zane grey, 40lb of ferocious

we had another visit from the bobcat last night.  woke up at 2am to what sounded like large claws on plywood and ducks panicking.  got up and out to the kitchen garden to see what was going on.  i don't usually let zane out until i know what we're dealing with but he shot past me (something he normally doesn't do) as soon as i got the door open and charged off growling and snarling to the back of the garden where the ducks are.  he flushed the bobcat out toward the greenhouse end of the garden but it couldn't find its way out and zane chased it back toward the other end.  i was afraid he'd be injured if he got the cat cornered between the house and the fence somewhere so i hollered at him to come to me, which he did immediately, i got him back in the house, and staal came out to make sure everything was okay.  at some point in all this the cat rushed past me and found its way over the garden fence in the corner near the greenhouse.   it's a good sized cat, nearly as tall as zane, and probably weighs between 20 and 30lb (zane weighs about 40lb) but even a 10lb house cat can do considerable damage to a dog if cornered and desperate.  after the cat left i looked around the duck enclosure to make sure everything was alright.  i wanted to open things up and look inside to make sure no one had been injured but since i didn't see any damage to the outside and since the flashlight was just panicking the ducks all over again i decided it would be better for me to let them be until morning rather than risk them injuring themselves just to make myself feel better.
took a couple hours to get back to sleep but i finally achieved a sort of a half-sleep until morning.  the ducks took some time to settle too and every time they got a little worked up i'd be wide awake again.  zane kept watch for a while, lying beside me on my pillow, looking out the window into the garden toward where the ducks are.  he's a good dog.

what he lacks in size he makes up for in spirit

 everyone was fine this morning, happy to be let out to stretch and flap and splash around.

hoping for less excitement tonight.