Fred trees mountain lion

Fred trees a mountain lion from Chris Wemmer on Vimeo.

"Fred's barking at something" came the voice from the bedroom.

"Yeah, he's barking at a squirrel -- it's his morning routine", replied the voice in the office.

(5 minutes later)

"Fred's still barking, and it sounds like he's getting farther away."

"Okay, okay, I'll check."

From the kitchen window I saw Fred "arfing" gamely up into a live oak about 60 feet from the house.

And dang me if there wasn't a tawny cat up that tree.

I rushed to the bedroom announcing "Fred's treed a mountain lion", punched my feet into my jeans (somewhat like Charleton Heston in "The Big Country"), grabbed my camera, and headed out the back door.

The svelte cat was eyeing Fred from a safe height of 35 feet, and as I snapped a few pictures it turned its humiliated gaze on me.

Better shoot some video, I thought.

My soothing "Niiiice kitty" failed to improve the cat's disposition, but energized the dog even more.

Then Kitty moved to a new position and plotted her escape down some low-hanging limbs.

I shuffled down slope, grabbed Fred's collar, and filmed with my right hand as she crept out on the bendy limb.

In spirit and style, Kitty's getaway could only be that of Butch Cassidy and the Sun Dance Kid, and in a few moments her getaway was complete, as you saw in the video.

How did this come about?

Well, you might have heard my wife's voice in the video.

She was on the phone with my thoroughly jazzed neighbor "Iron Man", who called as soon as he heard the commotion.

His German Shepherd had also barked at something down in the brush, but wisely didn't give chase.

Then Iron Man saw something big moving down there, and heard Fred's full-throated bark shortly after.

Kitty was probably slinking away on our property when Fred surprised her, and vice versa. 

In retrospect, maybe the hazing taught this cat to stay away from human habitation. 

As for what was going on in Fred's skull, I'm not sure.

He may think the cat was a large variety of squirrel. (Okay, probably not.)

But I do know this wouldn't have happened without him. 


Acknowledgement

(Thanks for the photoshopping, Carl)

A saga of the meat bees

The remains of the hornets nest after the skunk's first visit.

"What's wrong, Silly Boy?"

A bewildered Fred had just slinked into the garage and crawled between the table saw and work bench.  

Yellow jackets were crawling in his coat like raging ninjas, probing for dog hide with their stings.

I dragged him out from his hiding place, slapped the spiteful insects, and stomped them on the floor.

We had coexisted all summer with a nest of "meat bees" next to the house, and I had a hunch that Fred had roused them by scratching a dirt bed near their nest.

Sure enough, they were swarming, and I was their next victim.

Only by peeking around the corner of the house could I survey the ninjas safely.

There was no sign that Fred had been scraping a dirt bed.

Then the ground heaved ominously near the nest entrance.

Was a squadron of killer wasps about to erupt?

The ground lifted several more times, tracing a path away from the nest, and suddenly it dawned on me: 

I had just witnessed a rare event -- subterranean predation!

A mole had torn into the meat bee's underground fortress.

Maybe it had the sweet taste of meat bee larvae on its lips, but this mole was beating a hasty retreat from the yellow warriors.

To prove my supposition, I really should have grabbed a shovel, flipped that mole to the surface, caught it, and taken a picture while fending off the meat bees.

I might have tried it in my youth, but the codger was satisfied to marvel at the image of the mole breast-stroking through dirt with mean-assed meat bees stinging his velvet keister. 

Yes, moles are known to feed on the larvae of underground hornets. The paper mache nest is no defense to a hungry mole that scents a comb of tender wasp larvae.

Anyway, the meat bees had to go, because I wanted to see what the mole had done to the nest.

Neighbor Larry delivered some wasp spray, and the next day I donned my running shoes and zapped the nest entrance.

A few dead wasps littered the ground the morning after, but the ninjas were still coming and going. 

I gamely sprayed again, expecting to excavate the next day.

I was ready to start digging until I heard the menacing hum of meat bees underground. 

I sprayed several more days.

Finally the hive was silent, and I began to scratch away the overlying dirt. 

I found the mole's tunnel, and carefully uncovered the domed gray paper roof of the meat bees' inner sanctum. 

The caress of the rake brought them back to life again! 

It took a full week to annihilate the colony, but the coups d'grace was apparently delivered by a skunk. 

The scene looked like someone had taken a small rototiller to the nest.

I buried the remains of the nest and smoothed the surface, but the skunk dug it up again that night and the next. 

Ah, what a saga . . . Hungry mole attacks nest of meat bees, meat bees mount courageous defense, homeowner and dog become co-lateral damage.

