You know, it's funny.

[conuly]

Moonpie hates squirrels, possums, raccoons, granny carts, and turkeys. Finn, for his part, has spent several years learning not to bark at (our) cats when he's on our lap, and has only very recently started extending that shaky understanding to not barking at them if we happen to be in the same room as him.

And yet, yesterday, as I walked the dogs by the supermarket, a big old rat ran right in front of me, I nearly kicked it by mistake, and the dogs just... nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing! A whole lot of nothing!

Comments

[wpadmirer]

Animals are strange in what they react to and don't react to.

[conuly]

You're telling me!

[dark_phoenix54]

It's a rat. Would you want that in your mouth?

[conuly]

I'm not asking them to fight the rat, just react in some way!

[dark_phoenix54]

Probably afraid that if they admit to seeing it, you'll expect them to do something about it. Eyes ahead, boys, and pick up the pace! (speaking from watching cats absolutely refuse to look at a mouse that is right in front of them)

[dragonyphoenix]

Wow, I would not have expected that!

[adafrog]

lol

[hudebnik]

We've had greyhounds in the past who caught mice in the house (we normally don't encourage them to go after wildlife, but uninvited house-mice are an exception), but our current pair have been utterly useless in that regard, while I caught twenty or so mice in snap-traps over the winter.

OTOH, I was walking the dogs late at night last week when Bailey, the younger one, stopped in her tracks, staring at the empty lawn across the street. After a minute or so of alternately trying to get her to move and trying to see what she was looking at, I spotted the opossum. We don't see those in the neighborhood very often -- much less often than raccoons -- but we're in favor of opossums, because they like to eat ticks.