Prey drive fail across the board.

JessicaRabbit

There is a guinea hen in my neighborhood. Just one. Her boyfriend vanished last spring (big coyote/fox/raccoon population especially for the burbs). This hen has balls of steel. She saunters up to me and my dogs almost daily. Most of my neighbors feed her. And she really is cool looking. But I think I am most amused by dogs responses.
Miko-barely notices her. And when she does she seems more weirded out than anything else. Hen walked right up to her today. Almost no reaction at all.
Hilo-Could care less. There are about half a dozen dogs on that street who bark quite a bit, and that distracts him far more than the guinea hen strutting her stuff under his nose.
Ruby-Will sit down and just watch her. She will check in with me periodically. But otherwise is more interested in watching and snacking on acorns.

Now I am not complaining. I have really had to discourage much drive in my house as I have four cats, and two of them are over 20 years old. But I was just fascinated at the complete lack of interest in something that should 100% be dinner if they were left to fend for themselves.

I will try to get a picture this week of the hen. She really is cool.

Edgewood

My guys really are not all that interested in birds, we have a lot of geese and they hardly notice them. And this summer, at least 2 blue jays and 1 starling fledgling ended up in my yard. They did play with the bird, but only very carefully mouthed it or just watched and pawed at it. Totally the opposite of how hard mouthed they are with ground hogs.

If felt sorry for the fledglings because my dogs did probably hurt them without putting them out of their misery. I usually moved them out of the yard and the barn cats did put them out quickly. But not the dogs....

sunyata

I am glad to know that Nola is not the only dog that likes to snack on acorns...

Bella is the same way with birds. They do not phase her one bit. Nola, on the other hand, would have snatched that hen right up. But then again, she also acts like she wants to eat the horses, too... :-/

I would love to see a video of the hen strutting underneath Hilo's nose.

shibamistress

My Shibas would have had that bird for dinner. Even lazy, slow Toby can catch a slow bird (last one he caught he slowly "plucked" by pulling out feathers with his mouth then spitting them out) before eating it. Bel eats them feathers and all.

Oskar? He's too young to tell, but he imitates Bel and has a strong prey drive, at least if we're talking his desire to chase, catch and bite.

My dogs don't eat the acorns from the scrub oak, but they do eat pinon nuts from our pinon pine trees.....they're chewing on the pinecones to get the nuts out....

kwyld

My dogs would probably snatch that cute little Guinea Hen up in .2 seconds. They realize most of the time they can't catch most birds, but geese are slow and lumbering most of the time and they take their chances with them when they can. In fact, I take Kohji to the beach and cemeteries to chase Canadian geese off the premesis. He LOVES it.

tjbart17

First Maymay would go for the bird, and that would set Koda off. He didn't really care about chasing birds, chickens, geese, turkeys until Maymay came around. Now they set eachother off, and when they are in that kill mode it's difficult to calm them down. More so Maymay than Koda.

StaticNfuzz

Guinea hens can be quite bold....some have been known to actually kick some but if irritated. They are bossy with regular hens. I love their call though. Overall pretty cool curious birds. They didn't seem to mind the Rhinos and Elands when I was visiting at one of the zoos.

Snf

venus

ven seems to be worse with birds than any furry, she stands in the water at the local lake chest deep just glaring at the ducks that swim just out of reach. they seem to know she won't swim for them. i so wish she was like your furbabies jessica it might make our lake walks slightly less stressful .

Heidi

Videos of an encounter would be most awesome.

bily27

I have a video of Banshee chasing a herd of feral pigs in the woods at 6 months old. It is hard to see the hogs, but I assure you that is what he is chasing. You can hear them if you listen carefully. I was scared sh*tless at the encounter and he dissappeared for 4 hours. I eventually found him on the main trail. That was the last time I took him in the woods hiking without a leash or GPS collar.

Video:

bily27

Here's a video of Banshee encountering his first turtle on the trail as well:

sjp051993

bird would be dead at my house. 2010 death toll from my yard. 15 birds, 30 moles, 10 frogs, 1 rabbit.

Edgewood

Cool videos bily27! Although you must have been swearing when Banshee went after the hog! I did hear it grunt just before Banshee's big leap!