Wicca, Vito and the Gopher

[manymuddypaws]

So I have posted previously about Wicca's hunting abilities- she really is very terrier like and dreams of mice, birds and gophers. The word "gopher" can make her eyes pop out of her head almost. Some background- I work at a boarding kennel- which happens to have a huge fenced in field that is also our aglity field. Anyway- in this field live gophers...and not just a few gophers...a LOT of gophers. Every day I run my dogs in the field- they love it and it is great exercise. Unfortunately Wicca has now developed an obsession for gophers.

Today Wicca caught one.
Vito killed it.
It was a combined effort that ended in the demise of a cute little gopher. The gophers are dumb, but this one was really dumb. Wicca lies in wait for them to pop up- she has lots of patience and has learned that it is silly to run from hole to hole. So I see her waiting...right at the side of the hole, a gopher pops up- doesn't even look to see here there! and runs a few feet away. Sees her- chirps and stops! Wicca leapt up, did her best border collie imitation and waited. Instead of running away when Wicca was almost on it- the stupid thing froze...perhaps hoping she wouldn't see him???!! Vito is Wicca's shadow so of course was right there.
So Wicca pounces on it- surprising herself I think- grabs it, shakes it, drops it and promptly starts rolling on it...Except it wasn't dead....
It struggles to get away and Vito grabs it- and well....killed it...

where was I you ask? Running towards them frantically telling Wicca to drop it....Obviously I didnt get there in time. When I finally arrived on the scene Vito was playing keep away with Wicca. She wanted it and he wasn't giving it up. Ever had to pry a dead gopher from your dogs lips? Yuck....
He was VERY proud of himself at this point and really wanted his prize back. He settled for a few treats I had in my pocket- Wicca by this time was back at the hole waiting for the next one...

anyway- thought I would share my disgusting story of the day.....

-amanda:NAH:

[Fluffypants]

Sounds like you had a fun morning for yourself Amanda! Yuk!!! :EEK:

[ZdogZ]

Wow, Amanda. What a morning!

[sutulu]

Are gophers common in your part of Canada? I'm not sure I have ever seen one around here.

What a team Wicca and Vito make. With a name like Vito, of course he is the one who will kill the litle critter!

I bet it's a hoot to watch Wicca poaching gopher!

Near my house there is a mile long uphill path that leads to a wonderful overlook of the lake I live on. I let Tucker off leash and keep an eye on him. he will explore away from me but is never out of site for more than a few seconds (a total mama's boy!).

At some point he found something dead with head bitten off and thought he had found the holy grail! It was bloody, had been dead for awhile, and unrecognizable. And the little devil would not give it up. I finally managed to get it away from him at the overlook where I flung it over the rocky ledge.

HUGE MISTAKE! Doesn't Tucker take off down the rocky slope after the thing! It is a miracle he didn;t break a leg. I would have been pretty embarassed calling 911 to say "come rescue my dog off a ledge"!

He brought it back to the top, I got it away from him, and put it on a fairly high branch in a tree.

Do you know... months later we took the hike again and he goes right to the tree looking for his dead thing! How he remembered is beyond me.

[Fluffypants]

Why can't they use their powers for good? :LAUGH:

I swear Susan - you should write a book about those two!

[mtoy]

LOL - both of those stories are great! Funny how Tucker went looking for it so much later. Amanda, does Wicca sniff out the "prey"? Link has quite a nose on him, I may eventually put him in one of the terrier sniffing classes (whatever they're called...).

We are plagued by groundhogs here. Once I heard the neighbor lady screaming and looked to see her two dogs tearing one in half. I'll never forget that sight. And they are just the sweetest dogs ever, I never knew they were such good hunters.

[manymuddypaws]

gophers are very common- and for whatever reason they are everywhere this year. on the highway there are always dead ones and the agility field didn't have near as many last year...the owner of the propery keeps saying he's going to deal with them but in the mean time we are filling up holes before each agility class....

I have some pictures taken a while ago of Wicca with her head in a gopher hole. I will see if I can dig them up...

-amanda

[manymuddypaws]

She will sniff out mice- I have seen her do that- but the gophers are an obvious and easy target- just look for the large gaping holes in the ground. I don't think she uses her nose much for that.

Here is a link to some pictures of a cute little gopher
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ptera/sets/72157600320487608/
-I don't know who the photographer is- I just searched flikr for gophers...

[LoveMySadie]

Our worst animal hunter story was when Clyde (our much-loved, gentle, happy-go-lucky springer spaniel) caught a skunk in our yard! This was several years ago when our neighborhood was still mostly undeveloped and wild animals were everywhere. Unfortunately, the skunk lost but not before he coated poor Clyde and our entire yard in oily, yellow scented spray. Clyde brought him to our back door proudly, with his gorgeous white chest covered in yellow oil.

Not a happy sight! :ARG:

Leslie

[ColColt]

She wanted it and he wasn't giving it up. Ever had to pry a dead gopher from your dogs lips? Yuck....

I'll bet they thought it was a for real Hedgie and were having a time with it!! "Drop it" doesn't work when a Hedgie is in the mouth and all training goes asunder.:CUTE: It's a wonder they didn't get bitten.

[Penutsma]

Our worst animal hunter story was when Clyde (our much-loved, gentle, happy-go-lucky springer spaniel) caught a skunk in our yard! This was several years ago when our neighborhood was still mostly undeveloped and wild animals were everywhere. Unfortunately, the skunk lost but not before he coated poor Clyde and our entire yard in oily, yellow scented spray. Clyde brought him to our back door proudly, with his gorgeous white chest covered in yellow oil.