Homeowner vainly wages chemical warfare, and a skunk finishes the job, proving that Old Stinky eradicates meat bees better than moles or the petrochemical industry. 

Another Thanksgiving dog story

It was too late when I found Fred completing the ancient dog rite of self-anointment.

He had found something that smelled like a pig sty, and his white throat and orange collar were reeking with a repulsive brown residue.

I've never smelled anything quite that poor in the woods, and the only solution was canine scent exorcism.  

"You're getting a bath". 

Happy-dog turned to hang-dog. He knew what was coming.  

I drove home with the windows open and thought about my options. 

A fecal-scented dog goes over like the proverbial turd in the punchbowl, but when your wife is baking pies the day before Thanksgiving it's far worse than that.  

Full disclosure of Fred's condition clearly was not in the interest of smooth domestic relations, but I had a plan.

The simple act of bathing him for the holiday -- without reference to the real reason, would be a thoughtful consideration.  

I tethered Fred on the deck, drew two buckets of warm water from the mud room without alerting the redhead, donned my rubber boots, and thoroughly lathered the dog twice with a commercial "oatmeal doggie shampoo".

When I toweled him off he was ready to play.

I poked my head in the door to the warm balm of pumpkin pie. 

"Hi Sweetie, I gave Fred a bath so he'll smell good for his birthday".

He rolled on the carpet --  a regular post-bath ritual --  and fetched a toy from his toy box.

I felt the burden ease up, but a little later my wife observed that Fred smelled "a little strange", and asked what shampoo I used?

"He smells like a bowl of hot oatmeal, doesn't he?"

I gave him the sniff test and found that the shampoo had removed 95% of the strange scent.

A faint but distinctive sickly sweet residue remained.

I decided to come clean, and all was well.

I was the only one with the memory of that fetid-scent, and I couldn't get it out of my nose.

We gave Fred his usual dinner of kibble before Thanksgiving dinner, but garnished it for the occasion with pulled turkey neck meat.

Then we gave him his birthday gift -- a new "stumpy toy" (read fuzzy hollow stump with holes and squeaky owl toys inside).

He obsessed with it until dinner was served. 

He sat through the meal with his head near my lap. I was the only one who could smell his scent residue.

The story could have ended there, but there was more.

After dinner Fred amused us with his toys, but when the ladies were washing dishes, he stole the remains of the turkey neck from the kitchen garbage. He wolfed most of it down before I could react to the protests in the kitchen. 

This was definitely out of character, but he seemed to sense that the occasion was his.

The next morning we found that he barfed up the turkey meat next to our bed.

But party dog was back to normal.

Does this give me second thoughts about having a dog? Hell no!  

Fred's an endless source of entertainment, and what's more, he just discovered a new species. 

Fred Learns the String Test

I'll never know for sure where Fuzzy came from, but suspect that Fred absconded with it from a neighbor's front yard.

We had great fun with Fuzzy, as you'll see in the video, and the game was a good way to dust the truck.  

But Fuzzy's departure was as sudden and mysterious as its appearance, and that was end of the string tests.

Wanna Go Walkie?

Every now and then I used to dog-sit for our good neighbors who own Fred's mom, Roxie.

At the time I had just gotten my new GoPro Hero2 with the various mounts and waterproof case, and "the walkie" seemed a good opportunity to start using the equipment.

Here you get some glimpses of three slightly deranged creatures enjoying each others company in the heat of the summer.

Fred in a Jonah log

T'is the season to hunt for nest holes and dens, and today we found a doozy.

Fred, who stands 24" at the shoulder gives you an idea of this Jonah log's capacity.

I don't think it could accommodate even a puny yearling bear, but gray fox and bobcat would find it commodious.

I'm optimistic. No spider webs, and the bedding is compacted.

We'll find out.

I took the picture from an opening on the top, but I don't think the extra opening should detract from its suitability as a den.

A back door is an asset when there are unwanted guests at the front door.

And as you can see, there's more resting space beyond the second opening.

(Thanks to neighbor Bea for the photo of me scoping it out.)

Interlude with a fat stick

Not all of my friends appreciate Fred's personality the way I do.

To some he's an unbearably spoiled extrovert.

I won't deny that he is spoiled, but most folks find at least a few of his antics amusing.

Take his 3-legged stance during morning constitutionals. It's become de rigeur. Has my regular praise at potty time reinforced this quirk?

Anyway, the other day we hiked down to the north fork of the Feather River and found that the sandy beach at Fred's swimming hole was replaced with a cobble bar.

Our extended family spent an afternoon on the sandy beach back in November.

