Gibby, Gibby, Gibby

Gibby and I had a great time twice today. I called my friend, Bobby, to ask a question about roofing supplies and caught him out in the middle of my woods (aren't cell phones great?). I hadn't heard about it, but apparently there is a new, extra week of killing deer - a special week for killing does. This is a horrible time to do this - I have seen a lot of deer lately, babies still with spots. Killing the does will kill those babies, too. Bobby was checking the woods to see if our frequent trespasser, a man we call "the Indian" was out there killing deer. Last year we had a terrible time with him - he shot a little baby deer - shot it right at the foot of the tree, deep in my woods, where Bobby's son was hunting. Needless to say, the son was very upset and words were exchanged. Anyway, Bobby told me we had trouble, a dead tree fell across two fences, my neighbors sheep pasture fence and my horse pasture fence. The new sheep fence was really smashed, and last we knew, there were a hundred sheep in that pasture. So, I left immediately for the farm, and Gibby joined me to walk back to check the fence.

When I let Gibby out of the pen (the gate repair is still holding), he did his wild running, around in a big circle, back to me, to the car, back to me, etc. I think he was surprised to find the car empty, no other dogs and no mother. He did one straight line run at full speed right at me, but I was now confident that he would swerve away or stop in time - but, oooooooooooo, I was almost wrong. He slammed on his brakes about a stride too late and slid right into my feet- just barely touching them. For a second, I was sure he was going to knock my feet out from under me.

We went down the lane that starts next to the barn, Gibby going back and forth and side to side, covering about ten times more ground than I was. When we got to the beginning of the pasture, a tree that grows right in the corner and acts as a fence post, had dropped some hickory nuts on the ground, so I gathered a pile and left them there to pick up on the way back. I was thinking the squirrels would probably see that pile and make it disappear before I got back.

I saw the downed tree and it really did some damage to the sheep pasture's new fence. I was glad Bobby was coming back with a chain saw. Once I saw it, there was nothing I could do alone, so I walked a little further and found another scattering of hickory nuts. I was really surprised to find them before the deer or squirrels or other animals had gobbled them up - last year, I didn't find any - so I piled those up, too. Gibby was dancing on his toes, trying to get me to hurry on, and he didn't even tell me that a man was coming up the lane calling my name. It was the fellow, a Quarter Horse cowboy, who works for the sheep man. I stopped and talked with him on my way to the farm. He came over to help with the tree and instead helped me with the hickory nuts. I filled the pouch I made out of the front of my shirt. I already made a hickory nut dye sample, so I might use these for eating. I think I'll save the husks and dry them so I can see if dried hickory husks give as good dye as fresh hickory husks. Gibby must have been disapointed because our walk was cut short. We walked back to the barn and got there just as Bobby arrived with the chainsaw. Gibby was as good and polite as any dog could be. I told him I had to leave and he walked right over to the dog pen. I reached over to chain the gate, and he licked my hand - such a wild big dog being so gentle!

I went back to the farm again at feeding time and Gibby was just as active as if he hadn't run for miles earlier in the day. We both went back to check the fences and found the two men had cut up the tree trunk and fixed the sheep fence, but left the horse fence down on the ground with the tree branches laying on it. It's rusty old fence that needs to be replaced, but when it's up the horses respect it, so I had to prop it up with some of the branches from the tree. ( I left one big branch in the path so Bobby would have to stop his four-wheeler to move it - I was feeling a little irked that my fence was still down.) Gibby was running back and forth, up to the barn yard and then back to me. Patches was barking at him and I think he couldn't decide who he wanted to play with, Patches or me.

I fed Gibby just before time to leave. Yesterday I put a whole bag of dry dog food in a feeder that he can access any time he wants. I couldn't tell whether he had eaten much of it or not. I think he figured out how to use it - he has to push his head on a swinging door to get to the food. However, he really loves the other food I bring to him from Mother's leftovers, he jumps up to see it no matter how high I hold it while I'm taking it to the pen. I think he's saying, "What's on the menu? is it meatballs and rice again? Oh, I hope it's spaghetti! Wow, is it really a hamburger and fries???? Yum! Today there were no leftovers, so his meal was a can of premium dog food.

Gibby is Busy

The mended gate held - Gibby was in the dog pen when I arrived this afternoon. I was really pleased because I had sent some young boys to the farm to see about roofing the boarder's lounge building (that's the name we always used for the vacant converted barn on the farm.) I was concerned that Gibby might be overly protective if the boys got there before I arrived - but, like most boys who haven't successfully held many jobs, the boys were an hour late, and when they finally arrived, Gibby treated them like old pals.

