Tag: wild animals

Fast and Deadly Charlie

Charlie once again proved that he is a fast and deadly hunter.  I’m not sure how I feel about it.  I let the three dogs out to do their business and Charlie shot up the steps, and disappeared behind the car before I could run up the steps behind him.  As I walked to the back of the car I heard a squeal and found Charlie flinging a squirrel to the ground.  Evidently he had run it down before the squirrel could get to the safety of a tree.  I called him off the wounded squirrel before he and the other dogs could finish it off.  The squirrel laid on the ground panting heavily for a few moments before getting up and scrambled to the closest tree, barely escaping death. 

I took the dogs back inside and checked Charlie for any wounds from the squirrel and found a couple of places below his right eye that looked like the squirrel had scratched him trying to get away.  I cleaned the scratches up and put ointment on them.  He looked up at me with a quizzical look of his face.  He wanted me to proud of him for his quickness and precision at snagging his prey and a part of me was.  I’m proud that he is fast and doesn’t have any hesitation when going after prey.  When we’re pheasant hunting it’s important that the dog is willing and without any hesitation, rushes into brush, tall grasses and plum thickets to flush and retrieve birds.  But at the same time I was appalled that he ran the squirrel down, grabbed it, flung it to the ground and if I hadn’t stopped him, he would have gone back in for the kill. 

Does that make me a hypocrite, it’s okay for us to hunt and shoot pheasants (we do eat them), but not let the dogs do what comes naturally to them?  It’s not like squirrels are on the endangered species list, and are terribly destructive, but somehow my sense of fair play was bothered by it all.  I felt bad for the squirrel and at the same time was proud that Charlie had once again proven that he will be an asset when we go pheasant hunting this fall.

What Did We See?

Since I normally walk the dogs at 4:30 in the morning, we routinely  run across deer, raccoons and possums.  Some mornings I can hear hoot owls calling each other.  But this morning as we topped a hill, there at the bottom of the hill standing very still watching us was a fairly large animal.  The animal had a large full tail that curved down to the ground.  It had its’ left front leg lifted as if it was in mid stride when it spotted us.  I could tell it was brown in color.  Not a real dark brown and not a tan color either.  The head was squat and did not have a pointed snout like a dog.  But it could have been a dog.  The animal had large powerful looking legs.  It wasn’t a deer.  It wasn’t tall enough and deer don’t have long tails.

The dogs stood very still with their ears at attention, and watched the animal with their whole being.  You know how you can tell when a dog is totally fixated on something.  None of the three dogs moved a muscle toward it.   That’s why I not so sure it was a dog.  After an eternity, maybe fifteen seconds, the animal gave us a final look and walked quietly away into the dark wooded area at the bottom of the hill. 

Did we see a dog or maybe just maybe we saw a mountain lion?

Maybe One Day

The official word from the Conservation Department has been that there are no Mountain Lions around here.  That maybe, even though there have been photographic evidence and a few that have been hit by cars, those must have been traveling through on their way to someplace else.  Where, I’m not sure. But I would like to think that there are Mountain Lions around, it would let me at least pretend that I might get to see one someday.  Bear in mind I don’t want to be a statistic, but I would like to get a picture of one.  Not likely that it will ever happen, since I usually walk the dogs at 4:30 in the morning.  My camera is not that good. 

Today when I took the dogs down to the woods by the house for a snow romp and some much needed exercise for me, the dogs promptly found skeletal remains of a fairly large animal.  Charlie came carrying a joint.  It was part of two bones connected with a joint, maybe an elbow or knee.  Each bone section was about a foot long.  AJ found part of a spine.  The remains looked like it had been a good sized animal, bigger than a raccoon or opossum.  Maybe a young deer.  I’m also guessing the animal that killed it was fairly good sized too.  Coyote, Bobcat or maybe just maybe a Mountain Lion.