Guard Dog...

The other night, as I was getting ready to go to bed, I noticed Miki (our youngest field spaniel) standing just inside our bedroom door, between our bed and a bookcase.  He had a funny look on his face; to me it looked like he was afraid of something and hiding.  I petted him a bit, trying to comfort him, but he wouldn't budge.

A few minutes later, Debbie came into the bedroom and immediately recognized his behavior as “guarding behavior” – he was guarding something from our other dogs.  But what?  We couldn't see anything there that would interest a dog.

After a few mintues of trying various things, we figured out what he was interested in – something behind the books on the lowest shelf of the bookcase (which is right on the floor).  Our first thought was that some little critter had zoomed across the floor and hidden itself behind the books.  We have any number of little critters out here that could do that, ranging from cute little desert mice that occasionally make their way into the house somehow, to less benign things like scorpions and baby rattlesnakes.

Naturally, it was my job to figure out what was behind the books.  Miki watched the proceedings with great interest, clearly eager to get at whatever we'd reveal.  So, very carefully, I started pulling books off the bottom shelf so I could see behind them.  On about the third book, the culprit revealed itself: a wild dog biscuit fragment.  How that little piece of dog biscuit got behind our books, we have no idea.  Nor do we know when that happened – those books haven't been touched for months, so it could have been quite some time.  But Miki's little cold, wet nose obviously led him to the shelf on that day, and he sure as hell wasn't going to let some other dog capture that biscuit!

Of course we let Miki eat his prize, which he did with evident satisfaction...