It's a great bit of evolutionary trait to keep safe from predators. I wish more things did this to be honest. Like elderly humans. "Oh, nana just wandered away. Yeah we left the door open and she fucked right off. Probably hunkering down in the tree line somewhere. If you see any vultures let us know, we'll put up a cross once they finish eating."
He seems fine. Looked over him, no scratch or anything. Doesn't seem sick, seems just like himself. But it was our cold weather yet, a week below freezing with a couple of days below -10. He was always the snuggly cat, but since he has been back in the house, if we are on the lower 2 floors, he wants all the love all the time.
Rant: our 15 year old, deaf and blind, sub 3 pound toy chihuahua went missing Monday morning when she was outside for a piss. We assume an owl or hawk got to her. No trace. rave: adopted a rescue pup yesterday! TIB, meet London. She’s almost 2.5 months old, no clue the breed (terrier mix they think; doing a dna test for clues), and enjoys playing with my boys, meeting new people, and posing for pictures. Wtf rave: taking the trash out to the dumpster in our UTV, a half mile by ranch road, and the fucking “dead” blind and deaf dog was wandering around in the grass by the dumpster! It’s been 4.5 days, below freezing at nights, and to our knowledge she did not get food and water anywhere. She’s a bit skinnier, obviously very tired, but otherwise doing great. she’s currently sleeping off the adventure in her crate, on top of the stuffed animal which looks like her which we got in an attempt to fool her dumbass sister into thinking she was still here. We now have 4 animals. ETA: Learned how the dog survived. Turns out, our ranch hand has a practice of leaving water outside his fence for the local wildlife, and he lets his dog outside the fence every evening where she runs around the surrounding few acres. There's a very well worn UTV trail that leads from our house to his house, but it stops a few hundred yards short... which is approximately where his dog stops her roaming. Where we found our dog was within 25 yards of his fence, so she must have, literally blindly, followed the trail, and then picked up the scent of his dog. From there, she had access to water. I picked her up within 50 yards of his fence.
Got some very inexpensive beef liver delivered on Friday from a rural butcher. Took a bit of it and sliced it up and dehydrated it over night and I’m super happy with the results. So is Zoe. She’s staring at the countertop, drooling. That volume of treats would be $100 from the pet store. And mostly air. That was $10 my cost and 15 mins prep time. Major win!
We just did the breed ID test for $109. I may have an email coupon/etc if you're interested. Let me know.
I just mailed off the DNA swabs for the Wisdom Panel canine dna test, $85 currently. We know she's a terrier mix, did it 100% out of curiosity.
Pure curiosity - no need at all. Dude must have some gazelle/deer/etc in him too. Cleared a 5 foot fence with ease. Looking into the invisible fence now as we back up to open space...
Invisible fencing sometimes takes a long time and training, hope it goes well and don't give up. There's some jumpers out there. At the shelter we have eight foot tall fences for each paddock, and a special one for the jumper/climbers that has a chainlink top.
rant/rave: came back from the gate yesterday (out of the house maybe 2-3 mins) to find our other little chihuahua in the middle of a seizure. Must have bit her tongue or something, because she was bleeding out of the mouth like crazy, our larger dog was trying to pick her up by the back of the neck like "hey, wake up." My 6 year old was with me and I was 100% certain that was a dead dog, since I've lost another dog to a seizure before. It was the single most violent thing I've ever seen with an animal. Took her outside to get some fresh air, started rubbing her chest, my son without asking thought to bring her a bowl of water. She somehow came back. Once it transitioned from "this dog is dead and I gotta deal with this in front of my son" to "how the fuck to we keep her alive" we jumped in the truck and headed to the vet. Bloodwork came back clear, xrays were negative for anything other than she had taken in a lot of oxygen in her stomach and such, and after an overnight stay for monitoring, she is currently in her crate, still alive, and snoring LOUDLY.
That's all pretty awesome, looks like you are all having a good time. Goats are such goofy, fun little guys. Unrelatedly, the clouds in the dock photo look like something painted by Doutreleau. Nice.