The big dig

I really don't mean to be one of those people who talk about nothing but their dogs. But they just do so many amusing and interesting things.

Tonight, as we were in the back yard encouraging them to burn off some energy together in a friendly game of chase-and-wrestle, Nelly abruptly abandoned the game, leaving Toby mid-tackle, and began to dig wildly. Nelly has never really been much of a digger - that's always been more Toby's schtick - but all of a sudden, the dogs have been working as a team on a big hole. Actually, it's not just a hole, it's a den. They are building themselves a den. It's a wide, shallow depression in one corner of the yard, and they have now started lining it with plant matter. They lie in it sometimes, and then make little adjustments here and there. They're constructing the canine equivalent of a bomb shelter in the back yard.

We normally discourage digging, but we're just too damned fascinated by this phenomenon to put an end to it. And why is Nelly, now approaching her ninth birthday, suddenly into digging? What about that saying, about old dogs and new tricks? Because I gotta tell you, the look on her face when we catch her expanding the Emergency Dog Bunker, sending a cloud of dry dust across the yard with her furiously flying paws - her face has the happiest, most contented little doggy expression I have EVER seen.

But hey, as Enrico always says - we all need a hobby.