PLAYPLAYPlay Play Play play play play pl-zz.zzz...zzzz.

This morning, Tilly had a play-date with our neighbors dog, Sandy. Although Sandy is about 12, she kept up with Tily just fine. John and Fay said they had a dog and cat and three sons, clearly a puppy would be fine running lose in the house. I gave up and let Sandy babysit while I sipped coffee and toured their beautiful home. This is the closest Tilly has ever been to being lose and unsupervised, and our first time in someone else's house, though I trusted Sandy to take good care of my puppy. Amazingly, after two hours of hard playing inside and out, Tilly had still managed to avoid going potty on their nice floors. I started seeing warning signs around when we were all ready to get going with our days, so I scooped up the little one and headed back home. While we were visiting, I told John and Fay about the dead deer Tilly helped Tim and I find in the bushes last night.

After days of wondering what the increasingly horrible smell around our house was coming from and assuming there probably wasn't an invisible stream of spawned out salmon running down our driveway, Tim and I set out looking for the source. After opening the front door of the house, Tim was pretty convinced something had died under our porch. I assured him this was just a distant whiff and it got worse closer to the street and mail boxes. Tim didn't hesitate to crawl through the stinky bushes at dusk. After a few minutes of looking on in horror, Tim suggested I bring Tilly in to sniff it out. Reluctantly, I followed her eager tugs, then stopped and scooped her up while I tried to make out a shape on the ground. As my eyes adjusted, it looked more and more like a dead deer, and Tim confirmed that it looked like a little black tailed doe.

So, after telling Fay about the stinky problem on our property, she dialed up the number she thought was right for the people who come and deal with such things. They said they'd come on Monday. Oh the perks of living in this civilized lower-48 where there are people to deal with rotting carcasses in your bushes! Will Department of Fish and Game do that in Juneau, or are Alaskans on their own for such things?

Back at home, the floor guys were finishing rolling on a second coat of floor, and I am happy to say Tilly passed out behind the couch for most of the rest of the day so I could get some schoolwork done. I think she had dreams about playing with Sandy. She needs a play-date every morning!

(Picture from yesterday at Greenbank farm. Sandy is a giant white dog, more than all three of those little things put together.)