My sister-in-law, a city girl, insisted "This isn't the right place."

"There was a sandy beach, remember?"

Cobbles driven into an alder crotch
5 feet above the bank. 

I explained that the floods must have washed it away, but she didn't buy it.

Finally I pointed to the more permanent features of the site and convinced her that high water can wash away a beach or fill a deep swimming hole with sand.

In addition to driving several cobbles between the limbs of an alder tree the floods also deposited a new crop of flotsam.





Fred quickly found a suitable stick and morphed into his stick-obsessed Labrador persona.

Then I found a fat punky chunk of wood and lobbed it into the river, and the dog gave full-throated chase.

The transformative effect of the super-normal stimulus was magical.

He emerged stick-smitten and pranced with the trophy.

He dropped it and barked . . . my cue to toss it in again.

The fat stick stirred Fred's dog emotions deeply.

He whined and yodeled as he tried to turn it with his paws.

He gnawed off great chunks of punky wood, and every time he lost his paw grip he would emote like a deranged hound of the Baskervilles.  

When it was to time to march back to the car, Fred wouldn't part ways with his beloved fat stick.

He gripped it in his jaws even when he rested.  He knew his beloved would roll back to the river if he set it down. 

After a mile and a half his ardor waned, and he abandoned fat stick on the trail. 

We were only two hundred yards from the car.

It had been a wildly passionate interlude, but he was exhausted.  

He crashed as soon as we got home.

Time to wash the bunnies

Periodically the redhead throws Fred's bunnies into the wash, and hangs them out to dry.

That's because periodically Fred's bunnies lose that soft cuddly feeling, become rather crusty with dog saliva, and need a bath.

You see, our post-prandial routine is a game of bunny fetch.

The codger watches the news, eats dessert, and tosses the bunnies from the living room into the kitchen.

Fred retrieves each bunny, drops it in my hand, then sits down and drools and stares at the biscuit on the arm of the couch.

He gets the biscuit when he speaks very softly using his indoor voice -- a very quiet bark or growl through muffled lips.

Using three bunnies reduces the slime factor on each bunny. They just become damp.

Using one bunny can become a messy affair and interfere with enjoying one's dessert.

If those were my bunnies I would be embarrassed to air them on the internet.

But they're Fred's bunnies, and he couldn't care less.

Suddenly, agoraphobia

Normally I don't cross this catwalk, because the trail is interrupted by many short catwalks beyond this point, and it makes for a lousy bike ride.

This morning I decided to cross it  to escape the other hikers -- the cool weather brought them out early.

By forging ahead they would have time to return to their cars and I could whizz back on a clear trail.

Fred was of a different mind.

He watched me pussyfooting with my bike across the span and yodeled his angst.

I paused to coax him but kept going until I realized he might call in a puma.

Pumas here are quite fond of dog.

So I turned the bike around and headed back wondering why the sudden agoraphobia?

Crossing these expanded metal catwalks is nothing new to my dog.

He has crossed this and many others with me, often at a run and almost daily.

He shoots the rapids in the flume.

Did he know something I didn't know?

Had he detected something I had missed -- a perception in canine scentovision -- a moment of prescience -- a Lassie-like premonition?

Or did the expanded metal hurt his paws after the 3 mile run?

I can't explain it and neither can he.

Dog eat dog, fly eat dog

Gnawing an old coyote skull was one of Fred's happier moments at Chimineas last month.

The rest of the time he attracted deer flies from far and wide.

These particular flies were small with a banded abdomen (like many species) and they feasted on the thinly haired skin immediately behind his nose pad.

A panting short-haired black dog is a supernormal feeding stimulus for biting flies, which are attracted to carbon dioxide and infra-red radiation.

In fact, one of the more effective biting fly traps is a beach ball spray painted black suspended under a funnel that leads to a jar.

Fred was every bit as effective as an attractant, and for a fellow who usually seems impervious to pain he clearly didn't like the flies.

Pawing his nose and scraping a hole to lie in didn't protect him.

They supped well, and by the time we got home Fred's nose had a thin scab the size of a dime.

Brief encounter on the run

When they saw each other they were 50 yards apart, but that was about to change.

In ten months of Chimineas visits Fred never met the stock dogs until now.

The border collie crouched like a predator -- the sheep intimidation thing, and Fred ran straight at it.

Speed the border collie turned and the chase was on.

I knew the cowman's border collies were faster than Fred -- I'd seen them chase ground squirrels.

Cattleman Ross, their owner with the Yosemite Sam mustache told me he once had a crossbreed like Fred.  It herded cattle, but always ate dust when it ran with border collies.

