For some reason, several deer mommas have recently decided that my Pyrenees, Vasya the Wonder Floof, would make a good babysitter and left their fawns concealed in the woods at the back of my property. This is probably because, under normal circumstances, Vasya keeps the predators run off and mostly ignores the large, blueberry stealing, garden munching ruminants as long as they keep to themselves. But this all changes when the first momma decided to try and menace her and the other dogs when they wondered too close to her hidden baby. Suddenly, some hidden switch deep in Vasya's Livestock Guard Dog brain flipped, and now, deer are Not To Be Trusted. The war was on.
(She likes to hang out under the deck, because it feels like the mouth of hell in the South right now.)
Since that moment, the Wonder Floof has been on high alert, diligently clearing our five acres of the high-strung creatures any time she catches sight or sniff of them. Unfortunately, this recently lead to a situation where I caught Her Furriness chasing a fawn across the back part of the property, determined to rid us of its pestilential presence. To date, we have had two fatalities due to run-ins between dogs and baby deer, and I was determined there was not going to be a third. Yelling at the top of my lungs, I took off after them.
Anyone who has ever been around a working Pyr knows that when she is doing Her Job, she is unimpressed by her human's opinions. (If that's not the universal case, and it's only my dog, don't tell me. Let me keep my ego-saving delusions, please.) So, of course, she ignored me and continued her pursuit with me charging in her wake. (And by charging, I mean stumbling and wheezing in the vague direction they were heading, pretending that I had a chance to alter the outcome of this encounter.) That was the moment that momma deer leaped out of the forest and came after me, creating a bizarre, farcical conga line streaking across the back half of my property.
I was not prepared for this physical challenge, so I peeled off, bowing out of the situation and wishing the deer the best, but momma deer had a different plan and followed me, pivoting on her tiny, sharp little hooves to run me down. I immediately joined the ranks of countless movie heroines and tripped over my own feet, slamming into the ground at full speed as visions of all those episodes of When Animals Attack that my 9th grade Geography teacher inexplicably made us watch scrolling through my brain at warp speed. Luckily, momma deer watched me splat against the ground like a bug on a windshield and realized that I was too stupid and inept to be a real threat, pivoted again, and went after the others.
I shoved myself inelegantly to me feet, trying not to think about how many chiropractic visits this was going to take to fix, and ran-stumbled back to an area I felt was safe enough away to stop and hyperventilate. I turned back just in time to see momma and fawn jumping the fence to safety and the Floof trotted triumphantly back to me. She was barely winded.
So, yeah, I need to start working out for real. 😬
