Faithful readers might remember last year when my loyal German Shepherd Dog Zoe caught a groundhog that was living under our back deck. It was an amazing feat for her and it started us on a small program to try to eradicate the groundhogs from under the deck. In short order we caught 2 more in the same general area and after it was quiet for a while we figured we had resolved the issue.
Zoe didn’t necessarily agree with our conclusion. All through the winter she often would sniff around at the back door or out on the deck over where we believe the groundhog hole to be. Since groundhogs hibernate we believed that perhaps something else had moved into their empty den — maybe some of the rabbits that are so plentiful here or squirrels or mice. Although we’d prefer nothing to be living under the deck we thought that pretty much anything would be better than groundhogs.
Today at lunch Zoe was sprawled out next to the back sliding glass door per her usual habit. And when a German Shepherd Dog sprawls out, they SPRAWL OUT! She literally takes up half the floor so she is kind of hard to miss.
At one point we noticed that she was looking out the back door with unusual concentration. Her ears were perked up and she was cocking her head from side to side as if she was trying to figure out what was making a noise. Her head moved from left to right as if she was following something.
Zoe shifted her body to the right side of the door and her ears were sticking straight up and twitching. The front half of her body started to shake as if she was growling, but there was not a sound out of her. She was still laying on the floor but had her legs under her and she looked coiled to pounce on something.
What happened next is hard to believe.
A groundhog sauntered along the deck from the right and stopped right where Zoe was. It stood up on it’s hind legs and looked into the house. Zoe and the groundhog were literally nose-to-nose, separated only by the glass pane in the sliding door.
It was a tense moment, sort of like a standoff in a western movie except with a dog and groundhog instead of cowboys if you can imagine. We were in shock. Zoe was in shock. And the groundhog was, well, quite calm to be honest.
After what seemed like hours the groundhog switched it’s gaze from Zoe to us and then back to Zoe. It reached out with it’s paw and rapped the glass where Zoe had her nose pressed. Zoe jumped. We jumped.
The groundhog stuck out it’s tongue, turned and slowly waddled off until it was out of sight.
You could almost hear the count in your head — one one-thousand, two one-thousand. Zoe turned to look at us. We lept to the door and threw it open. Zoe dashed out and jumped down looking for her prey. We ran to get the gun, anticipating another amazing story to share with a triumphant ending.
It wasn’t to be. The groundhog was gone, no doubt safe and comfortable in it’s under-deck den. We stomped across the deck. We yelled at it. We called for it to come out. We set out food to entice it. All to no avail.
Defeated, we and Zoe retreated back to the house, tails firmly tucked between our legs. And here we sit. And watch. And wait.
Mocked by a groundhog — never thought we’d cross that one off the list.
This story is SO not over…
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Ok, seriously, who is “WE”???????