First Hunting Stripe

Copyrighted by Sharon Burnett

The last few days have brought real fall to the Pacific Northwest. The rain is back and its around 55 degrees during the day. Cloudy, gray and yucky. With the advent of our rainy weather comes an invasion of birds to the feeders plus a contingent of squirrels. I feed everyone. It's very entertaining at times...

This morning I had the dogs in a tizzy...hey, there's a squirrel in the yard. It's in your yard. Rascal is jumping 3 feet straight up in the air and Rocket bays like a hound. I hang on to Rocket to give Rascal a head start out the door. She's the big hunter here. Then I let Rocket go. I run inside the house down the hall to the kitchen to watch. I got there just in time to see Mr. Squirrel narrowly escape Rascal's bite. She tries to shinny up the ash tree behind the squirrel. Her lack of thumbs unfortunately keep her earth-bound.

Rocket works the squirrel along with Rascal. The squirrel is all fluffed up, chattering away. Eventually the dogs will get bored, back down and the squirrel will jump from the tree over the fence and make good his escape. Or so that's how it usually goes...

Rascal starts to back down. Rocket sits close by the fence and continues to watch the squirrel. I can see the squirrel is considering his big move. (I'm doing a play by play for Dave at this moment.) The squirrel attempts his jump. And this is just too bizarre...Rocket opens his mouth and the squirrel just sort of fell in!

So Rocket earned his first real hunting stripe today. He gave me his trophy and then backed up as if he expected me to throw it. Furry Frisbee I guess and Rascal was all for that. She couldn't figure out how I got the neat prize!

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