Sometime between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, the alien moved from the center of the yard to near the walk and there it sat until this morning. It was close enough that BeeBee could sniff it by putting her front feet up on the snow bank next to it. Fric observed this, but did nothing beyond peeing a discreet distance from the alien, presumably to mark it as hers.
Then this morning we had a first in a long time. I took the dogs with me when I went down to put a letter in the mailbox, with Fric loose and Bee leashed as usual. I always hook Bee’s leash a distance from the road because I don’t want her to even think about going down there were she ever, God forbid, to be off-lead in that area. Because of the icy conditions in the driveway, I’ve been hooking her leash over a lilac stump further up the driveway than usual. When I do that, Fric continues down the driveway with me until I reach her end-point about 15′ from the road, and then she waits for me there.
This morning when I turned away from the mailbox after I put the letter in, I realized that Fric wasn’t in her usual place. Instead she was up with BeeBee and giving her a full-blown invitation to play: body stiff and facing in the opposite direction from Bee’s, tip of the tail quivering in anticipation. By the time I reached them and got the leash off, they were already engaged in knocking each other down and trying to grab each other’s muzzle, an almost impossible pursuit given Bee’s overbite and Fric’s undershot jaw. Once she was free, the chase was on. Bee tore after Frica up and driveway, Fric outdistanced her as usual (when she’s not pregnant) then hit her broadside and rolled her a good ten feet, which Bee has always considered the best game. She immediately jumped to her feet and bounced over to Fric who was standing on the walk looking down at her and daring her to pass. Bee accepted the dare and shot by her and beat her to the door.
I don’t know if the fact that she lost the race had something to do with it or not, but when she passed the alien, Fric suddenly stopped and went back and grabbed it. This immediately brought her up short because the alien’s little feet were frozen to the snowpack. However, she worked at it for a bit and soon broke it free. Then the three of them–BeeBee, Frica, and the alien–came inside with me. Once Fric was back in her pen with her pups, she snarled at Bee again while the alien remains downstairs with Watson and cat, possibly thawing out by the stove.