Today started out slow, with the two girls in front getting up early (as in 9 am), along with 29, and the posse in back waiting until a more reasonable hour, rousting out at 10. I watched 92, 2, 30, and then observed X6un emerging. Upon her emergence, 2 trotted over, gave her a thourough once over, and followed her back down her burrow. Figuring she was going, I waited for her to come back out, and for the circus to begin; for males to start fighting, and for dogs to be running everywhere. It never happened. 2 would stick his head casually out, and then go back down. As for everyone else not interested in bloodshed, or passing genes along, they contributed to the running around. At this point, watching 30 chasing 92, and subsequently 92 chasing him, I realized that my weeding job had missed a few spots. The dogs kept disappearing at key points in their interactions..Say, for example, 92 was jumping (jumping because she couldn't just walk through the 2 inches of snow, as it came past her chin) towards a dog that I needed to identify to complete the interaction notes....aaaand they'd both disappear behind some weeds and down a burrow that I hadn't known was there. My personal favorite was when 2 decided to come all the way out at days end, and then just stood in a spot where, not only could I not see him, he managed to just disappear as Erica was watching him from her tower. Combining both the visual losses of interacting dogs, and 2 and his disappearing act, I decided I needed to familiarize myself with all the burrows, and mark a few new ones as well. At the end of the day, I climbed out of my tower to determine which burrows were the most used; surprisingly there were two that were in obvious extreme use, so I placed markers at them. Yes, I also did some more weeding of the prairie, and as for 2, let's just say the deuce is good..
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