Before Nightingale's horse friends died and before she bonded with Annie... and after Annie's buddy Mister McCoy died... Annie had been a friendly companion to the humans in her universe. She loved to take walks in the woods with her favorite people. Here she is with her friend Mary.
It is a little sad that Annie has now become a strict guardian dog. No longer does she take walks with her favorite people. To walk with Annie means walking with Nightingale, which is not too much fun as Nightingale wants only to be close to her dog and will run over people to get to her. And Annie barks at most everyone who comes around. She seems to think she has a serious job to do now: protect her horse from all comers, be they cats, birds, or people.
Annie is especially worried about a Great Blue Heron that hunts small creatures in our pastures. It is not allowed in Nightingale's field or the adjacent one. And cats, of course, are deemed particularly dangerous. If one appears in her field, she takes out after it at a dead run with Nightingale close behind.
But worse is when she manages to escape the field... like the time she slipped her collar while being led to the South field for the day, with Nightingale following, of course. For an unknown reason, although we later figured it out, Annie took off at a dead run up the driveway and across the road with her deserted horse hot on her tail. I was chasing in my EZ Go but not catching up. Annie came back to our side of the road but not down our driveway. Instead she raced into our neighbor's small acreage and into the woods behind their house with Nightingale galloping after her. I called Johnny to come help and he drove up on his EZ Go, but Annie was determined to get whatever it was she must have smelled on their property as she had her nose down tearing this way and that. I finally cornered her against a fence and got the leash back on her. The neighbor's elderly father said he heard a bear earliert so I suspect that's what Annie smelled.
A few weeks later we did find plenty of bear sign in our woods. Annie and Nightingale were safely in the South field, away from the bear leavings. Mary was with us along with her sister Cathy, visiting from Minnesota. Here are Johnny, Mary, and Cathy, in the Qi Gong grove, admiring the tiny Rattlesnake Orchid that Mary had spotted some months earlier...
Here is that little orchid (not in bloom) that they're looking at.
After leaving the Qi Gong grove, we drove slowly around the flower meadow to the south field, where Annie and Nightingale were waiting...
Annie was glad to see Mary, although the visit was through the fence to keep from being trampled by Nightingale.
True friendship knows no boundaries...
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| Friends forever |
