big red

As fierce defender of our lands, tiny chumley knows that it is his duty to protect the yard from, well, practically everything. Neighbor dogs, bunnies, squirrels, and all the things that go bump in the night. A mutual disdain as old as the world itself.

But with spring just around the corner, I've begun to wonder if Baxter's relationship with the birds in our backyard might be different story. Untested waters, really, as I've never seen him have an even fleeting interest in the tweeting wonders that give voice to the bushes and trees in our backyard. Yesterday's visit from a bright red cardinal determined to shoo himself from his own territory by relentlessly attacking his own reflection in our kitchen bay window, gave me the opportunity I was looking for.

Little hound bounded onto the deck, hyped as he was by the promise of chasing off a squirrel that also happened to near the tree in which Big Red resided. Both bird and Baxter ignored each other, and I started to wonder whether or not we should post a human on deck to spend the entire afternoon running around with arms flailing in the air, shooing this feisty cardinal time and time again.



Hoping to spare our neighbors such an unseemly sight, and lacking any pictures of scary owls that I could post in the window to scare off the cardinal, I made do with the next best thing, the only thing I had readily available. A fine, glossy 5x7 of the little kielbasa, heartily hyuking it up in his hoodie from weeks ago. I stuck it in the window and waited, letting the picture menacingly threaten all those who looked at it, "Watch out, cardinal, this house is protected by a hoodie wearing, human holding, laughing dachshund. You want a piece o dis?"

Yep, it worked pretty much like you think it would. Which is to say, not at all.

Today, if Big Red comes back, maybe a run for the kielbasa around the yard with his wings on. That'll pass for a ground hawk, right?