Someone had tied a blue nylon rope around his neck; someone else removed it.  In neither case was the "someone" me ...

So animal control is the sheriff shooting the dog.... sounds like here. cute shepherd mix tho

I don't need a fourth dog - but he's a damn good little watchdog. I've seen him walking the area around the trailer and chasing off some rabbits (yeah!!!) He's not always right outside, but neither of my neighbors have seen him on their places so he's obviously not going too far...

Shit, I may be in trouble!!!

@lostmaniac True, but by the time the Sheriff becomes involved it tends to be a lst resort and the dog is more than just a 'passing nuisance.'

Yeah anything is forgivable except attacking people and livestock and no leash laws and even with the livestock there is some leeway like paying for the dead animal instead of havig mine shot at

Al.......I sense a softening of your stance.

Imagine... Growing vegetables that end up on your table and not rabbit food...

Well, my garden - such as it was - is gone.

Kujo has gone on to another fellow. I didn't mind when he ran with the cars but the day he ran in front of one and the driver skidded to a stop made my mind up for me. A friend who lives way out in the boonies (as if where I live isn't the boonies - just with a busy road!) expressed an interest in him depending on his reception by the existing house dog. They got along fine - after a squabble or two - I'm told, so I'm satisfied that he's in a safer place.

But the cats won't chase the rabbits - so my little garden is kaput before it even got started!!!

Something like this with solar fence charger should take care of those pesky rabbits.

https://www.premier1supplies.com/p/goat-sheep-9-42-6-electric-netting?gclid=Cj0KCQjwwODlBRDuARIsAMy_28V2n4ZKt66_kS8t_dyRjfDpgx4mWsZNHyT22naVoewGTegIdXJi3W8aAr-FEALw_wcB

I'll have to look at that again - the price on the fencing looks good but a case of sticker shock when it came to the energizer.

(( and I called Chris - the fellow who has Kujo now, no, I can't borrow him back! ))

A gruesome but effective remedy for me in past years before I wire fenced my garden was putting kenzi out through the evening and night when rabbits were coming in and having her kill what she could catch (which were several back then). Then we would douse the garden boundary in the blood of the kill. Depending on style of garden you have you maybe able to get away with chicken/rabbit wire cloches over the plants of interest.

The motion sensor noise and light things can be very effective. Around here people use electronic owls that move and hoot. Dunno how well they work. Birds are the whole reason i havent planted berries.
Or you could take up falconry

I'd have sworn I said something about the third cat but I don't see it here.

It's a classic "tom cat" in color (grey with darker grey/black stripes) but I believe it's a female - at least one of my cats appeared to be having a fun time with her<?> one evening - and it definitely wasn't a fight.

I hadn't seen her to speak of, a flash of "cat??" a time or two but never enough to see color and definitely not enough to determine sex; yesterday <s>he was on the back porch when I opened the patio door (separate door, 15 ft apart) and just looked at me before slowing slinking off the porch and under the trailer.  Figure she's coming into the house to eat cat food and the other two don't really seem to object.

Google says that's a tabby ... I always assumed tabbies were female (ignoring the fact that we had several of these male and female on the farm) ... so shoot me, I am *not* a cat person. (( and I dare anyone to pick up any of my cats!!! ))

I had 2 tabbies that were basically feral that someone ditched in my barn. We handled them with heavy gloves and cat traps once a year. I miss having cats

I've had a good chance to look at that tabby and it has absolutely no interest in sticking around for me to find out more.

He was on the back step one time, about 20ft from the sliding doors, he looked bigger than the two I have but he didn't stay - back under the trailer.

This morning when I went to feed and let Sasha out the tabby and my black cat were in a face off just inside the back door.  Obviously the black cat was more of a threat than I was, the tabby'd glance at me and then give his attention back to 'black cat.'  (s)He is about 25% bigger than either of the others,  comes  in to eat their food (I don't mind) and then goes back under the trailer.  They've had a few tussles but I haven't ever seen any blood so it's on them.

ETA: It's getting a little more bold, I was standing in the sliding door looking at the mountains when I saw it in the grass beside the water tanks. It (he/she/???) looked at me, paused, and then kept on stalking the birds in the trees.

