Under Surveillance

Imagine my amusement when I saw my dog, a true squirrel chaser, accompanied in the dog run by two others co-squirrel haters yesterday. Normally I try to walk my dog when it gets a little darker outside because if she sees squirrels in the trees or on the ground, she becomes insanely focused on ‘eating the squirrel’ to the point of reckless abandon. She doesn’t care how much I love her, how much I feed or pet her; I no longer exist on the leash behind her when a squirrel appears.

This determination has led to many bruises for me. (And yes, I should probably look into some behavioral obedience training but it’s the one thing she does that annoys me so I don’t complain. She’s really quite well behaved otherwise.) Hence, it has led to my re-arranging her walking schedule so that I don’t undergo an unduly early death.

The other day though, the vision of my doggy and two other doggies lined up one after the other staring into the trees was a vision. All of their heads turned up in the air and their eyes darting back and forth for any signs of the furry-tailed menaces. The three doggies didn’t even care that they were all sitting in melted snow, they were on a mission. Finally as one of them caught sight of a tree-traipsing tormentor, they all popped off of their butts and hot footed it to the area where the squirrel was located.

My dog began to do her pleasant pirouetting prance and then joined the other dogs in looking at the squirrel. Then whenever the squirrel moved, the dogs moved. Occasionally my dog would do a dance but mostly it was a game of ‘watch the squirrel, move with the squirrel’.

Needless to say, neither of the dogs got to eat a squirrel but I know my dog was seriously exhausted by this play time and it certainly made me laugh quite a bit. It’s amazing how dogs just take pleasure from the smallest things in life. More humans should learn that lesson.