It's better than a dog interested in traffic.

Ducks are usually a big hit too

Speaking of dogs and wildlife: Yesterday I took our dog on her morning constitutional, as usual. And, as usual, we came upon a certain tree-shaded spot infested with squirrels. This morning, there were three.

Boötes went into her normal sniffy, I'm-gonna-get-me-a-bushy-tail crouch, and two of them, as usual, scampered away. But one of them - well, he just snapped. Maybe it was from hunger, maybe from having endured one dog-rodent chase too many, but that cracked-out little nutrat blitzed my dog like a freaking squirrel Terry Tate.

Poor pooch didn't know what to do with herself. By the time she realized what the squirrel was doing, it was too late, and it had already escaped up a tree. Hilarious. Crazy kamikaze squirrels.

Umlauts FTW!

I have a blue-tick coonhound / Blue Heeler mix (best dog evar!) and the last two times I've taken her out hunting with me, she's been nothing short of fun to watch. The first time she met her first horse? Barked at it, tried to play with it. Horse had none of it.

Second time? Found a ton of deer and was chasing them to and fro. Obviously I couldn't keep up, but she had a blast chasing after them... my dog is ridiculously fast (likes to play dog chase at the dog park and cut off other dogs when they chase balls and the like).

The third time was the funniest though as she went all kinds of native. We went walking with me and my other dog (a loveable Blue Heeler / Catahoula mix -- two fairly smart dog breeds, but he is the dumbest thing to walk this earth, though he is sweet and very loyal) My Catahoula would walk beside me while the coonhound would run off in the woods, set up an ambush, wait for us to pass and then pounce on the Catahoula, which would start them play fighting until she ran off, doubled back and waited for us again.

Dogs rock.

Well, my dog has no nose.

Funny because they were seperated by a fence and the horse had recently gotten in touch with a few coyotes by the looks of things. My dog ran up, barked and the horse responded by kicking the fence and sending my dog flying about 10 feet. She got up, ran back over and began antagonizing the horse again. She finally quit after about 30 minutes of this game and proceeded to frolic in the 2 foot high sage by running around in that leaping sort of way dogs do so that they can see where they're going. She was my wife's dog before that, but after she went hunting with me, she got to be a lot more closer to me.

Awful.

About 15 years ago, I was living in the Piney Woods of east Texas. My dog roamed pretty freely--which wasn't my choice; she could jump our 7-ft. fence, and electrifying it just made it more of a thrill for her. When I would come home from work, she'd often be asleep in the living room, having squeezed through a hole in the screen door of the rear sun room. The mud on her nose & legs was the only indication I had that she had been out in the woods.

One afternoon, I came home particularly exhausted & plopped down on the couch. Half a beer later I was asleep. It was one of those big, overstuffed couches, and my wife always kept lots of pillows & blankets on it. I awoke from my nap due to discomfort--there was something hard underneath the blanket I was lying on, but I hadn't noticed it until I shifted positions. I reached under & pulled out....an entire lower leg of a deer, hoof and all, the other end a mangled bloody mess of flesh and bone. That may have been literally the last thing I ever expected to find under the blanket.

My dog was a good hunter--and an even better urban scrounger, as she could jump in & out of fast food restaurant dumpsters--but I'm pretty sure she didn't actually take down a deer. Probably some hunter had field dressed the deer, and she just gnawed its leg off. Still, ew.

Ducks are only funny until it inevitably leads the dog to a goose.

Some Geese are freakin mean. Once when I was walking home from school one spread its wings, started in with that damnable hissing noise they make, and charged me. I swung my backpack around and either knocked it out cold or killed it. I never did find out. I just left. Either way.. I'm not letting those crazy sharp spur things they have on their wings anywhere near me. They start smacking you with those and you're going to hurt. A lot.

I watched a neighbor's dog take one by the neck and run into a pond with it, go under water, and come back up about ten seconds later alone. The goose never did come back up.

That's what happens when I don't proofread.

Fixed though.

For a while, we had an English Setter. A beautiful animal that was a sight to see when he ran. Used to take him to the local riverside park and tell him to go chase "birides". That meant ducks, geese, gulls, just about anything that can fly. He'd run towards them, they'd fly up and settle down half a mile down river. He'd sprint full blast to them, they'd fly up and settle half a mile up river. Ad nauseam for about 2 hours.

Across from our house on the river, the river split in half and a sand-bar like island sat in the middle. This marshland like island was a bird sanctuary as most wildlife couldn't get on the island. Additionally, the island was just about water level so it was composed of soft mud. The kind that you sink up to your knees into the moment you step out of the canoe. This eventually became my "lazy" solution to walking the dog. I'd pack him into the canoe, paddle across to the island, get him all excited about "birdies" he could hear in the reeds, then let him jump out. He'd instantly sink into the mud up to his tummy, but that didn't faze him. He'd hop like a frog, making about a foot and a half progress each time. He'd hope to the one side of the island, then turn around and hop to the other side. I could track his progress by the bird noise generated. This could go on for about an hour before he'd finally get a little winded.

This one day though, we're paddling around the island looking for a good place to disembark. At one of the island ends, a family of swans made their nest. They had eggs and one of the swan parents was sitting on them, while the other was gone. This is clearly the biggest "birdie" the dog has ever seen and his eagerness and desire to chase it was quite self evident. The whole canoe was shaking like a vibrator. So I figure what's the worst that could happen. The bird is watching us go by with only mild interest. About 40' from the nest I paused and told the dog to go get the birdie. He flew out of the canoe and swam with all his might straight for the swan. The swan lifted its head and was watching us intently at this point. When the dog gets about half way there, this bird does something I'll never forget for the rest of my life. It stood on its legs, fully extended its 6' body (or at least so it seemed), fully extended its 6' wingspan (or at least so it seemed) and screamed the most aweful "I'mma gonna kill you both!" primal scream. That communication was as clear as day as the dog made some meek yelp in the water and turned 180 trying to get back into the canoe. But the canoe was no longer there because I made some meek noise that would in retrospect probably ammount to "dog, you're on your own" and started paddling as fast as I could down the river. I'm sure that if someone was looking at this, it may have been quite funny. Me, paddling like a madman down the river, being chased by the dog, that is chased by this bird from hell.

Anyways, it all ended alright. The bird left us be. I eventually fished the dog out of the river. He never tried to chase swans again (to the best of my knowledge). And I give swans quite a bit of a clearance when I see them these days. God knows I'll never look at them as these pretty, idyllic, lovable things again.

The Shirt:

And lets not forget the belt buckle:

One of our neighbors had a cat that like to climb trees, and the neighborhood was also home to an enormous amount of crows. The cat eventually went up the wrong tree, and got too close to a crow's nest with eggs in it. A dozen crows went after that cat, dive-bombing it from all directions, until they disoriented it and the cat fell out of the tree. The cat ended up with two broken legs from the ordeal, though eventually with veterinarian care it recovered. After that, the cat contented itself with chasing chipmunks, and stopped climbing up trees at al.