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The female mallard is so well camouflaged that she almost disappears into the rock behind the two males with their iridescent blue and green heads. I don't know if they're outcasts or misfits, but the same three are always on this same rock at Spring Lake. The males are neither fighting nor paying much attention to the female, but she doesn't appear to be sitting on eggs. It's a small mystery.

Ozzie seemed quite frisky this morning, so we took him to the lake where he enjoyed exploring the ground squirrel village, sniffing every bush and clump of grass and dipping his feet into some boggy places below the dam.

After our walk he leapt into the car with his old verve, but when we got home again he had no interest in getting out of the car. We tried stopping in the driveway so he could jump down to a pebbled surface...not too slippery. We opened one door. He wouldn't move. We opened another door. No luck. We drove into the garage, closed the garage door and opened one back door of the car. Still no luck on either side, so we left him in the car with the car door open.

Enough time elapsed that OilMan began to fear that the light that goes on when the door is open would run down the battery (it's a hybrid with a complicated battery), so he went down with a carrot to try to lure hm out . No dice. I finally went down to see if I could help, spoke sternly, spoke gently but he seemed genuinely unwilling, even afraid to jump down. Finally we opened both back doors, one of us on each side of the car. I suggested that OilMan give him a little shove from the back, but before he could do it, Ozzie stood up, turned around and hopped out.

We need a dog whisperer....