I was cutting brambles near my house today and the cats were having fun chasing after them when I dragged them to the pasture to throw them over the fence for the llamas (who were eagerly waiting for this snack). Pandolf had fun too for a while, chasing the cats who were chasing the brambles, but eventually he decided this was too frivolous for him, a guard dog with responsibilities, and he went away for a little patrol on his own, like he does sometimes.
Five minutes later I heard his Code Red Alert Bark and went looking for him, expecting to see something like a deer crossing the road and Pan yelling at him like a school crossing guard, but actually I found a bunch of cows setting up camp in my other pasture, on the other side of the road. Their owner was still there, holding the gate open and letting the last cows in, and when he saw me he claimed that he didn’t know this pasture belonged to someone. I am fairly sure that he just hoped I wouldn’t notice and his cows would get to eat for free for a while, but w/e, I told him this was my land and he rounded up his cows and left. The best thing was how these cow shenanigans clearly made Pandolf feel very useful—usually his alert barks alert me to the threatening presence of, say, a badger, and I’m like “thank you for warning me about this infraction but I will not be pursuing the matter further” and he is disappointed, but this time he could tell that the thing he had warned me about was important indeed and he sat there by the road watching the cows walk away with a look of deep satisfaction, like “That’s right. An actual threat. Thwarted by me, Pandolf.” He is only 6 months-old but he is so invested in his job and it’s really precious.
