Saturday, December 29, 2012

The dog loves it when we slaughter

My airedale, monster
 Monster is the sire to my airedale pack; he's 9 years old this year, and still holding up well.  Sometimes we call him Dr. Monster, because he's taken to diagnosing animals.  He'll look at an animal, assess, and if he thinks it's going to die, he'll stick around and gaurd it until it does -- he figures that if it dies when he's watching he gets to eat it. 

He knows when he sees me with the gun and the knife that we're going to be slaughtering something, and soon.  He doesn't react when i'm carrying just the knife, or just the gun -- but when I have both on me, he's pretty sure there's going to be action soon. 

airedale, covered in blood
 Sometimes he's doing something else when I make the shot, but when he hears it, he'll come directly -- runng at full speed.  If it's dead, he's actually a little miffed.  Since he wasn't present when it died, he may not get to eat it.  He'd prefer to eat it.  So when we pick up the animal, usually with the tractor, he's right there.   As the blood poured out of the animal, he got a good coating.  He's blood-frosted.  But to a dog, that's perfume.  Blood flavoring makes you more popular with the other dogs.  You become the envy of the airedale pack.  They want  you to lead them to the blood, too. 
airedale, still covered with blood
 In this case he avoided the main gusher, but still got a good covering.  Enough that I hosed him off so that the blood wouldn't cake up on his fur.  He took it stoically;  this isn't his first rodeo, and he's waiting for that bit of liver, or kidney, or an ear or two, or a tasty foot.  He considers the reward to be worth the bath. 
airedale breed standard is 24" at the shoulder for the dog, 60lbs
For all his eating, and he eats a lot, he's maintained his youthful figure.  Airedales have a really deep chest and narrow waist.  He spends most of his day running  and hunting things, and he takes that part of his job very seriously. 

Airedale:  Please kill something else

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