We watched as Fred raced after the border collie -- he was humping at high speed and was actually gaining ground. I was amazed.

For some reason however he started to veer off course.

He had switched to chasing rabbit I thought -- blame it on Canine Attention Deficit Disorder.

But then we saw another border collie running flat out after Fred.

Fred the pursued now was headed in our direction, but a few moments later the chase fizzled. The border collies quit.

The dogs eyed each other at a safe distance with tongues hanging.

I suspect the collie let Fred gain on him. 

If we hadn't turned in for dinner I have the feeling it would have ended up a game of chase, like the dogs and coyote below.

.

Fred goes terrier

We were working in the garden yesterday when Fred found a large gopher hole and went terrier.

The dirt was flying.

The redhead advised me to curb his activity -- "He'll undermine the walkway".

"He's burning action specific energy," I replied, "and look at him . . . the little guy's helping us in the garden. It's kinda sweet."

When we had finished the raised beds, I set a gopher trap to validate Fred's helpfulness.

This morning I checked the trap, and the gopher got away.

And Fred had indeed undermined the walkway; so that has to be filled and packed, hopefully after I catch the gopher.

Once again the redhead was right.

Fred's Bed is Dead

A good friend once told me he'd rather lose a few years of life than abstain from good eating.

That's how Fred felt about Bed.

In a dog's way he loved Bed, but not for sleeping.

Fred's Bed was a wonderful toy, but it was something to be dragged, bitten, and humped with reckless abandon.

Stern admonishment to "Be gentle", got a brief panting pause as he waited for us to go away.

Even if he understood that Bed had a finite life, and that gentle play would make Bed last longer, he wouldn't have cared.

He wanted to enjoy Bed to the fullest.

So Bed was stored behind the closed door of the guest bedroom, and Fred's play dates with it were reserved for special occasions.

Finally our warnings came true. Bed started to lose its stuffing.

This made Bed even more fun to Fred.

We soon tired of re-stuffing Bed and explaining the inevitable.

The time had come.

Last Tuesday Bed was consigned to the trash can.

Fred had loved Bed to death.

And now that Bed is gone, Fred doesn't even miss it.

Dog walking adventure

We had finished another half mile of pundit walking, and were starting to retrace our steps.

That's when Fred went crazy.

Whatever the scent, it stirred his passion, and he bolted ahead pulling the snout loop of his Gentle Leader up to his eyes.

He didn't even sniff the ground -- he was trailing air-born particles like a bloodhound, pausing only to box his muzzle like a punch drunk pugilist -- he hates the Gentle Leader.

"Bleep bleep, what the hell is it?!"

Fred only tugged fiendishly.

Had a cougar been tracking us?

I know a couple of dog walkers who have seen them here, and one of them said the cat was clearly after his Akita.

In my mind's eye I saw us naively strolling with a cougar slinking in tow.

And sure enough there it was -- a large track in the soft ground -- no claws -- but no pad with the diagnostic 3-lobes was visible either.

"Dammit, slow down" . . .

We rounded a bend and saw 5 dogs -- medium-sized mixed breeds trotting toward us.

Immediately they reversed direction.

Fred fought the leash and yodeled to commence the chase.

They were gone.

I was tracking them here and there along the trail when I heard the plaintive whining of a dog.

A minute later we found a short-haired yellow pup floundering in the flume.

Without collar and perhaps 7 months old.

It  was struggling to claw its way up the bank and join its buddies who had disappeared in the woods.

"Come here, pup. It's okay."

It wanted no part of us. It was feral.

Thinking "blog post!", I pulled out my camera.

Fred jerked and the camera's batteries fell to the ground.

As I cursed Fred and loaded the batteries the pup got its footing and disappeared into the brush.

Who said walking the dog is boring?

Fred's First Birthday

We celebrated Fred's birthday the day before Thanksgiving.

The g'kids made him a hat, which he tolerated for the photo op.

Then we lit a candle in his dog food and sang Happy Birthday.

The only thing he enjoyed was the dog food -- a junk food treat rather than his usual dried chow.

Back from the ranch

Just back from the ranch -- the Chimineas Ranch. 

We rode the range and collected cams. 

We did recces and saw new terrain.

Of the 11 new sets, we put two cameras in new habitat -- desert, where Spanish bayonet features prominently.  

We also called in a Great Horned Owl,  and of course Fred had a terrific time.

He retrieved his first elk antler.  

In a prairie it's hard to miss an antler, but we saw it before Fred did. 

When we opened the tailgate though, he jumped down and bee-lined to the branched bone like a good retriever. 

