Following on from Thursday's post, yesterday evening we went to feed the crows again and this time I remembered to get my phone out and take some video. Naturally, since I was filming her, Beryl didn't particularly feel like playing so the results aren't very dramatic. It took a while to get any shots of her doing it at all.
She seemed far more interested in checking out the food we were tossing onto the grass, just in case she might have changed her mind about eating any of it in the last couple of years, which of course she had not. It's always best to check where food's concerned though, or that's Beryl's motto anyway.
Beryl is a smart pup (Not just an indulgent owner's claim - poodles are top of the canine intelligence charts and poodle hybrids are all pretty clued-in by dog standards.) and she learns quickly from experience. It looks as though she's already figured out the crows aren't going to let her get close enough to do whatever it is she imagines she'd do if she caught one so she's not all that interested in them any more.
Even so, she still likes to make them fly up into the air, so every now and
then she'll trundle towards one to make it flap about a bit. She loses
interest a lot quicker than she did a week ago, though. Or maybe she just wasn't in the mood. She can be a bit of a princess that way.
The light wasn't great. It was late in the evening and the sun was nearly down, as you can see from our long shadows, which I very unprofessionally allowed to intrude on some of the shots. The camera on my cheap, aging phone is also not good by modern standards so the quality is pants. I should have asked Mrs Bhagpuss to do the filming on her iPhone but I didn't realize just how bad mine would be until I got home and took a look at the results on a bigger screen.
Anyway, for what it's worth, this is what she looks like when she makes the effort. Impressive, isn't it? I'm not surprised the crows don't take her seriously.
Off the back of the last post, as I was googling "Dogs playing with crows" to see if I could get some kind of image to use, I ran across the YouTube video embedded below. It's very interesting, as are many of the comments.
Crows are well-known to enjoy various kinds of play but I was unaware they have a kind of game where they tweak the tails of other animals. Apparently this is quite common. Having watched the gang of crows in the video harassing the elderly dog (I agree with the commenters who reckon the dog is enjoying it just as much as the crows, though.) I wonder if Beryl isn't going to get more than she bargained for one of these days.
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What the heck with those crows! They just sit around letting the dog run up to them? My dogs would go nuts chasing them. I feel sorry for the big dog in the last video being surrounded by those crows. Beryl video posts every day would be great :) Atheren
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ReplyDeleteIn the 2nd video I appreciated the flop at the end of the crow run. :)
ReplyDeleteWe live in an apartment complex and have dumpsters everywhere, and people never close the doors on them. So we have squirrels, which are basically rats with bushy tails. They feed in the dumpsters. When Lola was younger and more agile she would jump up and put her paws against the dumpster under one open door, and that was my cue to go around to the other side and bang on the dumpster so the squirrels would leap out of the open door and find Lola waiting there. She LOVED that game. (She never actually grabbed one, she just likes the chase.)
In the youtube video, clearly the dog was having fun, until that last squirrel got a good nip on the tail, and then the dog was like "OK that's enough" and wandered off. If the dog was really troubled the tail wouldn't be up like that, it'd be tucked under.
[deleted and re-posted as I noticed I never mentioned I was talking about Lola the Doggo when I described the squirrel game]
Beryl used to be crazy for squirrels. She's slow for a dog and a squirrel going as fast as it can on the flat runs at almost exactly her top speed so on the few occasions she's got to chase one where there weren't any trees close by she's been inches behind it all the way. That's only happened a handful of times, though, because squirrels aren't generally all that keen to get far from a good, tall tree, so she's learned that they mostly don't play fair and she doesn't bother with them any more... unless she spots one out in the open and then squirrel, look out!
DeleteWhen I read the title I wondered what music you were going to pull out of your hat today --surely not The Black Crowes!-- but here it's a real murder of crows and one spunky Beryl.
ReplyDeleteI've never really listened to the Black Crowes. They sound like the Rolling Stones so I've heard, though, so maybe I should.
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