As she settles into her new life at our house, Cleo-puppy is discovering all of the joys of being a farm dog. She has been snorted on by a suspicious llama, been stomped at by impatient goats, and suffered a beat-down from Shan-cat. She has also romped all over about half of the main property in the course of "helping" me with morning chores.

This morning's discovery was the amazing Shangri-La that is the mountain of llama poo. Llamas (and alpacas) like to pick a spot (or two or three) and make their regular wasteful deposits there. Without strict shoveling (which I don't do), those poop piles build up. And with all of the rain and other fun, Hercules is not producing pellets right now, but rather cow pattie-type blobs.

This morning, I was informed by a dear, sweet, cuddly puppy, that squidgy fresh llama poo is yummy! NOM NOM NOM. When I told Cleo-puppy "no!" and "leave it!" and picked her up to take her away from the poo pile, she promply tried to lick my face in her squirmy joy. Dog breath of llama poo is not the next fashion perfume, let me tell you.

She suffered no ill effects from eating the llama poo. I'm hoping that including her in morning chores helps ensure that she turns into a proper farm dog, with an iron-lined stomach and a disposition that rolls with anything. Of course, this also includes teaching her that I'll be washing her paws every morning at the end of chores, and then drying them off when we go inside, too.