Today Shelby the great African Princess/Hunter began the process of creating a new rabbit -free zone. She was in the back yard socializing with the dogs at the fence when all of a sudden something caught her attention. The nose went into overdrive. She started digging at the snow which is mostly ice and jumping on it. Then the chase was on. A big brown rabbit went running across the yard and under the fence into the dog-free yard. Shelby is feeling very frisky and proud of herself today. I gave her a treat for being my great hunter. Watch out rabbits because Shelby is here!:D
Ha! Yep, we have a rabbit free yard…and it seems that we have a mainly squirrel free perimeter as well! We used to have bunch of squirrels that would tease the dogs then escape to the surrounding trees...but we have noticed a serious decline in the last couple years. I guess they decided there were just too many Basenji to risk it anymore 
Our cat has already created a critter free zone. She loves to stalk and pounce. Giz loves to pounce the cat, so I guess it all works out!
Ours have many animal notches on their Senji belts…...a squirrel, numerous Rabbits, voles, birds......but a black rat snake crawled right down the center of their yard and they didn't touch it. Circled around it like it was really something, but kept their distance.
but a black rat snake crawled right down the center of their yard and they didn't touch it. Circled around it like it was really something, but kept their distance.
BBOy-SMART Dogs!! I can't imagine what would have happened if they tried to take on a snake 
Well I'm not sure how Shelby would react to a snake but I do know that my little hunter is scared of deer. Once when we were out walking in the woods, we came along a small family of deer. We startled them and Shelby about jumped out of her fur and tried to run the opposite direction. She's a great hunter of smaller things, rabbits, squirrels, socks, slippers and of course, stuffed animals. 
Ours have many animal notches on their Senji belts…...a squirrel, numerous Rabbits, voles, birds......but a black rat snake crawled right down the center of their yard and they didn't touch it. Circled around it like it was really something, but kept their distance.
That's what ours do with snakes as well. We had a big hognose snake in our wood pile for awhile…Querk alerted us to it by hopping around and pointing. We took some pics...I'll see if I can find them. But the dogs stayed clear of that area for weeks. And Querk would always check to see if it was still there (it had moved on after the first day).
We have found that they each have a type of prey that *really excites them. Ivy is wild about squirrels. Querk is a deer hunter…I swear, if he had the chance he would try to take one down. When we walk in our local park (wild area, not grass lawn) there are many deer...and he is constantly scanning, sniffing...couldn't care less about rodents..but soon as he finds a deer trail, watch out. Blondie prefers to hunt fast food bags..and other things that don't take much work Bella hunts light beams and other figments of her imagination.....actually she is a relentless hunter of anything that moves...I think she would eat a cat in a matter of seconds. And Luna just follows everybody else!
I took the furkids to the dog park this afternoon to let them release some energy. From the moment we got there Zahra was acting like an insane crazed B running around almost skipping. Then she spotted a squirrel and she just stopped, starred and would not move, when she started to move she started scaling the fence to get over it to head in the direction of the squirrel. Luckily I am always watching them like a good over-protective mom and was right behind her in a matter of a second pulling her back into the dog park. I stayed on her for the rest of our visit but she kept watching in the woods for the squirrel.
Very scary moment for me, she has never done this before today, I guess her hunting instinct kicked in with her turning 1 year old this past week.
a black rat snake crawled right down the center of their yard and they didn't touch it. Circled around it like it was really something, but kept their distance.
After seeing Basenji Park in person and seeing pictures on the forum of the reptiles that have called Basenji Park home, I'm guessing the pups probably just thought the snake belonged there B-Boy!
