Hey Bird Dog

I haven't slept well lately. Nothing unusual about that; I rarely sleep through an entire night.

However, this is the second night in a row that I haven't slept at all. (Though I did sleep for 4-5 hours during the day on Friday.)

This past night, I simply stayed up too late reading. (Darn you, M.J. Rose and Yasmine Galenorn! ^_^)

The night before last, though, my lack of sleep was all Ginger's fault. Ginger is my youngest fur child and the only female of the three.

She's also a bird dog. She proved that Thursday night.

We used to jokingly call her a bird dog because she seemed able to fly. A 6-foot fence could not keep her in the yard, despite her only being about a foot and a half tall at the shoulder. Dog can jump!

She didn't jump the fence Thursday night. I wish that was all she'd done.

Honestly, I told a fib earlier. My lack of sleep wasn't all Ginger's fault. Just mostly.

Unable to sleep - and with a growling stomach - I got back up not long after going to bed. (I think it was about 3 am.) Ginger pleaded with those lab eyes of hers to go out. Since I was up anyway, I opened the sliding glass door for her.

There was such a nice breeze, I left the door open but closed the curtain so we wouldn't get bugs. Ginger loves when we do this; she likes being able to come and go as she pleases. The curtain doesn't bother her, she simply goes under/through it.

A few minutes later, while I was fooling around on my computer, I heard something flapping against the curtain. It sounded like something fairly small, so I figured it was just a bug and would go away eventually.

Ginger, who was back inside by now, went to investigate the noise.

"Get it, little one. Get that moth."

She did. She chased something small and dark from under the curtain through the house. I could hear her wrestling with something near the front door. Dang that moth's putting up a fight.

It was no moth.

It was a bird. A small bird. And boy was it dead.

I choked.

I knew I had to get it out of the house so neither Ginger nor her brothers would eat it - who knows what kind of parasites the thing may have had!

I was crying by the time I picked it up in a couple of paper towels. I barely managed to open the front door and toss the poor thing into the yard before I broke down.

Yeah, after that, I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep. I also couldn't focus well enough to write or I would have written this up right then.