There was none of that catch-me-if-you-can nonsense, either.

And for the first time we saw his border collie genes kick into action, a thrill.

We had just made set 308 on a high windy ridge and were heading back to the truck when we encountered 25 cows on the slope below. 

Clearly they had a mission, and were no doubt heading for night pasture. 

Fred crouched a few moments, then flew done slope like there was no tomorrow. 

In no time he turned the herd around, and circled back to catch up a couple of stragglers.

He sent the old girls and their calves humping to where they came from.  

For four days he sniffed countless scats, some with more interest than others.

But camera trap lures -- a concoction called Fox Butter and month-old mackerel in punctured cans were the most cherished.

He sniffed at them long and deeply, licked air, and dearly wanted a roll with them. 

Chimineas has been good to us. 

I never expected a back log of photos and blogging material, but the wildlife pics just keep rolling in.  

So sit tight. 

Next week we'll return to the guzzlers of Poison Water. 

Fred supports camera trapping

Me: "LET GO!!

Fred: "It's mine. You can't have it."

Codgers are cheap. 

That's why I trained Fred to fetch aluminum cans and plastic bottles. 

A lot of people in this state think recycling means tossing it out the window. 

I redeem them for cash at the recycling center.

A little hunting and gathering can bag enough cans to buy a camera trap part now and then.

Yesterday Fred happened upon a 16 ounce can. 

 It's not just Bud drinkers who trash the woods

I had been eyeing that can across the flume for three weeks, but it wasn't on Fred's normal beat. 

"Fred!  Fetch the can!  CAN . . . FETCH!" 

It was only 6 feet away, but he could only see it with his nose.

He grabbed it, made crunchy can music, and started running. 

Now I had to get him to cross the flume with the can.

"FRED!!! Come Come! Bring the can!

He ran down a bend in the flume, dropped the can at the water's edge, jumped in and swam across. 

This happens with fetch sticks all the time. He thinks there's an endless supply, and I have to find a replacement.

"Where's the can?" I pleaded with palms up. 

"Get the can! Get the can!"

Fred knows that gesture and tone of voice, looked around as if trying to remember, and jumped back in the flume. 

His calculus wasn't good. The current carried him away.

He turned in the current and tried to paddle up an eddy but it was a losing battle. 

He hauled out.

I coaxed him to try two more times with the same result.

So I ran upstream and tried again. 

This time the current carried him right to the can. 

He fetched it and hauled out.  

A little praise, a few stern "let go" commands, and he dropped it. 

A thousand more cans and I can buy parts for a few more camera traps. 

Fred with an average catch

On the way to Chimineas

Fred meets an attractive but unreceptive lady.

There's something to be said for early morning road travel. 

I was showered and with a clear head when we hit the road at 4:30AM.

Fred soon nodded off in the back seat while I listened to BBC's World News. 

I was on my way to the Chimineas Ranch in San Luis Obispo County, where Cal Fish & Game's Craig Fiehler and I had set four camera traps in early June. 

We beat the rush hour traffic in Sacramento and swung onto I5.

That's when Fred climbed into the front seat. 

I decided to let him stay.

When the sun rose we were listening to mariachi music. 

At the rest stop weary travelers were asleep in their cars.

Then it got hot.  

At 11:30 we arrived at Craig's house in Bakersfield, where Fred discovered that there were two black labs.

He was ready to play with the long-legged Macy, but the feeling wasn't mutual.

By the time she had eased up, we had packed the pickup.

It was time to head for the ranch.  

[Stay tuned for more about camera trapping and the Chimineas Ranch in the next few posts.]

Fred trees imaginary bear

You have to wonder what's going on when your dog does the unexpected.

Like circle the tree with nose to ground, bay, and try to climb it. 

I craned my neck to see what it was. 

Nothing.

Or did a bear shimmy up that tree last night?

It makes you wonder about your dog's miraculous nose, and all you are missing out on during a walk in the woods.

A red letter day

Fred crossed the Rubicon. He pees almost exclusively with "the leg-lift". 

I saw the new move months ago, but until this week he peed mainly while squatting.

Now the leg-lift reigns supreme, and a macho version at that. 

Look at how nicely he cocks his foot aiming the stream away from his body. 

Only a two weeks ago he was peeing on his front leg whenever he tried. 

"This is the son we never had", I beamed to the redhead.

"Yes, I'm tired already, and it's time to get his nudicles removed."

The thought of it made me feel faint. 

I mean, castrating our son?

I threw a stick into the flume and Fred did a flying Wallenda into the water.

I'll worry about our son's nudicle-ectomy later.