Predator hunting/ dog training rant. Sort of.

[Happy]

Congrats Constable Wendyll!

My dogs have to work as a team. The beagle is the nose. The lab is the eyes. The beagle just barks her a$$ off warning that she smells something nearby and the lab starts running in wider circles looking in grass and up trees until he spots something lol. It took them 1/2 a day of really annoying noise to discover a raccoon up a tree!

[windwalkingwolf]

Those short legs jumped about 7 ft. and got the coon's butt!?!?! THAT was motivation at its finest! What a good boy!

No kidding, I can't believe he didn't throw his back out. His brother sprained his back TWICE doing such things. Their mother carried the gene for achondroplasia. I'm so happy to be able to tell him he's a good boy again! For the past two years he's just kind of been furniture. His only run ins with wildlife in two years has been a very distant bit of skunk spray, and some porcupine quills a little while ago. Maybe the porcupine fired him up again lol

Congrats Constable Wendyll!

My dogs have to work as a team. The beagle is the nose. The lab is the eyes. The beagle just barks her a$$ off warning that she smells something nearby and the lab starts running in wider circles looking in grass and up trees until he spots something lol. It took them 1/2 a day of really annoying noise to discover a raccoon up a tree!

Wendyll generally uses his ears! He's off like a shot when he hears grass or leaves rustling in an unusual way, or the sounds wildlife make when fighting, playing or mating. It also means he tends to bark wildly at trees snapping in the frost in winter The coon slowly climbing the tree was almost silent, and if I hadn't told W to "Get 'im", he likely would have stared at it, then sat down and licked me
Penny's ears are long and floppy and useless--she doesn't hear well, and can never tell where a sound is coming from. She will hear coyotes yipping, and chase their echo She did not get the full force coon-hound nose, and relies on her eyes. She has a reasonable amount of prey drive and is super fast, so if she sees it, it's hers. She almost caught a healthy deer, once! Now that Wendyll is back on track, they are making a good team! She stayed under the bed until almost 6 in the morning, and only would venture out today to eat, drink and pee, but tonight she's out again and doing her job, fireworks forgotten. Funnily enough, thunder doesn't bother her.
I heard Wendyll 'go off' again a little while ago, AGAIN, and then shortly after that, Penny's booming bark! that's three nights in a row, and that's so awesome. They ran a fox off the property and that's good enough for me! I'm so happy W is on the job again!

[windwalkingwolf]

Three half-grown kits, around 1:30 in the afternoon, terrorizing chickens 30 steps from my door. Probably recently turned out by their mother, they were testing the hunting waters. They got in over their head. Keep an eye out for the next generation folks, there's certainly no shortage this year.

[Killerbunny]

Yup, we've never had racoons around here before and now we are "dealing" with them.

[baronrenfrew]

yep, knocked the cover off my feed bin and got stuck inside. four less over two occasions