A periodic dispatch from the two most important employees on the acreage, neither of whom does a single moment of actual work.
We finally finished the pond a few days ago, and I want to be clear that it has already reorganized the entire social structure of this household. We did not build a pond. We built a stage, and one of these dogs has cast himself as the lead.
Meet the Employees
Han Solo. Occupation: Lifeguard, self appointed, unpaid, wildly unqualified. Mini Aussiedoodle, almost 7, King of the Acreage. Has one personality setting, and that setting is play, one hundred percent of the time, no off switch, no low power mode, nothing. He is almost seven and has apparently never been informed, because he still moves through the world like a puppy who just overheard the word walk.
Jack Ryan. Occupation: Mom’s Shadow, Head of my Personal Security detail. Springerdoodle, almost 3, deeply misunderstood. Wherever I go, he goes. Kitchen, hallway, bathroom, does not matter, he is there, my slightly fluffy bodyguard, protecting me primarily from the danger of ever being alone in a room. He loves everyone he meets, but he loves me the most, and he would like that on the record.
The Pond Situation
The pond is new, and it has revealed the two of them completely. Throw a ball in on a sunny day and Solo launches himself off the bank without a flicker of hesitation, fully committed, a furry cannonball with a mission. He retrieves with Olympic level dedication and no interest whatsoever in stopping. He has also recently decided that ping pong balls are more thrilling than tennis balls, for reasons known only to him, and now considers stealing them a legitimate career.
Jack, meanwhile, takes one look at the family water feature and hides. When Solo dives, Jack removes himself from the situation entirely. He has filed the whole pond under things that happen to other dogs, and he stands by that filing.
There are supposed to be fish in there eventually. For now it is just toys and one very wet dog. When the fish arrive, I will report back, though I suspect Solo will consider them coworkers and Jack will consider them further evidence that the pond was a mistake.
Feeding Time, or, How I Lost Control of My Own Home
I would like to tell you that mealtime is simple. It is not. These are the most spoiled dogs in the province of Alberta, and I have only myself to blame.
Jack will not eat from a bowl like a normal animal. Jack eats from my hand. That is the arrangement. That is the whole arrangement. I have made peace with it.
Solo is worse, and his is a production. Solo will only eat if you shine the laser pointer on his food. But you cannot simply point it at the bowl, that would be too easy. First you must move the laser around the house so he can chase it for a while, get it out of his system, and only then, once he has hunted the little red dot to his satisfaction, will he settle down and eat the meal it is now pointing at. Yes, I know. Yes, I did this to myself. No, I will not be taking questions.
Toys, and the Short Violent Lives They Live Here
We buy toys. We buy so many toys. I would be embarrassed to tell you how many, except I have photographic evidence of what happens to them, so there is no point pretending.
Solo’s relationship with a new toy is simple. Solo’s mission is destruction. He is not satisfied, he cannot rest, until a toy has been completely dismantled. If it is a stuffed toy, God help it, because he will not stop until every last bit of stuffing is out and scattered across the floor like the aftermath of a very small, very fluffy crime scene, and the toy itself has been reduced to a million unrecognizable pieces. He does not do this out of anger. He does it out of joy, which is somehow more alarming.
Jack has no interest in destroying toys. Jack’s mission is theft, and specifically, theft as provocation. He will wait, he will watch, and the moment a toy matters to Solo, Jack takes it, not because he wants it, but because he wants Solo to want it back. Then the chase is on, the two of them tearing through the house, Jack triumphant with his stolen prize, Solo in hot pursuit of his own property. Jack does not even like the toy. He likes the reaction. He is, essentially, a furry little instigator with a getaway plan.
Between the two of them, a new toy stands no chance. One dog wants to obliterate it and the other wants to weaponize it. It is a miracle any toy survives the afternoon.
A Day in the Life
We start with our morning walk, the whole crew out on my trail around the acreage, Solo detonating ahead and Jack tucked in at my heel. Then breakfast, see above, allow forty minutes.
After that the day begins, and the two of them split the property between them. I keep the door open to the shop, which is what I call my work kitchen, the separate building where I cook for the blogs. So while I am in there working, Jack is in the kitchen with me, good as gold, a model employee. Solo is outside being king, patrolling the grass, chasing birds, guarding a pond from nothing.
Jack is genuinely well behaved in the kitchen, with one exception, and the exception is Remo’s fault. He does not beg while I cook. He only begs the moment we sit down to eat at the table, because at some point Remo started slipping him food there, and now it is tradition, and now it is my problem.
The afternoon is patrol and destruction, in whatever order the day allows. Somewhere in there a toy dies. Somewhere in there a bird is told off. If a cart moves, Solo chases it and Jack watches in horror. This is the productive part of their day, by which I mean they accomplish nothing and are very proud of it.
By evening the batteries finally start to run down, even Solo’s, which I did not believe was possible for the first several years. Dinner happens with the same laser pointer ceremony as breakfast, because we would not want the King eating like a commoner. Then comes the brief window every dog owner knows, the one where they are suddenly, suspiciously calm, and you realize the whole house has gone quiet.
Night is the only time these two fully agree on anything. Solo abandons the throne, Jack goes off duty from his security post, and both of them end up exactly where they have decided they belong, which is as close to me as physically possible. The King of the Acreage and my personal bodyguard, off the clock at last, twitching through dreams of birds they will never catch and toys they have already killed. It is the only quiet they offer all day, and I take it.
Ground Transportation
We have a golf cart and a larger, more powerful UTV and the dogs have very strong and very opposite feelings about both.
If we drive either one, Solo chases it. Not casually. He pursues the vehicle at full speed until he can leap aboard and ride shotgun like he owns the fleet, because in his mind he does. Jack, on the other hand, is scared out of his mind of both carts and wants it noted that he considers them death machines and Solo a lunatic for getting in.
Known Nemeses
The acreage has villains, and our employees take them seriously.
There is a weasel. It comes around, it hides, and it drives both dogs completely out of their minds. They bark at it with the focused fury of two animals who have found their life’s purpose.
There are also some wild chickens, currently at large, whereabouts unknown. I have not seen them in a while, but their memory lives on in the hearts of these dogs, who would like another chance.
And of course, the birds. Every bird. All of them. This is the one issue on which Solo and Jack are fully united, the shared belief that every bird on this property is up to something and must be answered.
Closing Notes
Solo believes he runs the acreage. Jack believes he runs me. Neither has produced any paperwork, but both are extremely confident, and honestly, between the laser pointer and the hand feeding, it is not entirely clear who is running whom.
This has been The Dog Report. The employees were informed but declined to comment, as it was nap o’clock.
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