Silver City, NM. People who don't walk or mountain bike with dogs might not realize that they can be an asset in finding wildlife. They might think the dog would just chase off the wildlife or scare them away. But it's easy to forget the power of a canine's olfactory. They know something is up, when the human is oblivious.
Yesterday Coffee Girl, my kelpie, took off like a maniac. Soon I heard her barking in an uncharacteristic style. Actually that's a misnomer. Dogs bark in different styles for different prey. I was alarmed by this particular bark, so I ran over to her.
She had treed something. She had her front paws on a tall pinyon pine. (This area is full of the tallest pinyons I've ever seen.) She looked rather triumphant about it.
I had to look carefully, but there it finally was: a coatimundi, the first I've ever seen. Interesting creatures.
________________________________________
Another strange thing happened yesterday. The blog's hit-count tripled for some reason. I was foolishly curious about the website that was sending all the eyeballs over to me. It turned out to be a raunchy porn site. Now what were the keywords in my most recent post that were latched on to by the search engine? Good heavens, the post was about welding a cracked aluminum mountain bike frame.
Ah ha. I had mentioned the bicycle shop, named after prominent mountain peaks in this area. Twin Sisters. Oh good grief!
 |
| Coffee Girl disports with a Pronghorn Antelope, on sagebrush hills near Gunnison, CO |
Yesterday Coffee Girl, my kelpie, took off like a maniac. Soon I heard her barking in an uncharacteristic style. Actually that's a misnomer. Dogs bark in different styles for different prey. I was alarmed by this particular bark, so I ran over to her.
She had treed something. She had her front paws on a tall pinyon pine. (This area is full of the tallest pinyons I've ever seen.) She looked rather triumphant about it.
I had to look carefully, but there it finally was: a coatimundi, the first I've ever seen. Interesting creatures.
________________________________________
Another strange thing happened yesterday. The blog's hit-count tripled for some reason. I was foolishly curious about the website that was sending all the eyeballs over to me. It turned out to be a raunchy porn site. Now what were the keywords in my most recent post that were latched on to by the search engine? Good heavens, the post was about welding a cracked aluminum mountain bike frame.
Ah ha. I had mentioned the bicycle shop, named after prominent mountain peaks in this area. Twin Sisters. Oh good grief!
Comments
Chris H
George, I too wonder why humans lost things like the sense of smell, running speed, body hair, etc., when they seem like evolutionary advantages.