A Large Area of Scat and Urine

February 24, 2010.  Wednesday.

Situation:  Work tonight.  Moi is up early ironing pants for the Boy’s job interview in NYC.  She is complaining that Jazz wants her to go down to pick up Atlas for her to watch him while Jazz and Matt go to Atlantic City for a few days.  She is also complaining that Mway has been outside all morning “rolling in shit.”  I decide to take Mway out early, around 1:30.  Moi advises me about an area in the path where Mway likes to roll, and tells me to keep her from doing that.

State of the Path:  The snow is soft, with a layer of icy slush beneath, so it is fairly slippery.  The bare spots along the path are either places to get a foot hold, or muddy areas that can be just as slippery.  Mway pokes around the pig pen, then runs downs the path, past the sumacs, down through the maples and past the wigwams.  I don’t see her stopping to roll anywhere.  But as I pass the wigwams, there she is, off a little ways into bug land, rolling in something.  I yell at her to get up, and she flips over quickly and scoots down toward the creek.  I venture over to the spot where she was:  it is a fairly large deposit of urine and scat, too big for a rabbit or squirrel.  Mway stays ahead of me along the creek, and as I come up to the drainage area of bug land, I see Mway prowling along the feed channel to the skating pond, then venturing toward the flat land and the ridge beyond the pond.   I decide to follow.  Because the snow is not as deep today, the channel is not too treacherous too cross, and I’m happy that, when I step onto the snow inside the channel, I don’t end up breaking through any ice.  I follow the path to the ridge – Mway has disappeared on top of it somewhere among the sumacs.  Then I turn around at the far feed channel to pass closer to the creek.  In an area bare of snow on the other side of the creek, I’m surprised to spy the golf ball that I spotted a few weeks ago, looking like a little ball of snow among the brown leaves.

State of the Creek:   The water is green in the deepest spots, brown where its travels over the rocks.

The Fetch:  Up at the clearing, I take a stand at the exit and toss the stick.  When Mway brings it back, she first drops it short of my reach, then, quickly correcting herself, picks it up again and flings it at my feet.  Some water from the snow splatters on my suit, and I figure this could be a little messy today.  But Mway only does three fetches, then runs off to the back yard.   When I come into the back yard, though, I’m surprised to find her standing at the outbuilding with the stick on the ground, rather than waiting for me to arrive up at the back porch to go in.  I yell at her to pick up the stick and come on, and she follows me to the sidewalk.  She soon passes me, but instead of running up on the porch, she veers underneath our big spruce tree and heads toward the driveway – I figure she’s trying to lollygag around, in the hopes that I will forget about her, and allow her to stay outside.  But I call her to the door, and she comes promptly.  While she’s standing at the door, I check the fur on her back with my glove – at least there’s nothing conspicuously brown on it that I can see.  When we get inside, instead of running over to her food dish as she usually does, she slinks into the music room, to hide in a corner where Moi won’t see her for a while.