Katherine & Buzz

Maybe I'm just easily amazed then; that's ok with me! I think part of it that fascinates me though is the speed at which it all happens. I can't even clearly follow their movements back and forth sometimes, yet they still retain the same nearly always perfect precision while snapping and biting with sharp, potentially deadly weapons haha. Actually, thinking about it more now, probably another major component of my amazement is comparing my general lack of coordination (especially eye/hand coordination), precision, speed, etc. to theirs - I certainly would not be capable of sparring correctly without a lot of practice - so their abilities seem super-powered next to mine. I don't have good proprioception or body/space awareness, so I don't take it for granted! And it just comes naturally to dogs, in the course of normal interaction and development. Pretty cool.

Exactly - perfect way to put it, Shetlander! And he's not even quite three years old yet, so we have a long way to go haha I was cracking up laughing at the image of your Lhaso Apso turned fierce predator, yet still prancing with pride like a puppy back to you. I love how dogs have that dual nature - clearly descended from wild creatures on one hand, yet still retaining juvenile, playful characteristics at other times. It amazes me every time I watch dogs play how well they control their mouth and teeth with each other or even while playing with people.

Thank you both for your posts, jvw and Tommy Coyote. I'm glad your dogs ended up fine after their close encounters with wildlife. That's definitely reassuring! So far Buzz is acting as normal as ever, although maybe we'll put our plans for learning how to target his paw to flip on the lightswitch on the wall on hold for now haha. Need to think of some other good tricks or mental games to play, since it's so cold here in the mornings and evenings when I'm free from work...

An armadillo? Oh wow, how would a dog even grab that in their mouth? I think my first reaction to that would be to run away shrieking! I can just picture it wiggling away in their mouth. What a good dog to drop it though! Well, that makes me feel better at least. I did the requisite Google search too, before calling the vet. Apparently squirrels can carry rabies, but it's not common at all and seems to vary by region. The vet said it wasn't really a concern here. That's interesting about the coral snake venom. I never knew that, either. Last summer at one of the dog parks we go to that has a lake, there were a couple incidences of dogs being bitten by water moccasin snakes. At least there's an anti-venom for that, and the toxin it releases isn't as systemic of a toxin as something like from a rattlesnake bite. Buzz seems to be doing fine today - no more licking or biting at his foot, which he really only did the one or two times after coming back inside yesterday. He's eerily good at picking up on my feelings, though, so he could have realized I didn't want him doing that just by me looking at him. I hope it's not still bothering him, though.

This afternoon, my border collie Buzz was doing his usual backyard routine: "getting busy" as we call it, and chasing squirrels. For the first time, he actually caught a squirrel for a split second, before he yelped and I saw a gray furry thing streak out from under his front paws and fly up the tree. He didn't seem to be walking differently and he didn't act any differently until we got inside, when he lifted up one of his front paws and tried to bite and lick at it. That's when I saw the blood around his paw pads and in his fur on his right front foot. I didn't see any obvious bite or scratch wound - probably covered up by all his toe fur - but the squirrel clearly got him somehow. It wasn't actively bleeding, at least. I called the vet and they said unless something changed and he started acting differently, I could just watch him and use a wound cleaning solution 2-3 times a day...luckily still left over from his stick puncture wound on his leg earlier this month! (He was running in the wooded area at the dog park and in a complete freak accident, a stick snapped up and punctured the inside of one of his back legs. He acted and walked fine except for a little yelp at the time, so I thought nothing of it and we continued our walk. Then I got home and took a better look at it and found a horrific, deep puncture wound in his leg! Three weeks, two different oral antibiotics and one topical antibiotic, and about $484 over three vet appointments, including x-rays, later, he's pretty much recovered.) This dog...good thing I love him! Has a squirrel or any other small creature gotten to your dog before? What did you do? What reaction did your dog have? Of course, none of this crazy stuff ever happened when we went hiking over 100 miles last October-November for the Missouri 100 Miles challenge. You can see our pictures from that on Flickr here. I think the backpack helped calm him down and stay on the trail, to be honest.