Poor thing.
The amazing reaction was from my dog. I had a female Golden Retriever at the time, may she RIP. She knew the wod “bird” because she would accompany me to the barn to feed the birds.
When I couldn’t find Danny Boy, I patrolled the property, looking for him — under the hedge rows, up in the trees, every place I could think. I was distraught. My husband kept saying that I’d find him — he was just hiding.
TWO DAYS after his disappearance (and aftr a light rain) I finally spoke aloud. I stood on my front porch as said to my dog, “Where’s the bird?”
Terra’s head snapped up, and she immediately set off down the driveway with her nose to the ground. She stopped about 5 feet from the road and stood still with her nose in the lawn. I ran down there to see what had her attention (checking the shrubbery along both sides of the drive as I went.
When I caught up, I chided her, “Oh, don’t be so stupid. There’s no bird there.” Then, I looked at where she was pointing and noticed that there were some tiny feathers in the grass. I picked the up and recognizzed them as neck feathers — and they were broken. They hadn’t been shed naturally.
When my husband got home, he found the tail feathers just across the road, They’d been TORN from the carcass, and we never found the carcass. The trapper said that the mother fox would have dragged it to her den where they would dine on it for a week.
My question: how did Terra know that I was looking for this particular peacock? I had 8 others in the barn. When I asked, “Where’s the bird?” why didn’t Terra take off toward the barn where there were more birds? Obviously she tracked the scent of the targeted peacock because that is exactly the route the trapper reconstructed later. But, I had peacocks wandering all over the place at the time. How did she know that it was that one particular bird that I was hunting? Could she smell the fear in the trail? Could she smell the combo of fox and bird that alerted her?
And how come she was able to track that bird so confidently when it had RAINED since the peacock went missing?
Animals are amazing.
well we appear to have the making of Bridesmaids2 here! LOL! one of xsteen’s bridesmaids sent out an email to the rest of the bridesmaids saying that she and the two other local bridesmaids were planning a shower for July for xsteen and that it would be helpful if all could kick in $100-150. well xsbaby as MOH got this missive, as did my two nieces, and my SIL was just texting me about it. It is presumptuous without a doubt to plan something and then bill the rest of the wedding party. I told my SIL i agreed as did xsteen when i told her of it, so my nieces will handle it. There was a discussion of venues etc. Mel wants to know what’s wrong with a coupla chickfila platters, knowing that is xsteen’s fave thing in the whole world! LOL! oh well, guess they will sort it out. not my place to do so. And yeah, xsbaby has ZERO income, so any contribution she makes to the shower is coming from me, which is a no-no in shower etiquette, but these kids don’t know that. Of the three local girls, one lives in a condo that daddy bought, the other lives at home, and the other niece lives with her fiance [she’s getting married in june]. I would think a pot luck shower in a party room of the condo building would be fine. Uncomfortable for xsteen and i, but my nieces and SIL are ok knowing that we had the same reaction that they did. Both of them will incur expenses getting to DC both for the shower in July and the wedding in Sept. The 7th bridesmaid lives in Ireland and won’t be coming to the shower and will have the expense of international travel to get here for the wedding!