A Staredown

The other day I took my poor sick dog out to the side of the house in the afternoon to do her business. As we rounded the corner, two deer looked up from eating apples under the apple tree. One deer went back to eating but the other deer stared at me and turned her body to face me (I think it was a doe but I'm not sure). She stamped her foot and stuck out her neck at me. She seemed a little aggressive. What the heck? Those were MY apples she was eating and this was MY back yard. So I stared back and stamped my foot. Cripes that hurt like the dickens. With this sciatica I got to remember to stamp my left foot, not the right. She stamped back at me! I stamped back at her. We stared and stamped at each other 15 times. She never took her eyes off mine. The other deer would look up at us once in a while but was merrily chomping away. I was getting tired of this game with this deer who appeared to be as stubborn as I am. So I stomped twice with the left foot. She stomped twice with her hoof. FGS! I got more important things to do with my time than play games with stubborn apple eating deer. There was some serious cleaning up to do after Blunder. If Blunder wasn't so sick I would have stomped over to the deer and scared her off. She acts like she owns the place. If I think about it, maybe she does own the place. She is here more than I am. She stays out of sight only to come out when the apples are ripe. Blunder notices deer and she watches them but she doesn't pull at the leash or bark at them. I think she would approach them to play if she weren't on the leash. If Ruby was here, she would go ballistic. She would bark her head off and strain at the leash. I would have to brace my feet on the ground to prevent being dragged behind her. Ruby would have chased that deer until they were out of sight. I miss Ruby. There are things about her that I don't miss and that is why I didn't get a hunting dog this time but I miss her personality. She thought she owned the world. She thought she was the boss of the universe. She never apologized or said she was sorry. Ruby was one of a kind.