "home in the country" means the same thing as "home on the edge of town" in female jargon.  So to make a very long story a little shorter, here is "the rest of the story" as Paul Harvey used to say.  
We (or at least one of us) are the proud owners of 15-25 cats depending on the number of pregnant females and this is where this Red Dog adventure begins. 

When Red Dog came to live with us I thought it was so cool that his  ancestors were trained to be lion killers.  I thought to myself "Now that's a mans dog if I ever heard of one", so taking in Red Dog was an easy decision.  He likes to sit at the back door looking out into the yard scanning for threats.  If one was spotted he would snarl and growl to get my attention.  I would open the door and zoom, he was gone to confront the potential threat.  I was like a kid with a new toy, excitingly waiting for the next growl and do it all over again.  He would fly through the door like Secretariat breaking out of the starting gate at the Kentucky Derby.  It was even cooler at night because he would disappear in the dark like a starship hitting warp speed toward a distant planet.  In my mind he was after skunks, raccoons, possums, and other assorted varmints but according to my wife I was wrong.  He was waiting for a few of her gazillion cats to come to their food bowl so he could chase them.  I thought it was cool but once again I was wrong according to you know who.  So now Red Dog and I are in deep doo doo with the wife for our little chasathons.  "He's a lion killer", I thought to myself but would always say "yes dear" in response.  Every time he would leap into action my mind would wander off to Africa, imagining he was after the king of the jungle saving his owner and his cattle from certain misfortune (see, I'm really a kid at heart).  But here comes Debbie yanking me back to reality saying, "Quit that, he's scaring all my cats away".  I knew she was right but I just couldn't help myself.  Cats belong in the barn chasing mice or providing coyotes with a quick meal or at least the slow ones do...Don't let Debbie read that part..lol..I lovingly agreed to pay closer attention to why he wanted in the back yard.  But she had a plan.  A plan that would break the heart of his forefathers.  

To counter his critter chasing training Debbie has decided to start her own indoctrination program for Red Dog.  She has a new litter of kittens and has brought them into the house to be raised around Red Dog.  So instead of chasing them, he has been brain washed to lick them.  The transformation was very quick and terrifying.  You girls will get a warm fuzzy feeling looking at these pictures but it saddens me to see how effectively he was turned.  Water board the poor dog but not this.  Submitting him to such feminine mind games of sugar, spices and little pink butterflies is heart breaking.  The horror of it all was too much.  Red Dog finally broke.  He went from a blood line of trained killers of the most feared felines in the world and now he's Mary Poppins in a dog collar.  Poor Red Dog, I certainly hope he can reclaim his proud heritage one of these days but until those cotton pick'in cats quit having babies it looks very doubtful...lol.

                       Until the next adventure.  God bless you all.

Red Dog the Multitasker

I found out Saturday morning that Red Dog is a multitasker.  As you can see in the picture (well as you can kind of see in the picture) Red Dog is standing over one of Debbie's momma cats feeding her new kittens.  He sat over these guys for several minutes just to make sure that those babies got their morning breakfast.  Red Dog must have read somewhere ( I'm assuming in news pawper, barkazine, or sniffing the web) that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and apparently guarding nursing kittens is quit exhausting because he took a nap as soon as the meal was over.  After about an hour I walked in to the dining room and found him lying in the floor, eyes wide with this desperate look on his face like you have to help me.  The kitten must have woke up before Red Dog and were ready to burn off some of those recently consumed calories and Mount Red Dog was just the place to start.  Those kittens were climbing over him, on top of him, biting his tail and sitting on his head.  It looked like a soft fuzzy kitty version of piranhas attacking their prey with poor ole Red Dog patiently lying there putting up with it all.  He looked up at me with those big brown eyes and I swear I heard him say in a soft desperate voice "Heeelllllpppp Meeeee".   I just had to laugh.  
Later in the day Debbie let some of her chickens out to free range graze (now doesn't that sound stupid to say free range grazing for chickens.  It makes it sound like wild chickens roamed the prairie along side the buffalo eating hoards of bugs from the land.).....Sorry about that.  Another story for another day.  But anyway, Debbie went out to put up the chickens with Red Dog at her side and to her surprise she found out that he has yet another hidden talent.  Not only is he a top notch sleeper, eater, pooper and extremely loud barker, he is a Rhodesian Chicken Shepard (the Australians can't have complete ownership of the Shepard name).  Yes, Chicken Shepard.  He was out there giving it his all circling the herd and driving them back into their pen.  Not once did he attempt to make one of those chickens his next meal and when it was all finished, he proudly trotted back to the house with tail high in the air indicating that the job was done and done well.  It was a feat that any herdsman would have been proud of (lol).  
So now to top off the day and to show just how quickly Red Dog can get back into his normal duty mode of home security he made his way to the living room and posted up at one of the windows looking into the front yard with his head sticking through the curtains (which my wife really appreciates) carefully scanning for any new threats that might be a danger to those he has vowed to protect.  I felt such an over whelming since of peace that I sat down in my comfortable recliner and promptly drifted off to Nap Land.  Just as I reached the edge of complete unconsciousness, I was abruptly and loudly woken by this WOOOFFF WOOOFFF WOOOOFFFF WOOFFFFF.  Holy heart attack, I jumped so high I felt a ceiling fan blade whiz past my left ear.  What in the world set off Red Dogs security alarm.  As I gathered my wits and my wet britches I carefully made my way to the front door wondering what evil lurked on the other side.  I slowly opened the door expecting the worst and praying that whatever evil lied behind that door ran away at the sound of that sonic boom like bark.  As the door came wide open, I stood face to face with the evil that Red Dog was so desperately trying to scare away.  It was a four foot five inch temptress Girl Scout with boxes and boxes of devilish mega calorie cookies.  She overwhelmed me with her innocent like charm and before I knew it she had me.  While in a trance like state I handed her dollar after dollar just to get my hands on those bright shiny boxes of cookies.  I was defenseless.  I needed help.  There was a small portion of my brain that wasn't under her spell and I was thinking "where is Red Dog, I need him to chase this evil away".  But it was too late, he was caught up in her evil spell as well.  He was just sitting at her feet mesmerized by the stroke of her hand on his head.  As I handed her my last dollar the spell was broken with Red Dog and I standing there watching my money skip off into the sunset.  I guess it goes to show you that both of us have no skills against charming women with food and so it's something we need to work on..lol...Until our next adventure, God bless you all.