It may come around to an extent. Probably won't ever be a lap cat, but may someday get where you can put food out for it and it will come all the way up with you out there. When dealing with ferals in the past I've always just talked a lot when out and about to desensitize them to the sounds of me. Or to just give myself a somewhat "acceptable" reason to be talking to myself...

@TwisterII it's been interesting.  The tabby hasn't had anything to do with me - runs away if I even look in his direction.  Over the weekend he decided that I wasn't *that* bad.  He (and I'm pretty sure now that it's a male.) stood on the back porch while I was feeding Sasha so I put out a can of cat food.  He's odd, he doesn't know how to eat from a can, he tries to lick it all out of the can ...  Today he was standing on the top of the washing machine (which is in an alcove by the back door) so I held out my hand - wasn't sure if I was gonna draw back a nub or not.  He leans into it and proceeds to scratch himself ... so I scratched him.  

I'm going to have to get a picture of him with one of the other cats - he's about 1/2 again their size.  There have been a couple of discussions with  little blood but not too much.  I'd think it'd be obvious who's the bigger / stronger but my black cat seems to be of the opinion that he's been here longer ....

And again, the dogs ignore him - Sasha's curious but he hissed and she backed up - and pretty much he ignores them. He has however stayed on the back side of the gate so there hasn't been much interaction between the dogs and him.

Short noses make it hard for cats to get things out of small spaces or steep sided containers if they haven't had a lot of practice with it. Mine tend to just lick at the gravy if I get shredded types of canned food so I only get pate, at least until they get used to eating it, then they seem to get better about eating the chunks. When they get freeze dried that's been rehydrated they still want to lick at that a lot.

When we were at the other house I fed a feral for a while that was tiny. Like a half grown kitten that just stopped growing. It was a true wild feral so I never could get it caught. Like a ghost it was until it got hit on the road and became a real ghost. Sad deal. It was actually starting to look healthy with consistent food and my dealing with the large yellow cat across the road that would try to bully it. I had hoped to trap it, get it fixed, and make it a barn cat, but alas, twas not meant to be.

Well, my calendar is telling me that tomorrow is Sasha's 'Got You day' My Pita-Pata, on the other hand, says that she's been with me for 7 years, 11 months, 4 weeks and 2 days ... well, someone's gotta be close.

When I first took her into my vet, we guessed her age to be about two or three but as she's aged, and my vet has more experience with her, we're revising that upward to maybe as old as five. In any case that's putting her at the 11 - 12 year old range.

We went out for an off lead walk this evening and she looks like she's five - "Oh, was that a wabbit??" - she doesn't chase them very far but the fun is in the chase, I guess.

From the terror she was when I brought her home she's really mellowed out to be a good companion. I won't say that she doesn't have her days when she wants the others to leave her alone but at least she doesn't try to take their heads off - mostly she'll just head into her crate and dare anyone to bother her - unless it's food.

Coming up this weekend is one of two times of year that I really hate. Okay, I live by myself and the time of day doesn't really affect me - if I wanna sleep in, I do - at least until someone tells me she wants out. But, I hate time change! For some reason, the dogs just don't understand that 4:00 is now really 5:00 --- why is that???

Happy home day Sasha!

The time is hard to get the dogs on board with, though last night was the first time in a long time I fed the dogs before Kye pestered me to do so. He knows what time 8pm is and like clockwork is there to pester me for dinner. Not yesterday. Had him all off. Then they wanted out to pee at 4am.

Kenzi is somewhere between 10 and 11. It's starting to show. She's starting to white in the face. I don't wonder if she too isn't a bit older than expected. They thought she was 4 when I got her and everyone we meet up until a couple years ago can never believe she's as old as we say she is. Think she still looks puppish. I will have had her 7 years in May. She acts old, but then she's kinda always been a grumpy old woman. She's just starting to move old.

