The Peggy Report
Bite inhibition is progressing very well. My little nicks and scratches are all healing up and she is both gentler in her mouthing and doing it less. The obscene number of chew toys I've provided seems to have diverted her from interest in chewing on the furniture. (Some of it I got from my mom which means it has a fossil history of Irish Wolfhounds trying out their teeth, not to mention the desk her cats dismantled, so it's hard to tell. But I haven't seen her going after anything.)
Clicker training is new to me, but it's working so I'm sold.
I imagine Peggy will be protective of me when she's grown, not that I want her to be aggressive. But I have never had a dog less interested in wild life than Peggy.
Wild turkeys in the road up ahead that I, human with no scenting abilities and probably half deaf compared to her, notice and she doesn't. Nor is she interested in their tracks. Raccoon boldly helping herself to cat food right in front of her? Peggy doesn't care. Peggy's so blasé the raccoon didn't even growl at her. Feral barn cat? Too boring. Coyote scat in the yard? One sniff and it's dismissed. She cocked her head to listen when a family of them were yapping back at some neighbor's pissed off dog in the middle of a midnight piddle outing, but only for a minute. Birds? Not interested unless we've suddenly ended up in a Hitchcock movie, much to the bluejays' disgust.
Where's that puppy curiosity?
And speaking of coyotes, I've heard of coywolves. Interesting article in The Economist on them. They're not unknown in the west of the US, but it's fascinating to read that they're becoming a differentiated species. I love that kind of thing. And it isn't that surprising. Given an empty niche in nature, something will evolve to fill it and canids have proven to be successful design. I can say pretty surely too that coyotes here are larger and bolder than they used to be within my lifetime of observation. (Thus the scat in the yard; they're looking for cats or anything else that might be outside and edible. They're opportunists.)
This entry was originally posted at http://auburn.dreamwidth.org/313854.html. where there are
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Clicker training is new to me, but it's working so I'm sold.
I imagine Peggy will be protective of me when she's grown, not that I want her to be aggressive. But I have never had a dog less interested in wild life than Peggy.
Wild turkeys in the road up ahead that I, human with no scenting abilities and probably half deaf compared to her, notice and she doesn't. Nor is she interested in their tracks. Raccoon boldly helping herself to cat food right in front of her? Peggy doesn't care. Peggy's so blasé the raccoon didn't even growl at her. Feral barn cat? Too boring. Coyote scat in the yard? One sniff and it's dismissed. She cocked her head to listen when a family of them were yapping back at some neighbor's pissed off dog in the middle of a midnight piddle outing, but only for a minute. Birds? Not interested unless we've suddenly ended up in a Hitchcock movie, much to the bluejays' disgust.
Where's that puppy curiosity?
And speaking of coyotes, I've heard of coywolves. Interesting article in The Economist on them. They're not unknown in the west of the US, but it's fascinating to read that they're becoming a differentiated species. I love that kind of thing. And it isn't that surprising. Given an empty niche in nature, something will evolve to fill it and canids have proven to be successful design. I can say pretty surely too that coyotes here are larger and bolder than they used to be within my lifetime of observation. (Thus the scat in the yard; they're looking for cats or anything else that might be outside and edible. They're opportunists.)
This entry was originally posted at http://auburn.dreamwidth.org/313854.html. where there are
comments. Comments are enabled on all cross posted journals.