Jaws

Our family has had dogs before, including a very menacing miniature poodle. We always felt that when we lived in (insert Midwestern city suburb here) that our 1/100th of an acre wasn't big enough for a big dog.

In Alaska, though, our house sits on a space we own the size of Vermont, so The Mrs. and I figured it was okay to get a big dog. We went down to the pound and picked up our new dog, a perfect complement to our miniature poodle. The new dog is a cocker-spaniel/husky mix, if you can imagine that (and I try not to). She was (in theory) 8 months old when we picked her up. She was goofy and amiable, which we thought had something to do with being a puppy. We were wrong.

Well, she's now big enough to pull my 4x4 pickup, by herself, through six feet of snow. She's huge. Still goofy, still amiable. But so darned unrefined. The Mrs. refers to her as our "hillbilly" dog, since she's still (after four months) not so comfortable with being inside. Nice, but no manners.

I'm not sure when we noticed it, but the dog developed an interesting habit. She chews up everything. Everything. Here is a (partial) list of things eaten by the dog in the last month:

• Two garden hoses
• An extension cord
• The cable (for TV) coming into our house
• A snow boot liner
• A pull starter on the lawn mower Christine killed
• An assortment of The Boy's toys (a yo-yo this morning)
  
• The miniature poodle

Actually, she loves the poodle, and hasn't eaten him. Yet. But she'd mean no malice if she did. She's still goofy and amiable. She has, however, consumed every other thing on that list.

I see other dogs trotting across our lawn on a regular basis. Some are the size of a pony, and I can almost imagine an Alaskan dog breeding program that mixes moose with wolf and miniature dachshunds to produce this uber-dog optimized for -50 living. That would explain some of the behemoth dogs that regularly make their way through our property.

Nothing I know of, however, explains this sign.

I have my guess, which is that the trash (trash: it's what's for dinner) at the transfer station attracts stray dogs (and other quasi-domestic critters) which results in people making the assumption that someone threw a live animal in for disposal, when in actuality it was just having a tasty snack of seven-day-old ribs.

The only other thing I could think of is that the dog started eating the house . . .