puppy discovers australia’s deadly wildlife

snake avoidance training

►

Over the years Phil has grown used to my gasps and screams.  He normally sits silently through them reading the paper not bothering to ask what’s the matter.  When I say, “Don’t you even want to know what’s wrong?” he’ll reply, “I already know what’s wrong.”  “What???”  “Nothing.”   (Nothing much, anyway.)

However, when he heard me scream the other night, he came charging out of the house barefoot.  Not the best choice given what was wrong.  Very wrong.  Our puppy had bailed up a metre-long snake.  Phil insisted it was a red-bellied black snake, but when I later presented him with a photo lineup, he pointed confidently to an eastern brown snake and announced, “That’s the one!”  Anyway, it doesn’t really matter which species because in Australia nearly all snakes are venomous (some more so than others).

The sight of our Labrador Lila in a standoff with a potentially lethal creature had taken my screams to a new pitch.   Blood curdling they reverberated throughout the valley prompting neighbours to come running from all directions.  One brave woman wielding a large stick.  No one knew what to expect.  Lila, on the other hand, appeared to be deaf.   Mesmerized by the snake.  With only a few inches between them.   Every time I tried to grab her collar, the snake would rear up and strike out.   We’d both recoil, but then Lila would go back for more before I could stop her.  My screams had words attached, but it was hard to tell.

When Phil arrived on the scene, he shouted, “Get her some food!” hoping to break the spell by offering Lila what Labradors live for.   I found myself shrieking, “Lila, would you like some dinner?!?”  Perhaps the question was indecipherable because it clearly had no impact.  That’s when Phil somehow managed to get hold of Lila without being bitten himself.   But we still didn’t know whether or not the snake’s fangs had contacted Lila because puncture marks are virtually invisible under a dog’s fur.  We wasted no time getting her to the nearest veterinary hospital.

While travelling there, she showed no signs of distress.  No vomiting.  No salivating (no more than usual).  No trembling.  And her pupils were not dilated.   She seemed fine, but the vet did appropriate blood tests to make sure.   Apparently, Lila had not been bitten.  Or perhaps had received only a “dry bite” (snakes sometimes reserve their venom for prey rather than waste it on predators).   At any rate, she took the whole episode in stride and enjoyed swapping notes with other patients in the vet’s waiting room.

As for me, I knew Lila had not learned her lesson.  And I was worried sick about the prospect of another visitation.  But two days later something truly wonderful happened.  While out cycling, I spotted a dead snake!  I seized the moment and brought it home to give Lila some avoidance training.  I’d read that dead snakes could be used in this way…helping the dog make an association with the handler’s fear reaction.  Maybe this snake wasn’t a perfect match, but I figured it was worth a shot…

[If you have received this post by email, please click “dog downunder” or “puppy discovers australia’s deadly wildlife” in order to view accompanying video in a web page.]

a labrador with no taste for rabbit

lila admiring a bunny

►

We’ve recently had a string of record-breakingly hot, dry days (and nights!) leaving the landscape brown and yellow with only a touch of green. This normally happens each summer, but we’re ahead of schedule. And the scarcity of greenery brings out Australia’s most notorious pest: the grey rabbit. Not native to this continent but introduced by an Englishman in 1859 for sport hunting, its numbers have exploded to plague proportions in some regions.

Until her very last days, our border collie Rosie worked hard to keep the rabbit population in check. She became highly skilled at stalking and swiftly exterminating those on our property. In the early years, however, she was not so adept and, on one occasion, I found her prey in a somewhat less-than-dead state. I shouted out to Phil to please come help me drown the poor creature. Somehow it was understood that my role would be to fill a bucket while Phil’s would be to carry out the rest. To his relief, the rabbit vanished while the tap was still running.

And now our puppy Lila has arrived on the scene. She has a strong curiosity about rabbits, but no killer instinct. Maybe it’s her laid-back Labrador nature, but she’d much rather admire a bunny than chase one. Or God forbid have one for breakfast. (My apologies for capturing her attitude through a flecked windowpane.)

[If you have received this post by email, please click “dog downunder” or “a labrador with no taste for rabbit” in order to view accompanying video in a web page.]

what’s that doggy doing?

lila and lily and the red bucket

►

When you’re pushing twenty and happen to be a horse, you may feel you’ve seen it all. My grey mare Lily knows a lot about dogs, but she still pricks up at some of our little Labrador Lila’s antics.

The other morning Lila had appropriated a bright red plastic bucket. Maybe it was the colour. Or the shape. Or simply the fact that it wasn’t hers. But she wanted it. To do something. Roll. Tilt. Snap. I’m not sure. On the lawn, she turned it this way and that exploring the options.

