Wildlife Encounters

Sorry, no pictures to go with this post, but it is amusing!

Tuesday morning - left for our walk at about 5:50 am (Hailey is insistent that 5:45 is get up time, even though she really doesn't have to go at this time) we had several encounters!

Encounter 1: 

Right across the road at the end of the driveway was a deer. While standing and staring at it, we heard another deer to our left give the warning stomp. I turned to see that deer's white tail vanish into the bushes. The deer on the road slowly walked down, hopped the fence and disappeared into the bush. The dogs hardly reacted at all.

Encounter 2:

As we continued down our road, the horses who were near the fence ran back. Just as we were about to pass them one charged at the fence, causing Phod to lunge at it. What happened next was amazing to me. Hailey charged at Phod and pushed him out of the way. To be clear, we were never in danger. The horse stopped at the fence and we were about 6 feet from it. I was impressed that Hailey would try and protect Phod. Overall, given the situation the dogs reacted well.

As we continued on our walk we heard the wild turkeys in the distance but didn't see them. We also heard other birds and a woodpecker.

Encounter 3: 

On the way back, in a field we saw 3 deer. My guess the same deer we saw at the beginning. This was apparently exciting and Hailey barked and they tried to pull me toward the deer. I used on by and leave it and with little pulling we continued.

Encounter 4:

We pass the horses peacefully. We were making it up the small rise on our private road. I spot it first. A creature, it was black and heading toward us. We are probably 20+ feet away. I walked a little closer to figure out what it is and to hope to scare it away. This worked, as it turns and I could then see it was a huge porcupine. Now the dogs have figured out there is something cool ahead, that is now slowly (a porcupine doesn't move very quickly) heading under the fence of the horse pasture and waddling across  the field. As it is far enough away I continue to walk toward our house (which isn't that far, in fact we are technically on our property when we encountered it). Hailey went hog wild crazy. She was screaming and pulling and carrying on. Phod was interested but in a calmer way. I manage to pull the 2 up to the house (that was my upper body workout of the day). I caught myself repeatedly trying to explain that the porcupine could hurt them and chuckled to myself when this wasn't successful.

All in all, it was a very, very eventful walk. A good reminder that at dawn and dusk Mr. Phod needs to be on leash!