Whoop, Whoop

Today was my first walk with the dogs since my ill-fated Luc excursion in December and in which I ended up with a cracked ankle. Hubby generally does the walk but decided to take his place this morning.

The dogs are wearing e-collars because Maggie has a habit of visiting neighbors and disappears for several hours at a time. Luc wears an e-collar because every once in a while he cannot resist running the cows. A white cow is so afraid of him that she has jumped over a neighbor's fence several times to get away. And, Luc is greatly interested in new born calves which is not good. Luc is powerful and fast, like a sprinter; and, frankly, we cannot be sure that he would not harm a new born calf if he caught it.

Both dogs think that whatever is outside the yard fence from rabbits to deer is fair game. When they jump a deer, Luc stretches out from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail, gets low to the ground, and turns on all the power he possesses in an effort to catch it. The same applies to jack rabbits. To the best of my knowledge Luc has never caught a deer or a jack rabbit. He did catch a cotton tail rabbit once and it was not a pretty sight. Maggie runs almost like she is on air and is a long-distant or marathon runner. She yelps when she is after something; not a sound from Luc because he is all business.

We rarely use the e-collars to call them back. All I have to do is yell, "whoop, whoop," and they come running for a treat. A good part of the time I do not even have to call Luc back because he likes to keep track of where I am as well as run back for extra treats. Luc, being a Lab, always has food at the forefront of his mind, then second is a ball, of course. Also, the dogs know the collars are on even though it is rarely used. When Maggie's collar is off, she tries to slip away unoticed and Luc goes straight for the cows. When the collars are on, Maggie stays in sight and Luc does not pay attention to the cows. No collars, they are naughty; with collars, they stay in line.

Just checking on you. Oh, btw, would you please get a treat ready?

Whoop, whoop and here they come.

These were taken with a Canon Rebel Xsi in the sports mode. Just hold down the button and the camera keeps clicking. It is almost like using a video camera.


There were many stops and investigations along the way today. Also, Luc was extra busy remarking his territory. Something or a lot of somethings had the audacity to travel in his domain.


Nothing escapes the nose and I am always curious as to what they are smelling. I sometimes walk over to where the dogs are investigating to see if I can spot a track. If I could find the extra money, I would do wildlife cameras around the property. Maybe one of these days when I do the garage sale I've been talking about for the past six years, it will produce most of the funds to set up a couple of cameras. Now, THAT would really be interesting.

Until next time, God bless.