#2561 today's best: when she finally dropped it

Today has been a nice day. It was a WFH day for me, and I took the dogs out for a quick walk early this morning before I logged on, and for another, slightly longer walk at lunchtime. This evening I took them out for another walk, because why not? I decided to take them on a different route through the neighborhood than we usually take for some variety. 

We went past a house a block up from us. The people there aren't really into lawn care, and they only mow every couple of weeks. The grass is tall and thick and looks awful. Mac and Harley really seem to love smelling all the smells in that lawn. Tonight, they got a little more than a smell. They were both after something and when I finally was able to pull them away, Mac emerged with a large, flat, stiff mouse in her mouth. The tail was at least three inches long. 

I squealed, hopped up and down, and yelled at Mac to drop it. She would not pay any attention to me. Harley wanted to carry it, too, but Mac wouldn't share. She seemed so pleased with herself. Her ears were standing up, her tail was up and wagging, and there was a little prance in her step. I could practically hear Harley saying, "Come on, Mac. I found it, too. Let me have a turn."

What was I going to do? There was no fucking way I was going to reach in her mouth and take that mouse out of there. I didn't have any treats to bribe her with and no amount of angry voice would make her put the thing down. We kept walking. 

We came upon a group of teenagers playing basketball in the road. They said hi and looked at Mac. I said, "Yep, my dog is carrying around a stiff mouse." They came over to check it out, making the appropriate disgusted sounds. I thought one of the boys might try to take it from her, but he backed away.  Harley wanted to be friends with all of them, then remembered that Mac had a mouse and tried to get it from her. The kids wished me good luck and continued their game.

What was I going to do? I didn't want her to bring that thing to our yard. I kept hoping she'd get tired of it or maybe drop it in order to get a better grip on it, but that didn't happen. We kept walking.

We turned went around a corner and I saw a PowerAde bottle in the gutter. I picked it up, trying to decide if Mac would consider dropping the mouse for the bottle. She loves to carry around plastic bottles. A dog behind a fence where we were walking started barking, throwing off Mac's concentration. I chucked the bottle at her, and it hit her in the head. I yelled, "Drop it, Mac!" She didn't drop it, but she did look at me like "WTF human?!" I retrieved the bottle and threw it at her again. And again. And again. I was kind of yelling the whole time. Harley was jumping up on me like she was missing out on all the fun. The invisible dog kept barking.

Finally, Mac must have gotten scared between the bottle, the yelling, Harley's jumping, and the other dog barking, and she dropped the mouse. I quickly pulled them both away from it and praised Mac greatly. I felt bad about my tactics, but I was feeling pretty shook up about the whole situation. Mac was unharmed by the bottle throwing, by the way. I think I actually only hit her with the first throw. I was pretty desperate. I can only imagine what anyone who was looking out their window might have thought of the whole scene. 

We continued our walk without further incident. Both dogs were very good, with minimum pulling and eating of crap (literally) out of yards or in the gutters. We stayed far away from the mouse corpse. I will remember not to walk on that side of the road tomorrow. 

So even though there were other good parts of the day, the best thing was when Mac finally dropped that dead mouse. 

Ahh...the joys of owning dogs.