When I opened the dog pen gate, Gibby wanted his one minute of petting.He ran to the car to say hello to my mother, then he sat by my side and let me rub behind his ears. Looking down at him from that perspective, he has a really big head - lots of brain room. Maybe that's why he is so curious and so smart.

After his petting, he did some wild running.

Then, he started MY work routine! He apparently remembered that I go first into the barn to check on the horses and the indoor water trough. He headed into the barn ahead of me, then came back to be sure I was following.
He went right into the pump room and checked out the pump. If he had hands, I bet he would have turned on the water for me.
Next, he ran through the stallion section, then came back and jumped up to look into the stalls - stalls that have been empty now for almost a decade. I wonder if he could tell who used to live there.
Outside of the barn, he tried to play with George.

George just kept turning away, keeping his back to Gibby.

After just a few minutes, George begged to be let back into the car. He made it very clear that he has no intention of making friends with that new dog.

Patches is a completely different story. As soon as Gibby gets near, Patches just flies at Gibby. When he isn't near, she barks at him.

Gibby condescends to play with her for a few minutes, but his wild running is hampered by the rope clipped to her collar - which somehow always ends up wrapped around my legs.

I'm having a lot of fun with Gibby. I enjoy doing the rounds with him. He watched me feed the cats from a distance, then stood in front of the chicken pen while I filled the chicken feeders. It's almost like he's apprenticing and watching everything I do so he can get it right and do it himself next time.

Gibby has Come Out!

The real Gibby has surfaced. He's no longer being the polite guest, he knows he's home and he knows he is wanted and loved. He was out in the yard the last two days, having destroyed the mending on the previously destroyed pen gate. Each day, he was sitting by the picnic table - right where Rusty used to wait - and came running when he was sure it was our car in the driveway. When I opened the gate, he ran to me, swung his back side around by my leg, sat down, and leaned in to me to be hugged and petted. Here I was thinking I should train him to stay in the pen, wanting to be stern with him, and giving him great big hugs.

Gibby only stays still for moments at a time, so our hugs were not long - his next activity was to show off his great physical prowess. He can run VERY fast, leap and twist in the air, reverse direction, run back to me, slam on his brakes at my feet, then leap above my head into the air. Phew! Nothing to do but observe and admire.

The next act is Kong catch - I throw, he catches. I can't play this game too long because the Kong gets really slimy. It's wonderful to see Gibby so happy.

However, for his safety, I worked on the gate, trying to wire the steel sign back onto the gate. I really miss having wire coat hangers. I looked through the house - went upstairs for the first time since the roof was done and forgot to see how it looks in the loft where there's no ceiling - but couldn't find an old hanger anywhere. In a fit of getting organized a few years ago, I bought a big stack of matching blue plastic hangers. I had to use one of the cables that I had to clip Gibby to before he moved into the pen. It was the first weaving I've done in months - weaving the cable back and forth on the outside of the steel sign. The whole time I was doing it, I was wondering how long it was going to take Gibby to chew through the cable. I'll find out this afternoon.

Gibby was chased by 5 horses

Gibby has had quite a week. The first few days, after only a few minutes of freetime out in the yard, he went after the cats. Each time he chased the cats, I put him back in the dog pen. To reinforce the seriousness of his behavior, I carried an orange plastic Tide bottle and banged it against my leg. When he was on an intent charge after a cat that headed for the deep weeds, I threw the plastic bottle into the weeds to grab his attention. The bottle bothered him enough that when I put it down in the driveway, he circled around it. He seemed to learn instantly that my holding the orange plastic bottle and bouncing it on my leg was a signal he better head for his doghouse. Two days with the bottle and Gibby seemed to learn his lesson. The following two days, Gibby didn't chase any cats at all, didn't even go into their part of the yard.

When I open the pen gate, Gibby comes out like a flying cannon ball. It really isn't safe to be anywhere around for a couple minutes. He flies out of the pen and takes several fast runs in a circle around the trees in the yard. He scares me when he comes running back to me, but he always stops just before I'd be mowed down. After several minutes of this flying around, Gibby comes to me and leans into me for petting.

