Spot's spot and a ham bone

Our Great Pyrenees came to our farm last spring. He was three years old, and had already worked on an alpaca farm. His name was Spot. We were a bit puzzled at the name, as he appeared all white. They told us he had a spot when he was a puppy.

I actually tried to change his name, but he seemed to only respond to "Spot". I sometimes called him Spot-a-cus thinking I could then switch it to Spartacus (those with small children who watch "Lazy Town" will know this is the name of the athletic hero of the town, I thought fitting for a farm dog). Anyway, mostly we call him "Spot" despite his not having a spot. Visitors often snickered at his name.

Well, as winter hit, Spot's spot appeared again! You can also tell he has badger markers on his ears:



Spot is still just as needy for attention, who could say "no" to this face:



After today's adventures with Spot, I have decided he is much smarter than I previously gave him credit for. He has always been a very sweet, wonderful dog. But I sort of thought of him as a less intelligent big guy. Today he managed to get loose from his eating area. Now, Spot is one who will escape if given the opportunity. He even has crashed down fences when he can in order to roam free. I think he gets bored sometimes. Well, today he got loose because the kids walked out of the fenced in area and gave him the chance to get free. I chased him down the road and across the street to the neighbors. He would see me running and calling to him, and he'd take off in the other direction. GRRR! Well, one neighbor had put a ham bone out by their bird feeder (I guess for the animals to eat). Spot found this and was so excited he allowed me to not only catch up to him, but get the leash around him. I let him take the ham bone with him. I hope the neighbor understands, I was not grabbing it out of his mouth! He's a sweet dog, but this is a ham bone with lots of meat attached.

So I got Spot back home, with his ham bone. It seemed like not that much later (10 or 15 minutes) we find Spot roaming the woods! He got free again. Who could blame him, now he thinks ham bones with lots of ham grows on trees. I was able to lure him into my in-laws house, and then took him home. But, I couldn't put him back into the girls pasture/barn area. He had figured out that he could jump the fence from the pasture to our back yard. We never put barbed wire on this fence as we did the one around the pasture. Then, from the back yard he could jump into the garden, which is not fully fenced in. He was then free to find more ham bones (or so he thought!).

I had to put Spot in with our boys. Now it's not unusual for dogs to be in with boys. We choose to put him in with our girls because they are further back in the woods are there is more likely to be predators back there (loose dogs being the worst offenders). Our boys are less vulnerable. Plus, we have a gelding in with the boys who acts like a watch llama. Our boys don't seem to like Spot. We have new boys too, Navigator and Greyt, who were most suspicious of Spot. I have very little sympathy for Spot not being so welcome by the boys, after all, he's there because he messed up the fence back at his usual home. I only hope he doesn't figure out an escape route. I'm sure the lure of thinking he can find ham bones could make him break down just about anything.