Is your pet friendly, curious, hostile, or don't give a damn about wild animals when they encounter one?
Would you like to see how a dog might react around a raccoon?
Check out the following video.
Was it a big surprise to you?
Most pets don't react well with not only wild animals, but also around other "stranger" pets belong to other people. It is nice to have a friendly pet, until you need a guard dog.
I hope that dog is up to date on his rabies shots!
My bird likes to watch the wild birds outside, and he sometimes even sings with them. My cat also likes to watch the birds, but ever since a group of sparrows dive-bombed him a few years ago, he leaves them alone. He pretty much just watches the squirrels, rabbits, and such as well. He'll catch a mouse now and then, but that's it.
My rottweiler once picked up a baby bird that fell out of a tree. She carried it around for a few minutes before losing interest and setting it down. We checked the bird after, it was alive and there were no punctures at all on it. It did die overnight, though. I guess the mother smelled dog and avoided the baby like the plague.
(08-13-2012, 04:18 AM)writer811 Wrote: [ -> ]My rottweiler once picked up a baby bird that fell out of a tree. She carried it around for a few minutes before losing interest and setting it down. We checked the bird after, it was alive and there were no punctures at all on it. It did die overnight, though. I guess the mother smelled dog and avoided the baby like the plague.
Actually, the idea that parent birds abandon their babies because of another animal's smell on them is a myth. Most songbirds can't smell well, if at all. Did you put the bird back into the nest? If not, it probably died of cold. If you did, the baby probably died either from internal injuries from falling out of the nest, or it picked up a bacteria from the dog's mouth (dogs and cats carry pasteurella bacteria in their mouths, which is deadly to birds).
(For the record, I'm not trying to make you feel bad. Just pointing things out for future reference).
Gizmo just basically ignores them. He goes his way, they goes theirs.
Gix on the other hand, thinks everyone and every animal is his friend and buddy. Wild or domestic, it doesn't matter. Being sprayed by a skunk on two occasions you would think he would learn, but no he still wants to be friends with them all.
Right now we have two cats, and their reaction is usually to eat them if they can, lol. We let them hang out in the yard, but do have to keep an eye on them for going after birds.
We tried to babysit a dog for someone and the dog wanted to kill them so they took off hiding. That didn't work out at all.
My cats are free ranging and I have watched them stalking all kinds of small wild animals.
One tabby, in particular, is very keen on squirrels. There is a fruit tree near the house which attracts quite a few squirrels everyday. So the tabby would sit patiently on a woodpile near the tree and wait for the squirrels to come. She doesn't catch one all the time, though. Sometimes she will bring me the tail as some kind of present.
My dog is so scary. She is all bark when she is on the porch but when other animal are around, she would run behind or underneath the nearest object.It hilarious
When I had dogs, we would take them out to the country to see the cows and horses. Normally they would bark at smaller animals like squirrels, but when they would see these huge cows and horses they would just sit in the car silently and stare in awe/fear.