Post by windowdog on Sept 19, 2008 14:02:02 GMT -5
I've always suspected my dog has REALLY bad eyes. If she were human she'd need glasses no doubt. When we play fetch she often reacts to the sound of the stick or ball hitting the ground more than the sight of it. Also her sense of smell isn't going to win her any tracking awards from what I've seen. Last night this was brought into sharp focus by an unexpected visitor in our house.
Around 10 PM I went outside with the dog for a while, leaving the back door open. When I came back she was acting a little weird, sniffing along at the air. About ten minutes later she raced into the basement and I could hear her bangning into things. So I followed her down and found her sniffing a cement wall like crazy. There nothing near her but she was sniffing like mad.
I started trying to calm her down and figure out what she was doing, this went on for like ten minutes with her insisting she sniff the wall. I brought her upstairs but she broke away from my hold on her collar (she never resists so I wasn't holding on tight) and raced back to her wall.
So me and my wife go down, I walk over to the dog and my wife immediately says "uhhh there's a possum in the corner." I turn around and sure enough there is a juvenile possum sitting frozen exposed in the corner of the basement, as far from where my dog was sniffing as you could get.
My wife used to work with wild animals so she got the hamper, went over to the poor creature, scared it into the hamper and took it outside in a matter of minutes. The whole time I'm restraining the dog who kept trying to get back to the blank wall, away from where the actual possum was trying to avoid being caught. Finally as my wife was at the top of the stairs the possum made a large hissing sound.
That caused the dog to try to spin around and go after them, but my wife was out the door a second later.
I'm glad I'm around to feed her, b/c I'm fairly certain she wouldn't make it on her own in the wild.
Around 10 PM I went outside with the dog for a while, leaving the back door open. When I came back she was acting a little weird, sniffing along at the air. About ten minutes later she raced into the basement and I could hear her bangning into things. So I followed her down and found her sniffing a cement wall like crazy. There nothing near her but she was sniffing like mad.
I started trying to calm her down and figure out what she was doing, this went on for like ten minutes with her insisting she sniff the wall. I brought her upstairs but she broke away from my hold on her collar (she never resists so I wasn't holding on tight) and raced back to her wall.
So me and my wife go down, I walk over to the dog and my wife immediately says "uhhh there's a possum in the corner." I turn around and sure enough there is a juvenile possum sitting frozen exposed in the corner of the basement, as far from where my dog was sniffing as you could get.
My wife used to work with wild animals so she got the hamper, went over to the poor creature, scared it into the hamper and took it outside in a matter of minutes. The whole time I'm restraining the dog who kept trying to get back to the blank wall, away from where the actual possum was trying to avoid being caught. Finally as my wife was at the top of the stairs the possum made a large hissing sound.
That caused the dog to try to spin around and go after them, but my wife was out the door a second later.
I'm glad I'm around to feed her, b/c I'm fairly certain she wouldn't make it on her own in the wild.