Our sweet young friends have a little girl who refers to squirrels as "squirdels" so it has ruined the word for us for all eternity. Honestly, I can barely say "squirrel" anymore. None of us can. It's good stuff. Well Max as you know, is my Jack Russell. The cutest dog in the world. Jack Russells are known to be great rodent killers and small animal hunters. If anything comes on the premises within about a half a mile radius, my Jacks would kill it. Shorty was my last one and after he started chasing horse trailers instead of squirrels, he wasn't long for this world. Because they do keep the rodent population down, the Cowboy insisted that I have another one. I was all for getting a puppy! Insert Max.
Max lived inside until about a month ago when I was literally bathing him once or twice a day. When you feed breeding bulls for a living, it's a little difficult to keep a white Jack Russell Terrier, white. That many baths isn't good for their skin and he LOVES to be outside. Plus he started shedding like no other and I can't do dog hair on my clothes. Yuck! He's had to have a little shock collar training to know which animals he can kill and which he cannot and luckily, he's very smart. Cats, horses, bulls, calves, goats and chickens are off limits. With the help of electricity and Mom, he now knows it. But squirrels, well they are game on.
He's gotten to where when we pull in the driveway or walk outside to leave, instead of greeting us first, he immediately runs out to the woods as fast as he can to chase a squirrel. He has to show us his mad Max skills. He's so fast and he's really got it figured out. It's pretty cute. He's like a little boy and you can almost hear him saying "Hey Mom watch this! Hey Dad! See how fast I am?" He's even started catching some critters. The other day I got home and he greeted me with two legs hanging out of his mouth. I wouldn't get out of my car. I was yelling at him to go on! The Cowboy was so irritated with me. He's like "He's trying to show you what he caught and instead of being proud of him, you're yelling at him to get out of here!" He's just trying to do his job! Seriously, first with Bubbles and the calf and now this. What's with this guy of mine? Mr. reasonable and "That's his job" is getting on my last nerve!
Well I'd noticed that Max and what seems to be the same squirrel each day, had developed a game and a kind of a love/hate friendship. I have sat and watched them just give each other hell for hours. The squirrel would get as close to Max as he could and just chirp in his face but not close enough that Max could catch him. They had been doing it for weeks. It was really good watching.
Saturday evening we were getting ready to go to a birthday party and I looked out and saw Max just shaking the crap out of a squirrel. He got it! It was hilarious to watch. He'd shake it, then he'd jump back and wait for it to do something, like RUN, which it'd been doing for a month and it would just lay there. He'd jump at it, trying to make it go and then shake it some more. Then he'd wait really patiently, and nothing, so he'd shake it some more. He was having the time of his life. Confused but excited.
The Cowboy walked inside and I said "Come and check this out. Max caught a squirrel!" He said "No he didn't." I'm like "Yes he did! Look!" And then he proceeds to say..."He didn't catch the squirrel. I shot it. I got sick of that little bastard taunting him so I shot it out of the tree for him." My mouth fell open. "You did what?" He said, "I shot it for him." Oh. My. Gosh. Well apparently this is how you train dogs but I was really irritated because this was Max's little buddy. I cannot believe he shot him! Max was so badly wanting him to get up and run but...nothing. Dead as a doornail.
Moral of this story is simply this...if you do your job around here, you get rewarded and the Cowboy will defend and protect you. If you mess with the Cowboy's pets, you get shot. I was brushing my teeth, shaking my head and said to him "You shot it? You really just shot it for bothering Max?" With all seriousness he said "Remember that." (Insert eye roll.) Oh brother.
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