Hunting at an all-new level........

We all know what a great squirrel hunter my dog Casanova is. He can chase those squirrels down with the best of them. He chased a really fat squirrel (I have no idea what this squirrel was eating in the dead of winter to keep him so heavy) up the tree the other day with ease. Nova has now taken his hunting to the next level. He sat at the bottom of that tree for easily 15-20 minutes in the hopes that he could wait out the squirrel and that it would eventually come back down the tree. The squirrel stared him down from about 50 feet up the tree. Eventually, Nova gave in and headed back inside.

Here's Nova staring down the squirrel......



And here's the squirrel staring back down at Nova. He's difficult to see but he's in front of the main tree trunk in the center of the picture......



Now, he's found a new sport: deer hunting. Yes, we have deer in our neighborhood. As a matter of fact, we have a lot of deer in our neighborhood. I'm not sure how many are around in total, but we have one or two in our backyard on a nightly basis. A couple of nights ago, we had no less than 7 deer come through our backyard in a small herd. We have a golf course and a large park near our house, so it's completely understandable why we have so many deer around our home.

Last night, Nova and I decided to look for deer. We looked for a couple of minutes and I saw a shadow that looked just like Bambi. I knew that Nova noticed the movement as well because I heard him whine and felt him bump up against my leg trying to get a better view of the deer. We were both very excited to see the deer. I was very excited because it's great to have wildlife to look at all the time. Nova was very excited because he wanted the hunt to begin (i.e. he runs with reckless abandon towards the deer and the deer quickly runs off).

I've seen Nova actually chase off a deer with antlers (I wouldn't have let him out to chase that deer, but I didn't see him until Nova was already out the door). The boy has no fear. He somehow perceives that an 80 pound dog versus a 300-400 pound deer is a fair fight.

I decided to let Bambi have the night off and keep Nova in the house. The deer are well-aware of Nova's location and know that when the door opens, RUN! Nova whined for awhile, hoping to get me to let him out, but I told him not tonight. I'm sure he had dreams about deer all night long in hopes that he may get another shot at them tonight.

Here's a couple of picture of Nova and I watching the deer. We're on the lookout here....



As you can see from this photo, Nova has spotted a deer. He's whining hoping to go out and chase them down.....