a boy and his hole

With the squirrels trained now to scatter quickly at the mere sound of our back door opening, the little kielbasa has had to resort to other means to get his daily squirrel fix. Mostly, it seems, by digging, and snorting deeply into the fresh loamy dirt. A couple of weeks ago I wasn't sure what motivated Baxter to endeavor in a task that he knew would ultimately end with the both of us on the deck, him, soaking his paws in a pan of warm soapy water, and me, making do with what little I know about the art of giving pawdicures.

Baxter's newfound love of digging was a bit of mystery. Sure dachshunds are prone to doing that sort of thing and Digger himself earned his nickname because of all the digging he did, but Baxter? When we first introduced him to our fenced wonderland three years ago, tiny chumley put nose to the ground and was off. Baxter was a chaser, plain and simple, and as our bunnies and squirrels had yet to realize there was a new dog in town, they were easy pickings.

Fast forward three years and yes the critters in our backyard are now very much wiser. When the back door opens, if the squirrels don't immediately run, they stand at high alert and scatter once Baxter's tags come jingling down the steps. So, unless the squirrels are involved in a fight of their own and therefore distracted, tiny chumley's once reliable backyard entertainment was becoming very much less, reliable.

Late summer brought forth a bit different circumstance, in as much as squirrels took acorns and dug and buried, re-dug and re-buried, over and over again. Little Kielbasa's chasing action was back in full swing for a brief period, til the leaves started falling. And the squirrels stayed up in their trees.

I was out raking leaves off the stepping stones when Baxter came over and started digging in earnest. Hm, I wondered, was he just wanting to help me out? Maybe he'll find some tasty grubs and that'll be that.

But Baxter's dug many a hole since then, found many a grub, and left them alone. And still he digs whenever he's given the chance, determined as he always is to find whatever it is he is looking for.

I have a new theory on why Baxter digs, and were it not for my little boy selectively filtering out my calls for him to come inside, I would have never have seen it up close and personal. I walked over to my little backhoe and arrived just in time to see him unearth an acorn, and snort it deeper than anything he had ever snorted before. Messages processed, Baxter took to digging with even greater resolve. My theory on why Baxter digs? Because Baxter has a theory. That squirrels just might well live underground. And who am I to tell him otherwise?