Canine Vindaloo
I feel quite sorry for Penny.
One of her self appointed missions in life seems to be to rid the world of flies. She hates the little fuckers and if one enters the room she will abandon whatever she was doing and will set off in hot pursuit.
In the course of this pursuit she will forget such minor details as safety, decorum and even the laws of physics, as she bounces off the floor, furniture and the walls. Nothing must get in the way of the chase and anything that does usually ends up in pieces on the floor.
Mayhem.
In fairness, she is damn good at the job and I reckon she has around a 95% success rate. However she may like the sound of a fly being popped between teeth but I find it slightly nauseating.
For the last week we have been having a drop of sunshine so all the doors and windows are permanently wide open. This means, of course that a lot of flies fly in. As a result, poor Penny doesnât get much peace. No sooner has she lain down for a doze when a fly makes its entry and chaos resumes. Once she has caught and crunched the fly she returns to her shady spot to cool down, while I sweep up the pieces.
I have to be on guard all the time as she is welcome to the flies but I draw the line at bumble-bees, so if one of the latter strays in, I become the chaser with a sheet of card, trying to scoop the bumble-bee out the nearest window before Penny gets it. Not easy as those little fuckers are incredibly stupid and invariably head back into the danger zone as soon as I nearly get them to safety.
The one experience we havenât had yet is Penny chewing a wasp. The place seems to be remarkably wasp free this year which is probably just as well as Iâm not sure I want Penny to catch one.
I wonder what wasps taste like?
I imagine they would be somewhat akin to a very hot Vindaloo?
We get a lot of hummingbirds around here in the summer; before they fly off to old Mexico for their winter hols. Your post brought horrible vision to mind. "Crunch" you say ?
"Crunch" indeed. That's the lesser of two evils. Sometimes they go "pop".
Our friend/catsitter has solved the problem by making up frames to clip on the windows with a very fine mesh screen. No insects in, no cats let out, but good ventilation. Simples.
A good idea. Unfortunately it wouldn't work here – the main source of ventilation/coolness/fly entry is through a large pair of double-doors out to the garden. It would be difficult to mesh them, and ayway Penny would probably just crash through any screen!
loardajezuz hope she never crunches into a wasp! living in a house of 3 fly hating cats, I no longer have anything breakable, it's been tossed in the bin years on
"it's been tossed in the bin" – you only had one breakable item? Now that is sensible.
mm sensible not so much, broke, mostly cheap plastic items..more the truth
You think you've got it bad?! Try having two jack russell terriers in the living room while you're trying to read or watch TV. They won't budge from that room after midday as it's the coolest in the house from then onwards. Come to think of it, I won't budge from it either; for the same reasons no less.
You have my sincerest sympathies. Jack Russells are not my favourite breed [we had one for many years].
Have you tried water divining with them? Ours was great at that. I used to pick her up by the chest, leaving her legs free. I would then carry her held out in front of me. If we passed over water at all, her little legs would start paddling away furiously. Great for finding hidden pipes underground.
Same problem here, I've got three dogs but thankfully only one of them is a fly-hunter!
I have got fly-screens on every window but the little blighters get in anyway, as to wasps – isn't it a bit early for them? They only arrive here late August/September and it's the hornets that worry me!
You could be right about the wasp season. Fuck! Now I have that to look forward to.
How is she with horseflies? If she goes after those as well I'd like to borrow her for a day?