The Great Kibble War of 2011

My sister Jenni took this picture.
How she got Candy to sit still long enough for this picture
remains a mystery.

This is my doggy.
Her name is Candy.
Candy, like most other dogs, eats doggie kibble.
I assume that she thinks it's moderately tasty.
I don't really want to know. I licked a dog treat once to see what it tasted like, and it didn't really taste like anything. And since those are the TREATS, I assume the normal kibble REALLY tastes like nothing.
That is possibly why Candy gets much more excited over stuff like old turkey, and leftover baked potatoes. (I'll get that bitch a potato. Bitches love potatoes. [SEE WHAT I DID THERE??* And it's even okay that I said bitch, because CANDY IS ONE. :D])

But birds like dog kibble.
BIRDS FREAKING LOVE KIBBLE.

 The doggie dish is right up against the window-y side of the glass dining room door, so it took a while for the birds to become brave enough to sneak over and take kibble, when they thought no people or cats were looking. For a period of time, no one really cared, because the birds didn't steal kibble often, and half the time a cat would get excited to see a bird so close, and SPLAT themselves against the window, scaring the feathered thief away.

 But our wily little birdie nemeses (Yes, I had to Google the plural of nemesis. That's good. It means I rarely have more than one nemesis) were growing braver.
 They still become spooked by splatting cats, but they come straight back. We started hitting the window to scare them off, but the second we turned away, back they would come, and would resume shoveling kibbles down their little birdie throats.

Now, one might think Candy would chase the birds away from her dinner. After all, she is a dog. They are taking HER DINNER.
One thinks wrong.
Candy is much like me, and doesn't really care much about food, though delicious treats are EXCELLENT.
And even if Candy DID love food, she still wouldn't actually defend her Free Kibble Rights. But Candy is a big apathetic chicken. She won't even play fetch. You throw a ball, she just stares up at it, like, "Ooooh, look at the pretty flying spherical object! I think I'll just sit and watch it from afar." Then she resumes walking around your legs and rubbing on you like a kitty. Everything scares her, from sudden loud noises, to other dogs, to the satellite guy.
If someone tried to rob us, she'd go hide in her doghouse (But on the plus side, our current mode of Kibble Defense would probably scare away any intruder. Read on).


 Grandma has been saying for a while that she'd get us one of those creepy motion-sensor owls, designed to keep unwelcome critters off of your lawn, but she hasn't done it yet, and since she's been rather preoccupied with eye surgery at the present, I doubt she will be shopping for creepy bug-eyed hooting owls anytime soon.


My younger sister Kimberly designed her own ant-kibble-theft device. She got a red piece of construction paper, cut fringe along the edges, and then attached big paper googly eyes to the front. She then affixed it to the front of the doggie dish.
It kinda worked. The female birds would just stand and yell at it, while the male birds would just march past it (LIKE A KIBBLE-MUNCHIN' BAWSS) and gleefully munch their ill-gotten dinner.

Clearly, something more needed to be done.
And ohhhh yes, something more has been done.

Today, my dad returned from Wal*Mart with THIS:

Isn't he unnerving?

It's an inflatable bird-scaring device.
I don't know if it truly scares birds, but it sure as hell scares ME.
It's got eyes on all sides.
I believe this is what Pac-Man looks like when stoned.
It had been hanging in the far corner of the patio, away from the window, but apparently Dad found that to not be very effective, and he moved it.
Right over the dog dish.
And directly in front of the window.

So now we have stoned Pac-Man staring in at us.

Suddenly, the fact that we rarely get to sit down to dinner, all together in the dining room, is not bad. Not bad at all.

Bunny only appears undisturbed.
I'm sure he was shaking in his boots.

Operation Stoned Pac-Man so far appears to be a success. The soldiers have not reported any more attacks, and I certainly haven't seen any. Not that I've been looking.

In the Great Kibble War, we seem to be winning.
But as the enemy grows accustomed to seeing Stoned Pac-Man lurking over the coveted kibbles, they may begin to launch their attacks with renewed intensity, and we may find ourselves immersed again in the throes of battle.

Give us kibble, or give us death.

Although I'm sure Candy would just prefer a baked potato.

*If you do not in fact see what I did there, don't feel bad. You just don't hang out on Memebase enough.