The Island of Destroyed Things

Here you will find the SECOND dead armadillo in our yard since Ruger joined our family last February. I can't believe he's been here a year. It has been a LONG year.

Ruger is unlike ANY other dog we've ever had. He's a mess. He jumps on everyone and everything and is so stubborn he makes Briar (our dear old black lab who died the winter after we moved out here) look downright demure.

Ruger knocked Grace into the pond last week and is VERY LUCKY he is still pissing on the grounds right now. Luckily for him, he is still very cute and his owners have a a ridiculous sense of animal responsibility towards him or he would be so gone.

Above is his hunting and toy depository, otherwise known as the Island of Destroyed Things. This hump of ground in the front lawn was eventually supposed to become a flower bed, but I think that would be a foolish and fruitless endeavour at this point. For one, because Ruger is a complete an uncontrollable digging fiend and two because he has obviously already claimed it as HIS. You can't argue with a stubborn dog my friend.

He drags all sorts of things up onto that hump and proceeds to destroy them from his perch of dominion. We've lost two UPS packages near this vicinity as well. A neglected UPS package on the front porch is Ruger's gift from the gods. The first thing was actually made of stainless steel so it survived fairly well, the second package was the trampoline REPLACEMENT jumping mat. ( see http://medley3.blogspot.com/2009/12/you-might-be-redneck.html if you don't know THAT story)

All I can say is that Ruger must have doggie angels looking out of for him, because luckily I found the package before he actually started destroying the contents. The box was toast, but the mat was untouched.

For my birthday last year, I bought hog panels and Bryon fenced the garden so we could keep the beast out. THAT was a good thing.

What Ruger doesn't know is that his days of rampant pawing and destoying our belongings are numbered because our neighbor is a retired vet tech and dog trainer and just as soon as the cast is off her broken leg, he's fixin to get a rude doggie training awakening.

Training (for him and us) is the only way that dog is going to survive until summer.