The dog intently watches his owner’s hand signal. Then, nose to the ground, it seeks its prey until, suddenly with an explosion of feathers, a ruffed grouse flushes into the air.
This is a common autumn scenario played out by hunting dogs, labs, setters, etc. and does not ordinarily include pugs. But tell that to Mr. Magoo, my pug. Hunting skills were not one of the traits for which his breed was developed over the past thousand-some years (yes—pugs are an ancient Chinese breed and don’t laugh) but a few vestiges of hunting skills have surfaced in him.
Mr. Magoo loves to hunt. And he’s pretty good. Well… nobody really expects a dog to catch red squirrels, do they? Even Goldie the lab never caught a squirrel. But Mr. Magoo shows the heart of a true hunter. He stalks and chases these red rodents with the intent and purpose of a lion pursuing a wildebeest.
Eyes honed in, muzzle (or what there is of a muzzle) high in the air, every fiber of his body alert, Mr. Magoo gives it his all, and when the red squirrel stops just high enough up the tree trunk to scold in loud trilling screeches, he doesn’t take it personally, but just stays on task.
While he’s never caught a squirrel, he’s come very close to nailing a chipmunk. It’s a known fact that chipmunks are cute but not very bright and one especially dull-witted one took up residence in this summer’s flower garden. I’ll leave out the sordid details but he did a real number on my tulip and daffodil bulbs, not to mention his chowing down of the nasturtiums. This chipmunk had to be the runt of the litter and possessed the intellect of a box of rocks. It’s only through my good graces that he’s alive.
Too many times to count, he leaped out of nowhere, so intent on his task of ruining my flowers, he did not pay attention to his surroundings. At one point, I actually had to aim my garden hose at him as he meandered out from under the woodpile. Otherwise Mr. Magoo would have wrapped his teeth around the little guy’s scrawny neck.
I’m not sure why I didn’t let Magoo have at him, what with all the damage he caused, but he was so little and so befuddled, I didn’t have the heart to do him in.
However, all this is immaterial in the light of Mr. Magoo’s true hunting passion—horseflies. Although he also tries for hornets and wasps, luckily he’s never succeeded. However, he throws his entire being into excelling at hunting horseflies. These large buzzing insects love to land on their victim’s head and bore in. Mr. Magoo hates and pursues them with a vengeance.
At the mere hint of an obnoxious horsefly and its bzzz bzzz bzzzing, he freezes, and moving only his big bulgy eyes, patiently sits still as a statue. Without a single twitch, he lures the fly in and, when the time is right, viciously snaps it out of the air as it unwittingly closes in on what it considered its victim. Then, with great gusto and a rather unpleasant popping sound, he eats it.
I worried when he first began eating these large flies. Wouldn’t he get sick? The flies seem so…so well…icky, but after his first conquest (and apparent feast) he showed no stomach discomfort, not even a burp. He simply settled back and waited for another unlucky horsefly to circle his head.
Okay. So this isn’t exactly the scene portrayed in Ducks Unlimited portraits, but my dog gets the job done and demonstrates some truly remarkable hunting skills. It’s not easy to catch flying insects without a weapon other than a tongue.
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