Well, today Gibby had a big treat. A friend came to the farm to see how we could keep a pair of sheep - two sheep we might go in on together - so I took her out back of the barn to see my neighbors sheep, but there were no sheep. No sheep in his field, but horses in mine, so we walked out to see the horses. We ended up walking out to the hay field gate so my friend could see the back part of the farm - there's more land beyond that gate than there is in front of it. I haven't seen most of my farm this year, so I was happy to walk through the field, but it was really exhausting - for me, but not for Gibby. Gibby tried to follow us when we entered the field by climbing over a gate, but he couldn't get through. He was smart enough to find another way to enter from the other side of the barnyard, but that put him immediately in the pasture where the horses were grazing. The horses are probably used to protecting each other from coyotes, since there are a lot of coyotes around, and Gibby is a coyote color. The horses formed a phalanx and went right after Gibby. He halted his mad dash, backed up a few steps, and then really turned tail and ran. Gibby again figured out a way to catch up with us by skirting around the horses - and then he had a wonderful time racing around and around through weeds taller than his head. He was perfect about staying close while he was running, and then he followed us back to the barnyard. In the barnyard, he made his first mistake of the day - he chased a cat. I regretted having to do it, but I had to pick up the orange bottle and order Gibby back to his doghouse. Either he knew he was in big trouble or he was as exhausted as I was, because he layed right down by the fence and didn't even bark when we left.

Gibby and the Roofers

Finally, the roofers came out to reroof the front two sections of my house. The last time those sections had new shingles was thirty years ago. There were three layers of shingles on top of the original old cedar shake shingles, so everything had to be torn off. The cedar shingles had a life of fifty years, then each layer of shingles might have had a life of 30 to 50 years which would take the house back 140 to 200 years ago, so the newest parts of the house were roofed the first time somewhere between the Civil War era and the settlement of Michigan in the 1830s. The older part of the house is shown on the right side of the left hand photo above. The ceilings in that part of the house were so low that my hair almost touched the ceiling (and I'm only 5'4") so either the early settlers were very small people or they built the house low so it would be easy to heat. The two sections in front were built differently. I've always thought they were sections from other houses that were dragged over here and attached to the original house. They were built with a mixture of the old handmade nails and the early machine made nails which might date the construction to about 1850 - or, maybe they were built earlier and then brought over and joined together around 1850.

The crew that came to do the roofing consisted of about ten men - with only two who spoke a little English. They all worked really hard and really fast.

(Here's a word of warning if you're looking for roofers in Michigan: Mr. Roof advertises all over the place, so I called them for their advertised $19.99 price for ten square feet, including tear-off, clean-up, etc. Well, the first estimate was a tad under $18,000. When I told the estimator that was too high he lost his temper and was so unpleasant I ordered him off my property. At the sale price, his estimate must have figured on an 80,000 square foot roof - slightly larger than mine. A week later, his "boss" called and asked if he could give an estimate. I said okay, he came out and remeasured, and his price was a tad under $8,000, which I still thought was too high, but I wanted to get it done, so I gave him a $500 down payment - and didn't hear from him for two weeks. I called to find out when the roof would be done, and was told it had to be $4,000 more. I told them I would be nice and let them out of their contract, and they should just send my down payment back. That was the beginning of August, maybe five weeks ago, still no refund. Finally, I called a local contractor and he's doing it for $3,000. So, I just wanted you to know I do not recommend Mr. Roof.)
I just happened to spot this poor little kitten while I was watching the roofers. Poor thing has some burrs on her back, but I would have scared her half to death if I tried to catch her to take them out. Maybe her mother will help her.
Gibby did not like having all those men around, but his barking wasn't loud enough to be heard over the generators they were running in their truck. I think Gibby was barking, "Roof, roof, roof, get off my roof, roof, roof."
Later, when the roof was finished and the men were gone, I let Gibby out to run in the yard. The cattle dogs were on their leads attached to their line between two trees. They did their best to attack Gibby, but he was smart enough to stay just out of range.
The new roof looks pretty good.

Gibby had company

Gibby had a normal day, sleeping in his dog house when I drove into the farm. He didn't hear the car until I had already driven all the way in, turned around, parked, and rolled down the windows. At that point, he woke up, came to the viewing spot in the pen fence, and gave a couple of barks. My mother was determined that those hello barks were intended for her - and she might have been right. Even though she never gets out of the car and he is normally on a cable that keeps him about thirty feet away from the car, they seem to have some kind of connection. Mother tunes into animals in an amazing way - she knew George was sick before I did and I spend hours a day with him. Whenever she has been concerned about an animal, she has been right. Anyway, Gibby and I played stick and kong toss, and then Patches and Gibby had a bark contest while I fed the chickens and filled one of the water troughs. I fed Gibby and put him back in the dog pen and then we left.

