Back on January 5, I wrote a post about the fox or foxes that were frequenting our little lot up on the mountain. After enjoying seeing them for a while, I decided that they were getting too familiar with people and not respecting all the harm people can cause, so I started throwing rocks at them, and they disappeared. For a while. Now one is back. I presume it’s the same one as before. I heard Zeke barking and went outside to investigate. He was barking at a fox that was relaxing on the leach field, which we can see from the elevated walk that leads to our front door. The fox ignored him. He watched as I tried to get a shot, but was pretty nonchalant.

The fox came back.

I had a suspicion what he was up to. I have been seeing what I presume, and now am pretty sure, was fox poop around the front of the house, including on the paved part of the drive in front of the garage. That’s where Leah puts out cat food for the outdoor cats. So I took up the food and watched the fox. Sure enough, after a while he got up and wandered up onto the driveway.

Looking for cat food

It was close to dark for both of these shots, so I had to rest the camera on the railing and hope the fox would stay still enough to get a decent shot. He moved a little in the second shot. After I took his photo, he checked where the food usually is, and then turned around and left.

Apparently he has forgotten about the rocks, or he decided I wasn’t really serious. At this point I’m inclined to leave him alone and let him eat whatever cat food he finds.

My mother Doris got Lucy sometime probably in 2005, when Leah and I got married. She was mainly my idea. I thought my mother would need someone to keep her company. It turned out that Lucy did that quite well. Mother eventually started letting Lucy sleep on her bed with her. Lucy knew when it was bedtime. She ran back to Mother’s bedroom, jumped up on the bed and burrowed beneath the covers.

I’m supposed to be here, so you can just leave me alone.

Now that my mother is gone, we have inherited Lucy. I prefer big dogs*. Like most small dogs, Lucy is too yappy, and her little legs seem so fragile I’m afraid I’m going to break them when I dry her feet on rainy days. Lucy is also spoiled and disobedient. That’s the result of seven or eight years of getting treats and her way all the time. My mother couldn’t lean down to give her the treats out of her hand, so she just sort of dropped them towards Lucy’s open, waiting mouth. As a result, Lucy learned to snap at food. So one thing she’s going to learn pretty quickly is not to nip the hand that feeds her. She’s a pretty smart little dog, so I think she’ll learn.

The one problem is that having Lucy may mean I don’t get another doberman pinscher. I have had four, and I wanted another after Zeus died two years ago. Now if I got one, it would mean we would have three dogs. Of course we do have six cats, so …

Lucy in her new home

But now she’s here and we both agree that’s where she should be. She has her own bed. She won’t be getting on our bed, but she burrows into the comforter that I got for my mother.

*Zeke weighs about 90 pounds, so the average weight of all of our dogs is over 50 pounds. Zeke and Lucy both could stand to lose a little weight.