Juno Is Leading A Double Life

My Sweet, Sweet Juno has turned out to be a riddle wrapped in an enigma stuffed in a Feeley Meeley box! She usually stays close to home. Close, meaning inside her house on the back porch next to the kitchen door, for about 12 hours a day, and then once it's dark, on the porch or in the front yard BARKING HER FOOL HEAD OFF.

Saturday, Juno did not run out of her house as I left for town. Jack was nowhere to be seen either. That's not uncommon. He gets around. Without Copper Jack coming over to be the glue that tears the threesome apart, I guess Jack and Juno had agreed to go their separate ways. I set my handful of fake meatball treats on the generator in the garage, to give them when I came home.

I had barely pulled out of the driveway and onto the gravel road when I saw Juno loping towards T-Hoe. She came from our down-the-road neighbor's field. The neighbor that Jack nipped on the heel when Farmer H was returning a piece that fell off the neighbor's tractor. Oh, well. Jack IS a heeler. The neighbor barely felt it through his boot. Jack DOES have that tiny dachshund mouth.

Anyhoo... Juno crossed the gravel, and ran along our BARn field. I put the window down and said, "See you later, alligator!" Which is what I say to her every single time I leave for town. She expects it. She doesn't eat her treat until I say it. Then she puts her head down to nosh.

When I came home, both dogs were there as normal. Both were there to see me off on Sunday. But Monday, only Jack came to get his going-away treat. I didn't see Juno until I came back home. She was standing under the big cedar tree near the carport. Maybe marking it with her scent for the next time Copper Jack comes back to assume his lounging space. When she saw me, she pranced over to the garage door. As it opened, she stuck her head under, then came back stand behind the other door where A-Cad lives.

I closed the garage door behind T-Hoe without incident. Jack was waiting for me by the front passenger tire. I picked up the two remaining treats from the generator, and gave one to each fleabag. Juno usually gets two, but too bad, so sad. That's what happens when you're gone at treat-dispensing time.

I hobbled up the four steps to the porch. Jack was still trying to chew up that treat that must have seemed like a giant jawbreaker to him. I always pick up two big meatballs, and one little one for Jack. Which he had eaten as I left.

Anyhoo... Juno was finished gobbling her meatball, and instead of flouncing around and maybe whacking her head on the metal chair or the wooden stair rail while feinting with Jack, she headed around the corner to her house. But FIRST...

JUNO GRABBED A BLOODY BLOB OF MEAT FROM THE PORCH!

When did she put THAT there??? She didn't have it in the yard or behind the garage. Maybe she had run to get it as I parked, and took it to the porch before standing just outside the people door for when I finished petting Jack and let him out.

It was BLOODY, I tell you! I didn't see fibers in the meat, like a steak. But it wasn't smooth like an organ. Just a bloody blob of meat. With a piece of sinew that attached it to a smaller blob of meat. Juno snatched it up and ran into her house. It left a blood stain on the porch boards.

When I handed out the adult lunchables for the coming-home treat, I saw that Juno had also left a bloody stain on the threshold of her house. I'm pretty sure I could see that bloody meat blob inside. I shook her salami, cheese, and Triscuits inside. 

I hope Juno ate that bloody blob of meat! I don't want to think of the stench that could arise. Or of her feet and belly fur soaking up that blood... I suppose she sniffed out a deer hunter's butchering area, and helped herself to a treat. It's so much easier on my mind when they just toss out a couple legs on the gravel road down by the mailboxes. I figure that's fair game, and Juno won't anger a hunter if she drags a leg home.

I will be very selective about where I pet Juno for the next couple of days.