Well, you asked for it. You
wanted more info on the dogs to whom I occasionally refer. These are the boys.
Alfie is the black lab/chow/whatever mix. He's a southern
boy originally, being a refugee from Katrina. In a moment of weakness we agreed
to foster him. I don't know how, but we seem to have become attached to him.
Since we had him, we followed our past credo of thinking
that dogs should never be alone and found a great companion for him at the local
shelter. This is Drover, the mostly/maybe-totally-but- with-terrible-markings
Dalmatian. The shelter were worried about finding a home for such a high energy
dog, but he in fact has a hard time keeping up with Alfie.
Alfie is the classic water-loving retriever and (much to
Drover's chagrin) the alpha dog. Drover is the totally needy younger brother who
does whatever he can to steal attention, sticks, or anything else from Alfie.
Retrieving does not compute for Drover.
As you'll see here, they've developed the wolf style of
hunting. Alfie goes through the thickets and flushes whatever, while Drover
prowls outside the thicket waiting. This works really well, except of course
they don't stand a chance of catching the deer. Still, it provides many hours of
happy chasing and keeps the deer on their (?)toes.
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Alfie on Coyote Creek, fall of 09 |
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Alfie clearing the top of the ridge above Caldwell Hollow, closely followed by a sliver of Drover. |
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Alfie loves to be the gymnast. |
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Drover trying to figure out if Alfie's after anything interesting out on the water. |
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As you can see, exercising the dogs needn't be a hardship. |
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Interrupted by a jealous white dog. Drover thinks retrieving is for suckers, but enjoys breaking up Alfie's fun. |
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more Alfie heaven, just before a cold rain 11/02/09 |
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Drover isn't normally comfortable in the water (unlike Alfie), but even he has his moments. |
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Showing his partial chow heritage, Alfie surveys his watery domain. |
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Getting the heck out of this water. |
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Alfie hunting the fish caught in the shallows. |
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Alfie just off Scarce O' Fat |
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The basic, and hopeless, deer chase. |
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The boys get their exercise in some beautiful spots. |
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Heaven for a medium-sized black dog. |
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This was after 3 months with us; Drover is starting to fill out. |
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Drover as the skinny new arrival. |
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Drover wants to know if Alfie's scared up something interesting. |
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Surely there's something chaseable down there? |
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Even a log can hide varmints. |
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In the pond below our house. |
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Sometimes Alfie has to tease Drover to get a good game going. |
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It has to come down some time. |
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Alfie'd never been in a house, but he learned to relax. |
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In training. Or so he tells me. |
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Varmint chase on a steep hillside. |
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Waiting for the coyotes in our yard. |
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D'Arcy and the boys head down the trail. |
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15 degrees out, but the water feels good after running for an hour. |
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Early days. Before they became the great hunters (ahem) that they are today they practiced on butterflies. |
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Wood floors feel good on a hot day. |
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Heading out for another morning of joy. |
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Sometimes it just feels good to run. |
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Another beautiful spot to explore. Hard to know just what they think of the beauty aspect, tho. |
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Waiting for something - anything - to happen. |
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Sunrise in the field below our house. Looking toward the coyote den with (very) cautious interest. |
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Heading up the Tecumseh trail. "Are you coming, or what?" |
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Adjusting nicely to life in the northlands. |
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Besides retrieving, Alfie loves log-walking. |
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A mild, and really somewhat sophisticated, expression of displeasure when left inside too long. |
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Trying out the birdseed. (Surely all those birds can't be wrong?) |
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Learning where the point of diminishing returns is in terms of chasing geese. |
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An admirer of Teddy Roosevelt. |
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One of the first toys Alfie discovered down in our valley. Carried it around for weeks. |
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Helping with brush clearing. |
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Alfie learns that not all ice is solid. |
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Yes, there's a black dog on there too. |
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This deer, like us, thought she was alone on the lakeshore. |
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The boys couldn't believe their luck, and quickly moved into the tall grass and ran to cut her off. This would have worked nicely, except that they learned that running wasn't all deer could do faster than them. In this series you can see Alfie (who waited in the tall grass hoping Drover would drive the deer to him) finally giving up that idea and swimming hundreds of yards out after the deer. I was getting seriously worried, not knowing just how far or long a dog could swim. |
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Going into deeper water works easily discourages Drover. |
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He seemed a bit tired at first. |
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Then almost immediately wanted to know if there were any more of those things around. |
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When they got home after 2 hours of this, they ran around their 4 acres for another hour. |
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A great example of their hunting technique as well as how they aid my photography. Alfie goes thru the thicket while Drover parallels him in the open. Here, Alfie drove the deer out right in front of Drover, just as they planned. It gave me a nice series of shots, and they and the deer got some good exercise. |
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Unfortunately, they got so good at this technique this past year that I had to severely restrict our hiking in the spring until the young deer were big enough to outrun them. |
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