On the way back to my mother's house, I got a call from the friends who were coming out for dinner. They wanted to meet Gibby. So, I turned around and went back to the farm - very hard to explain to Mother who couldn't figure out where the friends were and how I knew and how long we would have to wait - being deaf and unable to read lips sometimes makes the world a very worrisome place.

I think it's not making a big stretch to call my friend Cathy a "dog whisperer". All of my dogs treat Cathy like a very special being - especially George, he just melts when she comes near. Gibby was no exception. He liked Cathy right away. He was a bit much for Carol, who has only been out of a leg cast for 24 hours, but she did say that he's beautiful. Cathy and I played stick with Gibby for a while and he was a real gentleman and a perfect catch. Cathy thinks he's part pit bull - accounting for his wide head, wide chest, and great power - she could be right. There has always been something about Gibby that reminds me of poor Rusty - and I always suspected Rusty was part pit bull. Maybe other people are more astute than I am and that's why no one wanted to adopt Gibby. There's a lot of negativity about pit bulls and other "fighting" dogs around here, particularly since two people, a woman on her way home and an older gentleman out for a walk, were mauled and killed by four dogs belonging to a woman in Livingston County - and Livingston County is where Gibby came from.

Gibby is the first

Gibby is the first dog I've played with who plays fair - if I toss a stick and he catches it, he brings it back for me to toss again. If I tell him to go find a stick he will keep looking until he finds one or I tell him to stop. All of the other dogs I've had would take a tossed stick and run with it - or tease me by playing keep away with it. Same thing with tossed balls - as a rule, my dogs have always grabbed the ball and kept it. I had one wonderful old dog (Ben, father of Patches) who could keep a tennis ball in his mouth with my hand around it while swinging him in the air. I haven't had a ball for Gibby, but that rubber kong is the same idea, and I think Gibby is trying to play catch with me with it. I toss it, he grabs it, and he throws it back toward me - of course, it bounces in wild directions and I hardly ever get it. I'll have to get a Gibby ball when I go to the pet store to get a new collar for him. We couldn't find the kong today, but Gibby kept going back to the grape vines by the house like he remembered leaving it there.

Gibby has hands

Gibby had a wonderful time with a stick today. When I quit tossing it for him because it was too hot for running around, he played his own game with it. He uses his paws more like hands than most dogs - Patches uses her paws the same way. With Patches, I often feel I could hand something to her and say, "Here, hold this for me." and she would. Gibby almost takes his dinner out of my hands with his hands - one of these days his dinner will probably be knocked down into the dust in his pen.

Gibby the Observer

Gibby was more observer than participant today. The Araucauna rooster, who was supposed to be a hen, flew out of the big cage just as I stepped in to fill the feeder - he flew so close to me that it felt like his wing did a push-off on my shoulder. A couple times in the past, he rushed around when I stepped into the cage, but this looked like a planned escape. The time I had to play with Gibby was spent trying to recapture the rooster.

I don't know why any bird would want to be loose in a yard full of twenty or more cats, but this guy didn't seem to see the cats as any kind of threat. He marched right up to some of them and scared others. At one point, he dove into the waist high weeds in front of the red house and must have landed right on a cat, because there was a sudden explosion and a flash of cat above the weeds headed to the left while the rooster headed to the right.

Every time I tried to head the rooster off, he flew or ran in the opposite direction. Somehow, he knew he shouldn't head toward the yard where the dogs were waiting. He went that way once but immediately turned back. At first, Gibby and Patches were barking, but then became very silent. For another half hour, they just watched.

Finally, I realized the Araucauna hens were all roosting, so I opened the gate and left it open. The rooster was on the porch of the old red house where some antique chairs were piled, waiting to be refinished. He heard me approach and ran into a dead end. He was caught between the chairs and a wall and couldn't get out, but I couldn't figure out how to get him out either. I moved some of the chairs and let him loose. He ran right away toward the chicken cage - ran past, and then turned back and went right into the cage. Whew.

Gibby must have watched carefully, because he barked again the minute the cage door closed.

