Don't try the 'I'm crazy' run-by...

Yesterday morning I was upstairs when Hazel went berserk. Now, the dogs have different barks and howls for different occasions and usually I can tell them apart. For example, Ruffles barks 'Stop it! Settle down!' when the puppies are playing too rough, which is a different from her 'Someone's here! Someone's here!' bark. The difference is subtle but there is a difference. So when a moose comes into the yard the dogs have their 'Holy crap, there's a moose!' scream/bark. This is what Hazel did yesterday morning. I went to the window but instead of seeing a big moose, I saw a bushy, red fox skulking around near Hazel's circle. The fox, which I called Mary, completely ignored the crazed, gray dog just a few metres away. No, Mary had other plans.

Just past Hazel was a big, fat raven (not my dog Raven, an actual raven) scavenging for some meat scraps near the chopping block where I, you guessed it, chop the meat for the dogs. Mary Fox crept closer then bolted toward the big raven, which cumbersomely flew to the nearest tree for cover. This made Hazel go nuts, but the other dogs couldn't see what was happening so they just sat there on stand-by waiting to burst into a frenzy. Mary sniffed around where the raven had been but then turned her attention back to the bird in the tree, which by now had squawked for backup luring several more huge ravens to the area. Mary circled the tree a couple times, tried halfheartedly to jump up in the tree, then lost interest and trotted into the woods leaving Hazel still barking and a disorder of ravens ready to defend their meat scraps.

Since the fox was gone, the ravens turned their attention to Hazel. Time went by and when I looked out again (because Hazel was suddenly silent) about six ravens had surrounded her. She tried to scare them with her bark but they sat, just out of reach, and stared at her. Eventually it must have freaked her out because she stopped barking and retreated into her house. The ravens just sat in a circle around her house. It was really creepy. Finally I let Bully and my Raven outside and they clumsily bounded into the birds sending them flying off in all directions. I haven't seen the birds since.
Wild kingdom indeed. I hope Mary comes back; she was a great source of amusement.

On a sidenote, I wanted to explain that the majority of my blog titles are song lyrics. However, sometimes titles are inside jokes or things I've heard or witnessed. In this post's case, the title is something the doorman said at the Marlin last night. A drunk woman and her man stumbled into the bar and when the doorman told them there was a cover charge, they both mumbled something inaudible and kept marching toward the bar. A guy sitting next to the doorman asked what happened, and the doorman said "He says his wife has the money, but she just did the 'I'm crazy' run-by." It was pretty funny. The doorman told the bartender not to serve them until they paid the cover charge. The woman took off into the back of the bar with the doorman in hot pursuit but the drunk guy just sat in the corner, enjoying the music and hoping not to be kicked out. Sam, being the ever generous beer drinker that he is, gave the drunk guy some beer. We left shortly after that.

Peace.