Dogs and S-N-A-K-E-S!

So, we picked Sugar up from her boyfriend, Hank's house yesterday. She decided she was ready to have another litter of puppies and was attempting to do so with our neighbor dog, Kobe, but since he's fixed he wasn't catching the drift regardless of how many times she stuck her backside in his face. Hank knows the drill, so he took care of business almost instantly. She was in Naches for almost a week and rumor has it, she wouldn't let poor Hank rest, so I don't know what kind of morals our dog has, but sheesh. She'll be sorry for her feistiness when she's full on pregnant and delivering at the end of July. Well, what can you do?

Anyone who knows me very well, knows that I don't like pets anyway, dogs included. Sugar's not my dog exactly and I wouldn't say that I hate her, but you know, there's no love lost. As a matter of fact, I don't like anything that moves independently of the wind or motor propulsion, except people. Apparently the rattlesnake that crossed my path yesterday didn't get the memo. I simply decided to go for a little jog on the canal ditch behind our house. I had just asked Kyle the evening before when we were up there taking a walk with the boys what the likelihood of seeing one up there would be and do you know what he said? "Minimal." So, I jogged as far as my poor, destroyed bladder would take me and was almost back home, when there he was. I say he, but who could really tell the gender of a snake besides maybe the Crocodile Hunter? Anyway, I stopped dead. He was probably four feet long and on his way from the canal to the field by my house. His head had already reached the field side of the ditch, so I decided I'd walk around his back end by hugging the canal so close I felt like I was on a tightrope. It was pretty much successful, although I decided in that instant to never join the circus. He didn't seem to appreciate me back there and rattled his mean, little tail at me. I kept going. What other choice did I have besides drowning in the canal? I made it past and did my best speed walk the rest of the way to my house, repeatedly looking over my shoulder the entire time to see if I was being pursued. Anyway, there's a reason that animals in a zoo are contained within cages and glass structures. We're not meant to coexist.