Gibby met a horse tonight

I was in the barn, turning off the water, when I heard some barking that sounded like strangers were approaching. I thought at first that maybe someone was turning around in the driveway since Gibby and Patches had gone bark-berserk a little earlier when that happened, so I didn't hurry to look outside. Then the barking sounded more insistent and I decided I better hustle and see who was there. A friend had told me he would come to the farm if he couldn't get a problem sorted out, so I thought maybe it was him, but I got to the barn door and saw an empty driveway - with the barking still insistent.

I didn't discover what was happening until after I had already scolded Patches for barking and put her and Blue back into the car where even George was barking - for the very first time, according to my mother (who is deaf, but today George was sitting right behind her.) Gibby was barking toward the barn - and then I finally saw why - Ballyteague, the white horse in the photos posted a couple days ago, was playing with Gibby! 'Teague was sticking his head over the gate that blocked the open barn door, then ducking back inside, waiting until the barking slowed down, then poking his nose out again. I guess Gibby isn't the only critter on the farm who has a sense of humor!

Gibby is a real character

Gibby is really an unusual dog. He has a sense of fun and love that just seems to burst out of him. Physically, he's getting stronger all the time, which is hard for me. He should probably belong to a teenaged boy who could run and jump and wrestle with him, but he got stuck with a creaky old lady. Today, we played catch with some sticks and with a rubber dog toy - that dog is fast! He didn't miss catching a stick once. The rubber toy - I think it's called a kong - bounces in odd ways, so Gibby would catch it and then throw it down on the ground and I could almost hear him laugh! He seemed so happy today - rolling and rolling in the grass, running through the trees and then back out again without getting his cable tangled.

Last night, I gave him, as I do almost every night, a packaged dinner that my mother didn't eat. It was a chicken breast with clumpy rice and veggies and I didn't want him to swallow it in one gulp, so I took it out of the package and cut it up. Then I dumped it on top of the dry dog food in the big mixing bowl I was going to carry out to the dog pen. He ran to the pen first, jumping up and down on his front legs like a kid's toy, and was really anxious for his dinner. I dumped it quickly into his food pan - and got the dirtiest look any dog has ever given me! When I dumped the bowl, the good stuff went to the bottom and he couldn't see it. I told him to dig in, and he did, pushing the dry stuff out of the way to get to the chicken. I left him sorting out his food.

Tonight, I gave him two packaged lunches that my mother and I didn't eat - hot dogs and beans. When I left Gibby, he was standing there with a hot dog sticking out of both sides of his mouth - I think he was asking if this was food or a toy. I'm thinking his former caretakers didn't give him people food.

Gibby Couldn't Chase Cats Today

Had a fairly successful solution to Gibby's cat chasing problem today. Instead of letting him run completely free in the whole barnyard, I put him on a cable fastened to the pen fence. He could go as far as the part of the yard where I fastened Blue and Patches. Once again, George avoided Gibby and Blue attacked him. Patches went into her worst behavior, barking and pulling as hard as possible on her line. Her barking is dreadful - non-stop and high pitched. Very hard to do anything with Gibby with that barking going on. I'm considering getting out the electric shock collar that I've had unused in a case for years now - it was supposed to be for training dogs for working with horses.
The cable was a little dangerous, Gibby moves so fast he almost tripped me a couple times, but it was a lot better than seeing the cats terrified. Gibby seemed quite happy, even settled down and rolled on the grass for a while. I'm still thinking he might be a better dog for Mike to have, but Mother said tonight that she's getting really fond of him. Maybe all the trouble is worth being able to see the happy look on her face when she looks at him.

While everything was calm, I took some photos of the horses who were coming outside during the daylight for the first time since the weather turned so hot. I think they'll be pretty startled when they meet Gibby for the first time.

