Ahhhhh........

We've been at the lake now for two weeks, and Brutus is so happy. This boy was born to live at a lake. Too bad he has to split his time between here and the city. He's so abused. ;-)

Last Sunday was a beautiful day for a boat ride, and it was my first pontoon ride of the season. Apparently Brutus had been out fishing with Don the weekend before that, and he remembered the routine as if winter had never happened. He did have one moment of panic. He had jumped in to the lake for a quick swim, and then jumped on to the boat with us. The problem was, Don's parents were on the boat with us too, and Brutus hadn't shaken the water off of himself. I knew him well enough to know that he would walk right over to them and shake away! Don coaxed him off of the boat and told him to "shake". He was so confused, and when he was standing on the dock the little door on the pontoon started to close. He panicked, thinking that we were going to leave without him, and he actually tried to jump through the little space at the top of the door. We got his head unstuck and let him on the boat, and of course, he walked right over to Don's parents and shook the water off of himself. Oh well. Thankfully it was a nice warm day.

For a while Brutus stood up and let the wind blow in his face, sending his ears flying in the wind like Dumbo's, but then he did something that I haven't seen him do before. He hung his nose over the edge of the front of the boat. It's a very good thing that he's a little too chubby to fit through the opening because his nose was wiggling and smelling the entire time, and we went pass plenty of critters, including a huge "only a mother could love that face" snapping turtle.

Can you just imagine what would have happened if Brutus would have gone after that guy? I don't think that Brutus would have won!

When we got back we sat around the camp fire for a while, and Brutus worked at thinning out the mouse population in the wood pile. He is possessed with the mice, chipmunks and moles at the lake, and the wood piles seem to be one of the best places to find them. The other place is any kind of tube, especially the downspouts. Our biggest challenge has been trying to train him to stay in our own yard so if he happens to get his nose stuck on the trail of a rodent and goes after it, the damage stays on our property. Brutus has done some damage to a couple of our neighbors property going after rodents, and we always feel so awful. Once he gets that smell in his nose, no amount of yelling or calling or bribing will get his mind off of it. It makes everyone crazy!

Anyway, he picked this particular log out of the wood pile and brought it over by us. He chewed on it, dropped it, sniffed it, scratched at it, spun around, dropped and repeated the whole process. He's done this before, and managed to come out with a critter. I can't imagine how scared whatever was inside the log was. Imagine being inside of a tube and watching these big teeth coming at you, knowing that you were going to be in that mouth. Ugh. Well, Don just couldn't stand it. He took a stick and poked it through the hole in the log and pushed out a mouse nest. There weren't any mice in it anymore, so I'm sure that Brutus was just smelling the remnants of what used to be there, but the look on his face was priceless. It was kind of like taking a piece of candy away from a child. Plus, if Brutus is entertained with something that actually isn't hurting anything, you leave him ALONE!!

Someday Don will learn. :) 

So, it was back to the swimming pool to hang out for a while. Ahhhh, a dog's life.