I got these photos yesterday of Widget "mining," which is what we call this particular daily habit of hers. Please notice the white bobbing tail sticking up from underneath the bedding.
First, some background: At our house in Montana, we finally put up a doggie gate to close off the kitchen and dining area so Alayne and I could eat in peace without being pestered for handouts from Widget and her friends. Widget is the pushiest and most insistent of the gang about helping herself to our lunch. Of course, she is nearly impossible to resist because of that adorable face, not to mention her … um, her insistent manner. The answer was a sizeable and assault-proof barrier to keep the Huns at bay.
Because of the layout of the kitchen/dining area in this house in New Hampshire, we haven't quite figured out yet how a similar doggie gate/barrier would work here. That has left Alayne and me vulnerable, once again, to pillaging at mealtime. The answer, at least for now, was to remove the leader of the Huns by diverting her to a new source of plunder.
Which brings us to mining.
We feed most of the dogs their dinner in their crates in the evening. A few of the dogs — and this is totally inexplicable to a Beagle like Widget — actually don't eat everything and leave a little food behind. A kibble here, a kibble there, pretty soon it adds up to real food. This is pure treasure … a gold mine, so to speak. But you have to know where to find it.
Thus at lunch time, we swing open the door to the dog wing, deposit Widget on the floor, and off she goes to mine. We leave the crate doors closed but not locked, so she has to open each one by pulling on it using her feet. This eats up (no pun intended) valuable time while we enjoy a peaceful meal. Once she gets a crate door open, she disappears inside to root around under the dog beds looking for stray pieces of kibble. This is mining at its best.
Widget methodically goes down both rows of crates, opening each one in turn, searching for the precious ore. Once she has convinced herself that the crate has been meticulously searched and nothing is left behind, she comes out and heads off for the next one:
What really bugs her is when a dog has left a real bonanza behind, and — mindful of her waistline — we have locked the crate door so she can't get to it. Her nose tells her what kind of bounty is inside. So she'll stand outside that crate and let out a series of mournful woo-woo-woo's. When we hear this sound from our lunch table in the other wing, we know she's just arrived at the locked crate. Eventually, realizing other opportunities await, she moves on to the next crate.
On those days when no dog has left any food behind, we'll "salt the mine" — to borrow an expression — by throwing a piece of kibble into several of the crates, then closing the doors. It makes for a happy miner.
It turns out that the time it takes her to mine her way through all the crates is just about the time it takes us to have lunch. We're dining, she's mining.
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