Puppy Time

Miki is now seven months old, which is kind of “early adolescence” on the doggie time scale. Think 13, 14 year old kid and you’d be about right. Daily we see him turning from a puppy into an adult dog.

Yesterday, on a short walk down to our mailbox and back, he did two very new things.

First, on the way back up the hill from the mailbox, he suddenly stood stock-still and stared intently into the sky. I was watching him, not the sky, so I didn’t see at first what he was looking at. I noticed that whatever he was looking at seemed to be standing still, and that it had his complete attention. My guess at that point is that he was watching a bird preening on the telephone pole, or something along those lines. Then he abruptly sat down, threw his head straight up, closed his eyes, and commenced a full-throated howling that would have made any coyote proud. I looked up to see what he was looking at — and of course it was the moon. In broad daylight the moon (about half full) wasn’t very conspicuous, but it had Miki’s full attention. He howled for several minutes, while I laughed at him. It was very cute, but … after a minute or so, tiresome. Plus I worried that our neighbors a mile or so away might not think this 400 decibel howling was cute. Finally I got him distracted, and we continued toward home.

Where we had our second adventure and new experience for the day.

In our fenced yard, I took Miki off his leash to play fetch with him. I used an unopened pine cone, rolling it down our driveway for Miki to chase and catch, and proudly bring it back to me so I could throw it for him again. If only people were so easy to please! On what I was planning to be the last toss, perhaps the 20th of the day, Miki took off after the bouncing pine cone as ususal, running straight down the driveway. But then he started curving off to the left, and he sped up until he was going startlingly fast — and ahead of him was a rabbit, running for its life. Miki caught the rabbit and dispatched it within seconds in a very … professional … way, very matter-of-factly. Then he ran back after the pine cone and returned it to me, ready for me to toss it again.

We have two adult field spaniels (Mo’i and Lea) who have been trying to catch rabbits for years. It’s their favorite sport, and sometimes with think the rabbits enjoy teasing our dogs by staying safely out of reach. Mo’i has been spotted with a couple of dead rabbits, but we suspect those were either already dead when he found them, or there was something wrong with them, as we’ve watched Mo’i easily outpaced and fooled by the rabbits many, many times. Miki, on the other hand, ran down a perfectly healthy adult rabbit running at full tilt. The little guy is fast.

This gets the ponder going… Will he keep that speed on the agility course? If he does, he’s going to be a formidable competitor…