On our late night walks we have started to encounter on a semi regular basis a hedgehog that wanders up and down the road, snuffling for slugs.
Both the mutts are, of course, utterly fascinated by the prickly critter and want nothing more than to charge it and then poke at it possibly barking a bit for good measure. Unless we are deep in the woods, barking is a Bad Thing at midnight on a suburban street and I do my best to discourage it.
Not wishing the hedgehog any harm I restrain the mutts from their excesses. If the mutts were calmer I would let them have a sniff, but, as is their way, they rarely do calm when something interesting is happening. They do lunatic levels of crazy eagerness.
For its part the hedgehog seems unruffled by their proximity. It shuffles along, stopping here and there, before it disappears under a neatly cultivated hedge of someone's front garden.
Last night, after our walk, safely back at home lounging on the sofa, the boy mutt perked his ears up and approached the front door of the house. He stared at the door, his head rotating one way, then the other, in the peculiar way dogs do when they can't quite grok something. He trotted to the letter box and had a good sniff through the opening. A wuffle - not quite a bark, a bark and a cough, or an under the breath bark.
The girl mutt intrigued by this level of alertness joined him, and decided to have a wuffle herself.
Hmmm.
Burglars ? Interlopers pawing through our trash ? Ne'er do wells skulking in the bushes ?
I decided to let them have a look and opened the door. Nothing - except - right at the doorstop, our friend the hedgehog, snuffling around. The mutts went into overdrive. Hastily I grabbed them before they could get to it, and ushered them back inside. Taking a last peek at the critter as it wandered off in between the bins, I shut the door.
Amazing that the mutts could hear / smell it. They really do have keen senses.