Not a happy sight! :ARG:

Leslie

I gotta a skunk story for you too! On my 18th birthday (yes, many many years ago), my parents took my sister and I out to dinner. I don't remember who, but it was probably me, left the dog outside (in a fenced yard). Fluffy, a terrier/poodle mix, was not home when we got back from dinner. Now this is late August and being a military family, we ate dinner and were back before sundown. We lived in base housing in Bellevue, NE at the time. There were no houses up the hill behind us and that is apparently where Fluffy disappeared to. We searched and called, and my sister and I cried, to no avail - no Fluffy. We all went to bed rather unhappy that nite - Fluffy had been a part of our family for several years at this point. Around 2am, the doorbell rang. The kids living in the other half of the duplex we lived in were camping in the backyard - NO FENCE! Fluffy, being the loving little dog he was, crawled into the tent and into the girls sleeping bag. That was okay, except he had tangled with a skunk! With tears streaming from her eyes, she asked my Dad, "Is this your dog?"......Fluffy spent the nite locked up in the outdoor shed. I got to bath him in tomato juice the next day..... Did you know that a very white dog - bathed in tomato juice turns pink for a couple of days?

[manymuddypaws]

I couldn't find the pics of Wicca and her obsession so I took some this afternoon. She didn't mind posing at all for the pics! All I said was "Gopher, Gopher" and she was a huntin'
http://i194.photobucket.com/albums/z199/manymuddypaws/wiccagopher-1.jpg
~
http://i194.photobucket.com/albums/z199/manymuddypaws/wiccagopher2.jpg

[disraeli ears]

Funny pictures! I can just imagine Wicca doing a "border collie" impression, waiting for those cute little gophers to pop up like so many Whack-A-Moles...

When I was a kid, my parents bred our basset hound with a female basset named Breezy. Breezy was staying at our house during the *mating period*. Anyway, my dad and I came home one afternoon and we went in to let the dogs out of the kitchen...they were over by the pantry door playing with something on the floor, for some reason. We got over there and made them drop whatever it was. It was....a mouse, now very slobbery and disoriented, shaking like crazy. They had played with it almost to death...it probably had serious post-traumatic stress disorder! My dad took it out and put it out of its misery. +SAD+

[ZdogZ]

Thank goodness my dogs have never gotten sprayed by a skunk. I do have a recipe that is good at removing skunk smell (will post later) from my vet. The only skunk story I have involves my hubby and me...
Skunk came and peered in our front door. Doug wants me to hold a flashlight while he shoots the skunk. I am standing out on the cement in front of our house (9:00 p.m.) with a flashlight and Doug has a gun. My feet are planted and I'm saying, "I don't wanna go, I don't wanna go" as he is pulling me by the arm saying "come on, come on." I just know that if someone saw us, they would have called the cops.

[MVons]

Wicca is my hero. Yes go get the gopher works for moles, voles and ground squirrels. When I had a hard time digging a hole, I would start it and then tell Pepper to get the gopher and she would dig for me. She'd be mad when I told her enough, and then never thrilled about the wash up.

But what you have is similar to what we call ground squirrels! Gophers here rarely come out during the day. Ground squirrels come out and chirp the alarm, or chirp and chirp calling for a mate and they do the freeze. Here gophers don't freeze, they run.

Here is a photo of our gophers who are smarter than the dumb ground squirrels.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/darshminder/106692365/
Note the unmistakable buck teeth, and bare paws.

But this photo - quite humorous - shows the size gophers are out here.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/amommysmind/431483777/

Here is the good news. If you have ground squirrels and are not on water restriction. If there is a big mound of dirt outside a hole, you can flood the hole as that is their home. They don't have the extensive labyrinth of tunnels like a gopher. Have Wicca and Vito and a shovel ready when you flood the hole as they will come flying out. Yes, Pepper was very upset when she couldn't kill a large squirrel as she just missed all the vital parts when she'd chomp on the middle of the critter. A shovel did the trick.

Dead animals - the story that will be passed down in our family is my in-laws basset who found a dead porcupine! - Montana. After getting all the quills out of her mouth, my FIL buried it. He called the next day to say he guessed he didn't bury it deep enough, and repeated the prior day's actions.

Meanwhile, I'm ready to put a flare down the vole hole here and see if I can produce the critter, instead I'm sure my yard will look like it is on fire with smoke coming up 100 holes, sigh. Yes, my new dog must master the drop it command before allowing to hunt.

Merrie

[bayoucorgi]

This is TOO funny. I have a visual picture of lobbing the poor rodent body off the cliff. All the while I am thinking of Caddyshack and "die Go-pherr".

[sutulu]

I was having lunch with a few friends yesterday and we were yucking it up over Caddyshack. Bill Murray's character referred to the gophers as "vermin".

I have a variety of chipmunks, squirrels, moles, possibly mice, and god knows what that run around in the backyard. When they want to make a quick getawy they sometime run into/under an old rock wall along the edge of my deck.

Well apparently they have been sepnding more time around the rock wall. Lulu goes out and is absolutely berserk looking for "vermin".

So my question is this.... are female corgis more of hunters than males?

Tucker will check out vermin but seems to care less. Lulu is absolutely on a "take no prisoners" mission!

Susan