Compost Dog

Lizzy is our beagle.  We don't know how old she is because she was a stray that we found running around our neighborhood in town in 2004.  She was a grown dog, perhaps 4-5 years old at the time.   So, she  is probably at least 10. 

Beagles are hounds and were bred to be hunting dogs to sniff out small animals.  We had never had a hound as a pet before we got Lizzy and I'll have to tell you that they are a different kind of dog.  For one thing, they have the "melodious voice of the hound" as I read in one book.  Lizzy doesn't just bark; she bays.  But the main difference between hounds and other kinds of dogs is their sense of smell is so much more acute.  In fact, Lizzy's nose rules her whole being.  Sally, our other dog, can be allowed outside and will rarely venture off our 5 acres.  But, we can't do that with Lizzy.  She has to be on a leash or watched very carefully because she might catch the scent of a rabbit or other small animal and be gone in a matter of seconds.

Lizzy loves to explore our compost pile.  We have a small compost pile near my herb garden where we put our kitchen waste, weeds we pull out of the beds and things like that.  But we found that we had way too much composting matter for the small one.  So, we decided to pile all this stuff out in the field where we could turn it with the tractor. 

Here are some pictures of Lizzy investigating the compost pile.