Don’t question why she needs to be so free
At the new house, there is a fence all the way around, but it is not a very reliable fence. We keep patching it in bits and pieces, because Ruby is an escape monster, and she finds new holes pretty regularly. This wasn’t too bad, for a while; she would just stand on the other side of the fence and wait to be let back in. Then last week she went down onto the road, which is pretty busy during commute times; then the next-door neighbor scared me by telling me their last dog died on that road. So this weekend we (mostly Garth & helpful pal Scott) spent a bunch of time finding and patching all the places where she went under/over/around/through. No trouble so far.
Also the new house (which has about an acre of woods) came with some really nice pre-started leaf compost back in the forest, just from leaves that had fallen and been piled up. One of the first things we did was build a compost pile with some metal fence posts and chicken wire, so we have about a 4 x 4 foot area back in the corner, which we filled with some of the leaves and have been adding our regular food waste to as we go. It’s a bit far away from the kitchen, but we have the relatively stylish compost bucket, which looks nice on the counter, doesn’t smell, AND holds a lot of stuff between emptyings.
It snowed out here last night, so Garth got to stay home, which led to the following conversation:
[08:33] garth: so , about your dog and her fondness for fences
[08:34] Lauren: oh, damn.
[08:34] garth: there is one fence she can get under
[08:34] garth: it’s not the outside fence
[08:34] Lauren: ?
[08:34] Lauren: into the next door yard?
[08:34] garth: I went looking for her and found her
[08:34] garth: cowering and shivering
[08:34] garth: looking very guilty
[08:34] garth: in the compost pile
[08:34] Lauren: oh haha
[08:34] Lauren: did she eat it?
[08:35] garth: I don’t know. I kept calling and calling but she couldn’t get out
[08:35] garth: so she just looked sd and guilty
[08:35] Lauren: poor ruby
[08:35] garth: it’s hard out there for a ruby
…
[12:40] garth: (UPS is here. soon the dogs will go insane)
[12:40] garth: Speaking of which, ruby is *obsessed* with the compost pile
[12:40] garth: she still can’t get out though
[12:40] garth: she just sits in the cage and looks sad
[12:42] garth: it’s really funny
[12:42] Lauren: did she do it again?
[12:42] garth: yep. twice
[12:43] Lauren: oh, ruby
[12:43] Lauren: i wonder why
[12:43] garth: I think she just likes garbage
[12:43] garth: which is fair enough, on account of she is a dog
(Song: “Ruby Tuesday,” The Rolling Stones. I didn’t mean for it to be, but this is pretty much her theme song.)