March 8, 2011 Mika catches and kills a squirrel

All the dogs are interested in the squirrels that come into our yard and climb on the fence, into the trees or scamper along the ground.  Given a chance to get close enough they will chase them, but are hardly ever successful.   Several years ago when we first adopted Shasta she caught a young one and ate it immediately.  She was also good at digging for mice and moles and would sometimes catch one.  With Shasta, it was almost impossible to get something of her mouth if she wanted to keep it.  Mika seems to be the same.

Today I noticed Mika starting to dig into a pile of leaves pretty aggressively and she came out with a struggling full grown squirrel that was still alive.  However, she crunched down on it a few times and it died.  Later we noticed that Mika had a bloody 1/4 inch slice on her chin that must have been caused by the squirrel biting her.

Katy believes these squirrels might have some diseases harmful to the dogs and immediately wanted me to get the squirrel away from Mika.  She trotted around the yard with it and would not let me come close for awhile.   She started to chew on it pretty aggressively but I was finally able to hold her collar up tight and get it out of her mouth.

Several times on dog walks Mika has discovered a road killed squirrel and wants to eat it even if it is pretty old.  It is always a struggle to get these out of her mouth.  Luckily she does not growl or try to bite.  Shasta did growl and show her teeth in similar circumstances, but she never tried to bite either.  We called her "Nasty Shasta" because of her penchant for surprising and scary growling when people touched her with their feet or tried to take something away.  Mika does not have this same behavior.  She just grabs on and holds tight and pulls if I try to take something away and she is very strong.