[Solo] Farm Dog

[Scaramouche Fandango]

I Will Work Harder had seen a lot excellent livestock at the Winter Market. There were plenty of kin with animals to offer, and he’d delighted in perusing different marshfowl mutations and other interesting creatures.

However, one in particular had caught his eye. Muskwolves. They weren’t just soft, which he had to admit he had a, ahem, soft spot for. He realized quickly they’d be excellent pest control, and far easier to train than his… admittedly completely disobedient fox. So, he’d found out quite a bit about them. The females were nomadic, migratory- they wouldn’t adapt well to his highly established habits. But the males- the hounds- that was another story entirely.

He rolled the thought over and over in his head. What would a muskwolf do here in the garden? There was no question of the territory, really. The cleared, elevated plot rarely flowed, except down in the bottoms where the wild rice grew, and if the fellow wanted to den, he’d have all the opportunity in the world to do so. There was plenty for him to eat, too. All sorts of small creatures came in and out of the garden, and his pest control team was a marsh fowl, a fox, and a snow fox. The three of them were fine on bugs and mice, but anything bigger was absolutely going to get away from them. And as a social animal, a male muskwolf would have plenty of companionship. It wasn’t like Will lived alone in his garden. Far from it; several of his children were permanent residents, and there were often long-term visitors.

But what really sold him on attempting to get a male muskwolf as a companion was just how territorial they really were. Will got that. He didn’t mind traveling occasionally, but his home was so dear to him. He’d raised his children there, he’d raised his crops. He’d carved out this space for himself and his family, and he respected and understood how the hound muskwolves felt. There was nothing wrong at all with feeling a deep connection to where you lived, and as he staked out a place for a deep bed of dried grasses, he found himself ready to bring home a pup, if he was lucky enough.