Her Five-Year Mission: To Seek Out New Life (and Kill It)
Cali continues on with her quest to eliminate all rodent lifeforms in the area...
I think I've mentioned that Cali has what is, in polite society, called a "high prey drive." In less euphemistic terms, she is obsessed with catching and killing nearly anything small, furry or feathery that crosses her path.
The latest casualty was a rat living in the sidewalk landscaping outside the building. For weeks Cali's made a game of flushing the rat from the bushes and sending it scurrying down either the cable junction box or up a palm tree. (Yes, she's still on leash. And no, untangling an extend-a-leash from rosebushes isn't much fun.)
Now, I figured that she would NEVER catch the rat. She's got a lame rear leg, a bad back, and arthritis in her shoulders. Rats are small, fast and smart. She isn't getting off that leash. The rat has no such handicap.
So if it amused Cali to go bouncing around the shrubbery and she got a bit of exercise and excitement out of it, hey, what's the harm?
Seriously, after 3 squirrels, 1 gopher, 1 field mouse and 2 mourning doves, I should know better. (I'm not counting the sparrow and the young mourning dove she caught and released unharmed -- into my living room. I'm still wondering how she did it, mind you -- my balcony is about 3-1/2 feet wide.)
I still can't figure out how she caught two of those squirrels. Now, the first was a fluke: A relatively young squirrel came around the corner of a retaining wall at exactly the same time Cali and I came along the sidewalk. From less than two feet away, Cali just reacted first -- faster than I could lock the leash, and a whole lot faster than the squirrel processed "Run away!" in its little rodent brain.
The second, well, I maintain that wasn't my fault. I sneezed, relaxing my grip on the leash just as Cali lunged at a squirrel that had been taunting her. In a flash, Cali's leapt up into a raised planter full of juniper bushes and gone tearing after the squirrel. I remember thinking that the squirrel was in no danger, since the leash would undoubtedly tangle in the juniper, putting a halt to Cali's pursuit and the squirrel could easily scale either a bush or the wall... I hear a "thump" and a "squeee!!", and there's Cali with a squirrel in her mouth coming out the other side of the raised planter. Oops.
The third... well, I thought it was gone. I saw a squirrel ahead of us on the edge of a grassy bit of landscaping while Cali was oblivious. The squirrel clearly caught sight of Cali and took off for the big coral tree away from the sidewalk. Should be no problem -- Cali will scent it after we get to that spot, and dash around happily for a few minutes trying to figure out where's the squirrel, while it will be long gone and perfectly safe. So again, I don't have the leash locked. Cali catches the scent, darts forward... and there's the idiot squirrel, which apparently decided to commit suicide by dog. (Hours later, I'm back surreptiously trying to dispose of the body without drawing attention as I clamber over another condo's landscaping...)
The only one that I didn't stop her from going after was the field mouse. Seriously, Cali just looked so happy trying to track the damn thing through the grass that when she managed to pin it, I just let her have it.
Now, this is one of the most densely populated suburban areas in the country. You'd think that the opportunities for fatal mischief would be reasonably small. But no. I apparently got the rescue-dog version of Dexter: attractive, pleasant, but just a bit off...
(Weirdly, she doesn't stalk cats. She's curious about them, and wants to play with them -- the local feral cats are not amused -- but it's very different from her "hunt/kill" mode. Then again, she's been totally pwned by a half-grown kitten guarding a driveway, which may have taught her a lesson...)
But she's so sweet, and so happy after her little bouts of homicide (rodent-cide?) that I can't really see this as a problem. She's responding to 15,000 years of breeding to be a hunting companion, and clearly thinks opposable thumbs were wasted on me each time she trees another squirrel and then looks at me with this "Well? What are you waiting for?" expression. (Though if we ever do have an apocalypse, she'd be a great dog to have. Squirrel stew for the win!)
I think I've mentioned that Cali has what is, in polite society, called a "high prey drive." In less euphemistic terms, she is obsessed with catching and killing nearly anything small, furry or feathery that crosses her path.
The latest casualty was a rat living in the sidewalk landscaping outside the building. For weeks Cali's made a game of flushing the rat from the bushes and sending it scurrying down either the cable junction box or up a palm tree. (Yes, she's still on leash. And no, untangling an extend-a-leash from rosebushes isn't much fun.)
Now, I figured that she would NEVER catch the rat. She's got a lame rear leg, a bad back, and arthritis in her shoulders. Rats are small, fast and smart. She isn't getting off that leash. The rat has no such handicap.
So if it amused Cali to go bouncing around the shrubbery and she got a bit of exercise and excitement out of it, hey, what's the harm?
Seriously, after 3 squirrels, 1 gopher, 1 field mouse and 2 mourning doves, I should know better. (I'm not counting the sparrow and the young mourning dove she caught and released unharmed -- into my living room. I'm still wondering how she did it, mind you -- my balcony is about 3-1/2 feet wide.)
I still can't figure out how she caught two of those squirrels. Now, the first was a fluke: A relatively young squirrel came around the corner of a retaining wall at exactly the same time Cali and I came along the sidewalk. From less than two feet away, Cali just reacted first -- faster than I could lock the leash, and a whole lot faster than the squirrel processed "Run away!" in its little rodent brain.
The second, well, I maintain that wasn't my fault. I sneezed, relaxing my grip on the leash just as Cali lunged at a squirrel that had been taunting her. In a flash, Cali's leapt up into a raised planter full of juniper bushes and gone tearing after the squirrel. I remember thinking that the squirrel was in no danger, since the leash would undoubtedly tangle in the juniper, putting a halt to Cali's pursuit and the squirrel could easily scale either a bush or the wall... I hear a "thump" and a "squeee!!", and there's Cali with a squirrel in her mouth coming out the other side of the raised planter. Oops.
The third... well, I thought it was gone. I saw a squirrel ahead of us on the edge of a grassy bit of landscaping while Cali was oblivious. The squirrel clearly caught sight of Cali and took off for the big coral tree away from the sidewalk. Should be no problem -- Cali will scent it after we get to that spot, and dash around happily for a few minutes trying to figure out where's the squirrel, while it will be long gone and perfectly safe. So again, I don't have the leash locked. Cali catches the scent, darts forward... and there's the idiot squirrel, which apparently decided to commit suicide by dog. (Hours later, I'm back surreptiously trying to dispose of the body without drawing attention as I clamber over another condo's landscaping...)
The only one that I didn't stop her from going after was the field mouse. Seriously, Cali just looked so happy trying to track the damn thing through the grass that when she managed to pin it, I just let her have it.
Now, this is one of the most densely populated suburban areas in the country. You'd think that the opportunities for fatal mischief would be reasonably small. But no. I apparently got the rescue-dog version of Dexter: attractive, pleasant, but just a bit off...
(Weirdly, she doesn't stalk cats. She's curious about them, and wants to play with them -- the local feral cats are not amused -- but it's very different from her "hunt/kill" mode. Then again, she's been totally pwned by a half-grown kitten guarding a driveway, which may have taught her a lesson...)
But she's so sweet, and so happy after her little bouts of homicide (rodent-cide?) that I can't really see this as a problem. She's responding to 15,000 years of breeding to be a hunting companion, and clearly thinks opposable thumbs were wasted on me each time she trees another squirrel and then looks at me with this "Well? What are you waiting for?" expression. (Though if we ever do have an apocalypse, she'd be a great dog to have. Squirrel stew for the win!)