Dog Love

 We finally got a touch of frost this morning, so I'll harvest the winter squash and bring it in the garage. You would be surprised at how much of it there is. The beauty of it is that there's no processing, it stores into the spring exactly as it is.

We have dog love fests early in the morning. I'll sit in a chair with a cup of coffee and the tv news on, surrounded by three big dogs. It's a tribute to Halo that he welcomes other dogs into the house. He genuinely likes the other two dogs. I think it's connected to his herding instincts. He absolutely is guarding and leading us when we do the off leash morning walk in coyote country.

Jackrabbits

 We encountered a big jackrabbit this morning. Actually, they are not really rabbits, but  big and very quick hares. My dogs have always preferred jackrabbits over any other game. I saw it first, and told Halo, so he got a head start after it. Jack soon caught on and passed Halo, running like a greyhound. The rabbit ran over open ground and gave both dogs a good long chase. Both dogs came back when the rabbit lost them.

Dogs rarely can catch a jackrabbit, and the leopard dog that sometimes walks with us knows not to even bother chasing after them. A dog that I had as a kid caught one by cornering it on the bay shore. When the rabbit jumped in the water, the dog dove in after and  grabbed the rabbit. He was so proud, after years of trying, to have finally caught one.

I looked it up, and the sport is called hare coursing, and it's legal in the western United States.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare_coursing