Good Dog, Bad Dog

Lizzy Dog has to be "supervised" when she is outside.  Otherwise, her beagle nose will lead her astray.  We wish we could let her run free, chase rabbits and squirrels and do all those other "hound" things that beagles are born to do.  But, we know there are people around here who will shoot stray dogs that wander onto their property.  (See the blog entry for April 19, 2010, "Dogs and Cats", the story of how we got our dog Sally.)  So, for Lizzy's own good, we make sure we watch her closely if we let her outside without being on a leash.

Tom will usually let her go out to refill the deer feeder with him.  She likes to sniff the ground around the feeder where the deer, rabbits, racoons and other wildlife have been the night before.  Here's a picture of her taken by our wildlife camera.

But, after she "reads" the ground around the feeder, she will usually follow her nose off to the next scent.  That is okay as long as she does not go under the fence and off into the big world beyond.  It is a barbed wire fence and, therefore, easy for her to go under. 

Tom says when she starts getting close to the fence, he will call to her to come back.  This works about half the time.  He says sometimes it seems as if she has a little devil on one shoulder telling her to go under the fence and a little angel on the other shoulder telling her to mind him.  On the day the above picture was taken, the little devil won and Tom had to go after her.