Gibby is Difficult

Gibby is not an easy dog to train. This week, I've been trying to let him out to play with the other dogs while I've been doing chores. George avoids him, Blue attacks him, and Patches barks the whole time. Gibby is a cat chaser and a very serious cat chaser, and that means I will not be able to let him have the run of the farm as I had planned. Also, he is waaaay too strong for me. I don't want to work with a choke chain just to teach him to walk with me. He listens to me when he wants to, not when he wants to chase a cat or jump on the car. I was worried today that he was going to try to climb into the car through the passenger side window - where he would have landed on my mother. He had his front legs on the window ledge and his back legs poised to jump when I grabbed his collar and, braced against the car, had to use all my strength to stop him. In the meantime, my mother was sweet-talking him, not realizing she was in danger.
I talked to an old friend, Mike, who dearly loved a yellow lab I gave him as a puppy about 16 years ago. Dusty was his constant companion, going to work with Mike and resting on his jacket until Mike would tell her to move. I invited Mike to stop over and see Gibby, he said he would if he saw that I was at the farm. Mike is not a big guy, but he is extremely strong. He roofed my barn all by himself, swinging around on it like a monkey. One year, when I was having him patch the roof before we realized the whole roof needed to be replaced, I was worried about his safety, so I had him wear a harness attached to a long rope, and tied the rope to the bumper of my old Chevy pick-up. He was working on the back side of the barn roof when a friend came over and decided to borrow the Chevy. She was in the truck with the engine on when I came out of the barn and saw what was about to happen. Another time, Mike was helping me by building a new stallion pen at the back of the barn. He had the fence and gate finished and was using a weed-whipper to clear the ground. He apparently whipped into a ground wasps nest because all of a sudden, he came running into the barnyard, with his face green, lips white and protruding, eyes panicky - the wasps had literally drilled holes in his head. Luckily, one of my riding students was a doctor, she heard the calls for help, galloped up, ran to her car, and grabbed some hypodermics filled with Benedryl. She started giving him shots every few minutes, got him into her car and drove him in to the hospital where they gave him IV Benedryl for hours. So, you can see I owe this good friend a really nice dog if he just happens to fall in love with Gibby.

Gibby the Guard

A man came to the farm last week to estimate replacing the farmhouse roof. Gibby was in the dog pen, wagging his tail every time I looked at him. The roofer climbed up and down the roof, walked around one side and the front of the house a couple times, but only came near the dog pen once - and Gibby gave him a very threatening and serious sounding bark. So, it looks like Gibby is going to be just right - about everything except the cats. I can't really let him out of the pen to run around the farmyard because of his behavior with the cats. I'm thinking about setting up an electric fence area that would limit Gibby to the yard around the back of the house - the cats seem to have abandoned that yard since Gibby arrived and I moved the black kittens. I'll have to wait until the Oliver tractor is returned and the roof has been replaced, I wouldn't want any problems with Gibby or the fence with workmen around. Right now, Gibby seems quite content with the current arrangement, he's putting on weight, his ribs and spine are no longer obvious visually or to the touch.

Gibby and George

Gibby and George must be friends by now. We decided to drive into the city to have dinner at a spaghetti supper being put on by a friend's church. I didn't want to leave the dogs at home and it was too hot to leave them in the car in the city, so I decided to leave them in the farmhouse again. George was on to my plan the minute we got to the farm and I parked closer to the house than usual. When he got out of the car, he ran in the opposite direction, looking over his shoulder to see what I was going to do. I called him, but didn't go after him. I took the two girls into the house - neither one wanted to go in, but they did with just a little verbal urging. You'd never guess these dogs lived in this house for years - it was Blue's home for ten years, Patches for about eight years - and I always thought they were happy here!

When I went back outside, George came a little closer, unsure about what to do. I went to him and put a noose around his neck - using the same method they used at the dog pound. That made him so mad, it looked like he was willing to choke himself rather than move, but I surprised him by moving away from the house so he got up on his feet and walked, then I just turned him around. It took a lot of gagging and coughing, but I got him into the house.

We had a great time in the city, met a friend, and had dinner. Unfortunately for me, we had a few miles of walking up and down hills in the process and I was quite worn out by the time we got back to the farm. I parked near the house again and said hello to Gibby - but, it wasn't Gibby! Standing in Gibby's usual spot in the dog pen, was George! The house and the dog pen were both still tightly closed up. I have no idea how long George was in the pen with Gibby, it could have been as long as four hours - and neither one of them looked the worse for wear.

I went inside to get the little dogs and discovered that someone had chewed through the lock on the inside door and jammed the door so I had to pry it open. Then, inside, suddenly, George appeared. He really had his inside/ouside methods worked out. I check out the library door - it's a pocket door that will never be in a pocket again - it was so destroyed that it had become a swinging door, and the outside door on the other side of it was wide open. Gibby was sitting there smiling. I was so tired from the walking that I blocked the library doorway and figured I'd solve the door problems tomorrow. For tonight, Gibby has access to the basement if he wants it. I hope he chooses to stay in the dogpen - it wouldn't be too hard for him to dig his way out of that basement if he started digging in the right place.