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Yes, we know what this looks like. And no, Rascal isn't a pervert (and neither are we). This is a family-friendly site, so we're simply going to be mature adults here and proceed with the post.

It became a running joke between us that Rascal was the most productive contractor in the region. But it wasn't even a joke. For all of the acreages that have been snapped up around here in the last couple of years by peace-seeking city types just like us, there have been too few construction crews to actually build homes on them. If an enterprising Canadian contractor is reading this, please pack up your things, gather your crew and move here without delay. In 2 years' time, you and your entire crew will have earned enough to retire and send all of your collective children to university. And keep yourselves in nice cars and plenty of creature comforts (it goes without saying that such vehicles and comforts will have to be sourced elsewhere). But I digress.

As autumn slipped poetically into winter, the nights grew cold and Rascal's in-floor-heating project was still not crossed off of our to-do list. There were far too many other immediate concerns involving the cows and chickens. Looking back, we should have just bought the supplies and allowed him to self-contract. So we decided that since the guest cabin was unoccupied and had to be wood-heated anyway in order to keep the pipes from freezing, we'd let him call it home for the winter. He seemed to know what was going on as Kurtis gathered his things, and he scooped up his food dish to move things along. The boy and his dog made their trek across the lawn from doghouse to guest cabin, and after some careful arranging of his possessions, he circled his bed 3 times and christened it home.

It turned out to be a good plan. Rascal kept a neat house and even after the occasional tantrum ("What? You're not going to stay for an hour or two to pet and scratch me and marvel at my brilliance?") involving a spitefully upturned food dish; whatever stellium of planets he has in Virgo just couldn't take the mess and he quickly snouted the stray bits of kibble into a neat pile. If we thought they wouldn't maim each other, we'd ask him to come into the main house and demonstrate housekeeping techniques to his trio of slob siblings.

By November, winter had firmly established itself and Kurtis engaged in his several-times-daily routine of stoking the wood stoves in all the outbuildings. Rascal enjoyed (and continues to enjoy) the social aspect of such task-oriented visits, and the two of them shared further boy-and-his-dog quality time in the toasty cabin. During his solo hours indoors, when he wasn't running around in the snow, getting his line tangled in something or other or barking good-naturedly at the goats, he took up woodworking.

An ever-renewing pile of split wood adjoins the wood stove in the cabin, and Rascal soon adopted one of the logs as his own. Kurtis noticed that the pup had dragged a log over to his bed, but didn't think much of it at the time. Subsequent visits revealed that he'd begun to strip the bark off of the log. So far, nothing unusual for a dog to do.

A few days after Rascal had begun to strip the log, Kurtis went in to tend the wood stove and was rendered speechless by what he saw (see photo above). He raced back to the main house to announce that Rascal had constructed a totem pole, and proceeded to describe it. It was too icy for me to venture out there myself, so a more sure-footed Kurtis grabbed the digital camera and took both this photo and the one accompanying Part 1 of this story.

It indeed resembled a primitive tribal object of worship, but I also saw something else. Clearly, with his 2 favourite toys resting on top, along with its proximity to his bed, it had to be a night stand! It wasn't enough that he had built a climate-controlled bedroom outdoors. Now he had to furnish his indoor abode.

More head-shaking ensued as we considered the labour involved in this latest venture. How on earth did he manage to flip the log upright and get it to stand without the benefit of opposable thumbs? And what led him to consider the flat surface as a tabletop suitable for his toys? All the understandable questions rose in earnest from our confounded little brains, but none were met by answers that made any sense.

I'm glad that his little foray into furniture-building was immortalized in pictures, because by the following day, he'd dismantled it back into the half-stripped log and 2 dog toys that had started it all.

Check back for the next installment!