Poor Emmi

When I moved to Montana to marry Michael I had two Airedales, big dogs.  These dogs had been trained to one of the underground electric shock collars.  The transmitter collar each of them wore emitted a signal if they got too close to the underground wire—if they got really too close the dogs received a shock.  Sounds cruel but so is getting eaten by a coyote, run over by a car, etc.  We installed the fencing underground for the Airedales and also trained our other miniature schnauzer Jazz to the fence.  The fencing works like a charm—Jazz was smart enough to know if she had the collar on or not, the Airedales just stayed inside the perimeter all the time.

Well, now it is Emmi’s turn.  The weather has been nice the last couple of days and I spend half my time going outside looking for Emmi.  Today I called and called, beginning to get very worried before she finally appeared covered in burdock burrs.  So, I spent today repairing breaks in the fence and putting up flags all around the perimeter to give her fair warning when her collar signals.  Nat is picking up some batteries for the collar in town and tomorrow I will train the dog.  I have stuck my finger to the shock collar and it does not hurt, it just will hurt her feelings—it will probably hurt Mom more than it will Emmi.  Can you tell I’m not looking forward to this??

Nat came for lunch and I made potato soup, salad and homemade bread.  Tonight we are going into Nat’s to meet Lonn, LoraLee and Laci for pizza. 

Michael has spent the day working on the skid steer.  Doug, a skid steer is a Bobcat—you can move all sorts of things with one—manure, garden dirt, rocks, equipment.  It is one piece of equipment I don’t think we could be without!