Dog Nest

I was going to write a post about how our dog is crazy. She has made herself a nest. Her nest is perched high on a snow drift outside the front door.

She hates having to be outside alone but when she has to be, she sits in her nest and chews on the random items she has collected there. She has ripped some branches off trees, found a deer skull, her favorite ball that was so fun until her huge teeth popped it, and now she has some piece of a dead cow there. Her collection she has brought home and stored there.

That seemed weird. And gross.

But tonight topped it all.

I walked around a corner to see her chewing on…  something.

It wasn’t one of her toys. She will select stuffed animals sometimes. Or clothes. Sometimes the most random of things. I thought I should investigate.

Reaching down I got hold of it. It was slick and rounded, long and narrow, very wet from dog slobber. At first I was somewhat afraid it was a turd. It was gripped between my fingers and I was worried. It was the right shape. But where did she get it from?

Looking closer in the dimly lit room I saw, a hoof?

It was a hoof! A tiny little hoof attached to a leg. It had to be a calf leg? A very tiny baby calf leg. I thought back to the time I saw her walking through the corals proudly carrying some cleaning. I thought at the time that it was odd that there would still be some around from last year. It did cross my mind that maybe one of the cows miscarried. The storms were hard on them, the ice is slick, and sometimes it happens without outside cause even.

I didn’t think much more about it. It happens. Nothing I can do, no way to fond the cow.

But this.

How long ago did she find this leg? She had not just come in the house and hadn’t been carrying it earlier. That means the leg has been in the house. Somewhere in the house. A tiny little leg, from the knee joint down. The whole thing fit in her big mouth. That must be how she got it in the house in the first place.

I think I’m going to be sick.

And the house is going to get scrubbed.

That dog needs to go live outside!