Last night, Peter built the second fire of the season. I know it was practically warm outside but there was a damp feeling we wanted to drive out and a fire is the best thing for that. This time, Rocky lay down as close as he could get to the fire and snoozed. His head was right up on the hearth and after a while, I felt the fur and while it was hot, it wasn’t too hot. It is my understanding that dog fur is a great insulator for them. Eventually I did worry about him cooking his brains and we pulled him away from the heat.


On our after dinner walk, Rocky got a pine cone and carried it around for a minute, Then he started tossing it away so that he could run and chase it again! Once he shook it like a rat before tossing it to chase again. He did this for the whole walk and only relinquished the pine cone at the door when I asked him to “leave it”. It really showed (to me anyway) how instincts are so strong in animals. I am sure he has never experienced a rat or mouse in real life but he knows how to harass one and shake it to kill it. The whole tossing it loose so he could go get it was very entertaining. But I am glad it wasn’t a living creature.

Then this morning, I was able to see how he was going to react to people in costumes tonight. As I took him out for the morning walk, our neighbour Valerie was putting her kids in the car and I noticed she was dressed as a clown with full face makeup. I called hello to her and walked Rocky over to the car. When he first saw Valerie, he pulled me toward her as usual and then he stopped dead when he got a look at her face! His hackles went up and he barked at her. I encouraged him to go closer to see what this was and he did after a few false starts. Once he smelled her and jumped on her a few times, all was well. But it doesn’t bode well for a fuss-free evening of trick-or-treaters. Still, he did recover well and quickly and I think this will be a good exercise in getting him to understand that people have all sorts of different looks. Actually, I just remembered that last month he didn’t bark at all at our neighbour who wears a burqa and she had her face covered with just the eyes showing. So it must have been the face paint on Valerie. Interesting.