Typical puppy stuff, but Lily was intrigued. She caught sight of Lila sporting the red bucket and marched straight over to the fence to investigate. With warm bemusement. Lily likes to think of herself as a bit more dignified than your average dog, but sometimes she gets sucked in.

[If you have received this post by email, please click “dog downunder” or “what’s that doggy doing?” in order to view accompanying video in a web page.]

lila the labrador encounters a kangaroo

kangaroo with joey at our dam

►

A decade or so ago Phil and I moved from the Big Smoke to rural Victoria. A classic tree change. When we arrived, we felt like outsiders. City slickers. Some of our more seasoned neighbours muttered that we wouldn’t last. (I suspect they’d caught glimpses of our bungled attempts at “working the farm”…doing and undoing each chore at least a few times before finally and accidentally getting it right.)

When a crusty old fencer turned up on our property, he warned me to keep our border collie Rosie out of the paddocks because, he expanded with a sideways glance, the kangaroos would lure her into our dam and drown her. I figured he was playing with me, but I kept the information on file just the same. And even went to the trouble of relaying it to another local bloke while asking him to please shut the paddock gate. He replied that he’d lived around here all his life and had never seen the likes of that.

Yet he’d barely uttered the words (and hadn’t quite shut the gate!) when bullet-like Rosie shot through ready to round up a mob of kangaroos grazing a hundred metres away. And, lo and behold, within seconds one of them had hopped into the dam and swum to the deepest part with Rosie madly paddling behind. It wasn’t until the kangaroo faced her and started swiping the air with its razor claws that Rosie thankfully had second thoughts and hightailed it back to shore. Nevertheless, while scrambling across the paddock (the bloke pleading with me not to jump into the water), I’d managed to scream so violently that I was hoarse for days.

A pack of dogs can do horrific damage to a lone kangaroo. But a dog on its own does not stand a chance. Normally the kangaroos stay in our paddocks so when a 6-foot-tall rogue male bounded past me in our front yard this morning, I got a serious fright. Where was my little Lila pup?!? My heart racing, my eyes darting around searching for her while charting the trajectory of this massive kangaroo. And then, just as he sailed over the fence back into a paddock, I spotted her. Clever girl. There she was hiding behind a shrub. Wide-eyed and stock-still. Waiting for me to rescue her. We looked at one another and mopped our collective brow.

[If you have received this post by email, please click “dog downunder” or “lila the labrador encounters a kangaroo” in order to view accompanying video in a web page.]

dog meets horse

lila and lily getting acquainted

►

When our border collie Rosie died, my grey mare Lily boycotted the funeral.  She stayed in her shed, refusing to participate in the proceedings just down the slope of her paddock, and only emerged once the vet had gone and Rosie had been buried.   She appeared unsettled as she approached the grave, and then she tiptoed around it.

In the months after, I sensed that Lily missed Rosie, whose company she had enjoyed (despite Rosie’s annoying habit of playfully snapping at her bum whenever the opportunity presented itself.)   She had especially loved teasing Rosie, who devoted hours of each day to waiting outside the paddock for Lily to do something.  Something exciting.  Something chaseworthy.

Lily knew the score and made the most of it:  maybe I will maybe I won’t.  When she eventually obliged, Rosie’s herding instinct would go into overdrive, with Lily gleefully whizzing up and down the fence line just out of reach of poor Rosie barking and circling in frenzied pursuit on the other side.

So when our Labrador puppy Lila recently arrived (yes, that’s right…Lily and Lila), I was eager to observe the interspecies interactions.  On her first morning here, I carried Lila to the fence and called out to Lily who ambled over to meet the brown fuzzy baby in my arms.  It was a quiet moment with each creature softly sniffing.  Each curious to know the other.   Lila awestruck but not fearful.  Lily inhaled Lila’s puppy scent and gave a sigh of contentment.

Then I put Lila on the ground.  Despite being a pint-sized pup, Lila bounced around confidently…until the terrible moment when Lily invited Lila to chase her (the way Rosie always had) by going for an impressive gallop.  To Lily’s obvious disappointment, the thundering hooves sent Lila hurtling full tilt back towards the house.  Scared witless by the earth rumbling beneath her.   And prompting Lily to go easy with subsequent encounters.

It is still early days, but I can see the two girls forming a friendship.  With Lila now sometimes pleading with Lily to play.  A few inches apart, they often graze together.   (They both love their grass.)  Although I am confident Lily would never intentionally harm her, a hoof wrongly put could be catastrophic for a puppy.    So for now, they will continue to happily and safely become acquainted across the fence.