ARGH!!!! We've had a really pleasant spring (if you ignore the wind and a cold snap.)
I put my fig tree and strawberries (both potted) out a couple of weeks back and of course the overnight low of 38 turned into 24! (er, those are °F not °C which would be really nice!) and of course both were nipped. The fig had put out some great leaves and lost them all (boo-hoo) and is thinking about putting out some new ones now ... but they're still pretty small - like it's thinking "I did this once and got frozen, do I really want to do it again?"
My strawberries leaves that hung over the edge of the pot were frozen - somewhere beyond just nipped but it's recovering nicely. The leaves of the plants in the pot didn't even seem to be bothered.
Of course Sasha's decided that my strawberries - that's leaves, not fruit - tastes good so I've had to yell at her a few times already to "get out of the Strawberries!"
As we (Sasha and I) were out walking I noticed a bush that had been pretty badly "munched on" by the rabbits - silly wabbits, that thing had thorns that are well over 3" long - longer than the thorns on the mesquite out back which range up to a couple of inches of sharp, painful agony.

Ive got so much basil that i cant even give it away fast enough. And i tried cloning/cuttings of this berry bush. They look like red blackberries but the sections are a little bigger with less of them. I have no clue what it is but they taste good. Anyway the 3 cuttings i tried died. Im almost thinking instead of cuttings i need to dig the whole bush up, but im not so sure its legal to take bushes out of the national forest without a permit and to get a permit i would have to actually know what the berry is. Ots spring here also, or so the bees and prairie dogs think so. Supposed to be 50 today 55 tomorrow and 5 to 10 inches of snow Friday.

Lostmaniac wrote:

Ive got so much basil that i cant even give it away fast enough.  And i tried cloning/cuttings of this berry bush. They look like red blackberries but the sections are a little bigger with less of them. I have no clue what it is but they taste good. Anyway the 3 cuttings i tried died. Im almost thinking instead of cuttings i need to dig the whole bush up, but im not so sure its legal to take bushes out of the national forest without a permit and to get a permit i would have to actually know what the berry is. Ots spring here also, or so the bees and prairie dogs think so. Supposed to be 50 today 55 tomorrow and 5 to 10 inches of snow Friday.

Take a picture - whole bush, the leaf and the berry. Maybe the bark, too.

Just looked around some plant sites for local stuff. Its a thimbleberry.

Argh dogs, it seems as if one of them becomes tame and one of the others gets out of hand.

I went to let Sky and Avalanche out on their leads off the porch and, me in briefs, Sky stands up and runs her 4 razors down the back of my leg - she was ungratefully kicked for that.  Sorry, that was nothing other than reaction - it <deleted> hurt!!!

Went to take her for a walk yesterday on her long lead (app 50 feet of parachute cord) and she took off so I have a nice<??> rope burn across the palm and fingers of my hand.  Add insult to injury, she got the rope tangled up with Sasha so Sasha took a tumble after getting her hind feet pulled out from under her - that ended that short walk!  Sheesh!!!

She's decided that she knows how to open the children's gate between the kitchen and the back of the house - with the open back door for cats and ventilation as well as the sliding door off the kitchen (not only the door but the screen outside it as well!) so not only does she get out but Avalanche as well.  There aren't any steps so it's a 3 foot jump from the kitchen floor to the ground - too much for Sasha, she looks and decides not to even try - but then she  gets out when she goes to the door anyway, she's being given freedom since she stays within the boundaries of the yard.

I should have gotten some tomatoes while I was in town yesterday - but didn't see them till I was ready to leave and had paid out.  I've got some potatoes in the ground and see green sprouts from them - not good ground for potatoes but figure I can just keep adding dirt around them as they grow.  Have a couple of onion sets in (okay, actually about 6) they were some small white onions that had started to sprout so I figured I'd give them a chance ... they were beyond edible, so nothing lost.  Also dumped in a 30 pound bag of coffee grounds (yeh, I drink lot of coffee ...) for some reason the grounds I put in last year have all disintegrated into <something>  I figure if I dump enough in there it'll at least loosen up the soil a little - living on a caliche base is the pits!
I've also been given some cilantro seeds - and I like cilantro, I'll eat it raw - should probably get some of that into the ground and see if it does anything.

I have cilantro basil 2 types of chives right now and then got a blueberry bush a raspberry stem/root a blackberry stem/root and a strawberry kit today. Im Also looking for a freezer, buying meat once a year is a sound investment.