Backyard Nemeses

Sage Canine Advice, by Sage Riverdog – March 18, 2012

I am fortunate to have a very nice backyard with lots of shade trees.  I take my responsibility of protecting my backyard very seriously.  I have always been a squirrel chaser – my owners don’t like them in the birdfeeders.  A couple years ago we had a huge squirrel, I think my owners called it a raccoon, in our birdfeeders – it took some time to run off.   This year there have been some really strange new visitors.  A couple times my sister and I have chased off what looks like a dog, but it acts more like a cat in the way it runs. They called it a coyote and said it hunts mostly at night, but is sometimes seen in the early morning or early evening.  I saw it early evening – twice.  The nerve! Running right through my yard uninvited.   

We also had a couple of huge birds. My sister watches birds, I’m really not interested.  Pepper also barks at the squirrels jumping from tree to tree – a lot of good that does. 
These big birds caught my attention. They seemed to scare all our birdfeeder birds away.  I was told they were Cooper’s Hawks looking for a place to nest. 

 Just this week we found a huge mouse that we chased up in a tree.  We’ve seen a lot of little mice – our cat brings them home from time to time – but this thing was huge and had beady eyes.  
 Our owners calmed us down from barking and took pictures of this thing they called a possum.  I overheard them saying it might have been after the compost.
You just never know what you might have to deal with in your own backyard.  Keep your eyes and ears open and please throw my stick.  

About Sage – Sage is an 8-year-old black Labrador retriever who lives with River District Executive Director Edna Chirico and Edna’s husband, John Huber. Sage earned a Canine Good Citizen award, which allows her to visit nursing homes, hospitals and schools. Sage loves to run, fetch, swim, ride in boats, travel in the car and play with just about anyone, especially children.