Today, I developed a taste for Bambi. Crazy lady had just returned home, and she was on the phone. I had to pee, so she let me outside. Five seconds later, she saw a deer race by the open door-- with me chasing her, at full speed! I barely heard the, "holy shit, oh my god, stop, stop, oh my god, stop, ewwww, gross, stop!"For an atheist, she certainly said god's name a lot.
I was too intent on capturing and chomping on the deer. I had grabbed the deer's hind legs and swung my 32 lb body full speed against the side of the beast, causing it to fall on the ground. It tried to kick me, but I was able to immobilize it with my strong jaw. I felt water hit my body, but didn't stop. Did crazy lady honestly think the hose would stop the hunt?
The deer escaped, and I chased it around the area and into the neighbor's yard. I was able to jump and sink my teeth into the deer 5 times. I could hear crazy lady running after me, swearing and falling over bricks. I was too fast, and having too much fun!
Crazy lady was finally able to stop me by getting in between myself and the injured deer. She calmly said "stop" and "stay" while holding out her hand. I stopped and stayed, smiling at her and covered in blood. I figured, "hey, I did all the work. She can have the final kill." I walked away and decided it was time to poop in the neighbor's yard. I ignored crazy lady's "un-frickin-believable" and let her take me home.
Crazy lady hosed me off and checked for injuries, especially since I was covered in blood. Although I wasn't hurt, she took me to the vet and I had to have a rabies booster shot. Animal control came and took care of the deer. They were very impressed with my prey instinct. One officer gave me a compliment: "Wow, she's so tiny and pretty. I wish I could have seen her take down that big deer. Amazing that she's not hurt. She'd be a great search and rescue dog, if properly trained."
Crazy lady can't sit or walk since she tore her groin muscles during the chase. She needed a distraction from her injuries, so crazy lady did some research about Formosan dogs, my breed from Taiwan. She was surprised at how a puny dog (her words, I prefer "beautiful sleek bitch") could take down a large animal. She found out that, through selective breeding, my ancestors were trained to hunt deer and wild boar. Here are some pictures she found from 1926:
Doesn't this look like my great, great, great grandma?
Crazy lady knows that she can't remove the prey instinct, but she made an appointment with a special trainer to see if he can teach me to "come" next time this happens. She's also keeping me in the dog run and house, to try and prevent this from happening again. Will this happen again? Absolutely. There are lots of deer around here, and I had the time of my life!
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Oh Crazy Lady. I feel your pain. I really truly do. Our Formosan wonder chased a deer across the street and into the property across the street (we live in rural mountains CA). we had to stop traffic on a busy road in both directions. Then he got to play "chase" with us between stopped cars and show everyone on the street how we didn't have any control over our dog. how embarrassing. Oh the joy. So We put up 2 fences for our Formosan wonder. the first is a 3000 square foot dog run with 6 ft chain link fence. If that fails, we put up a 6 foot deer fencing around about 1/2 acre of our property, so if and when he gets out or gets to be on the grounds outside the dog yard with us supervising, we have the saftey net of the deer fence (and deer can't get in to bait him, which is nice). but don't think those deer don't tease him. oh but they do. he sees them from inside the house on the other side of the 2nd level of fencing and loves to try and go for it.
We have him in special training. He's very sweet but aggressive while on the leash around other dogs or sometimes strangers. and of course didn't come on command when chasing deer which is so wrong. so i'm working with a "special" trainer. Loki gets his butt handed to him weekly. it's working. Its a commbination of praise and correction. he does all the commands with the trainer no problem...the trainer now trains me. because my doggie knows he can push me and he also knows what i don't know. it's leadership and respect. truthfully (and i don't mean this as criticsm because i'm not perfect) but your little Bambi hunter should have halted and stopped the minute you said so, no matter what drive he's in, prey, play, praise or food. prey is a strong drive but your leadership and command should be able to stop him in his tracks. but it takes a LOT of training. hard training. Training you may not be so keen on. Read www.leerburg.com. there's lots of info there to get you started and understanding drives, motivations, "true" leadership (respect from the doggie) and "true" obedience (you do it because i said so, not because i'm bribing you with a treat)....there's marker training (positive reinforcement) that gets you started and then theory on using corrections to teach the dog once he knows the command, what happens if he doesn't "do" the command.
it takes sooooo much work, but i'm putting it in because 1. its fun with a dog like this. The prey/play drive alone in him will make it much easier on you to train him well...trust me, my husky is harder to train than the formosan dog. she's very low motivated --you USE the motivation/drive (prey/play) to train and that's what's really fun, and 2. because of his safety. i never ever want to have something happen to my dog because he couldn't obey a command to keep him safe (whether he bites someone and has to be put down or he runs in the street and get run over by a car).
anyway, thanks for reading Wild Dingo! i like your stories. been so busy training (and fixing husky spaz attacks) haven't had time to post!
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