May 29th, 2006
sabrina hits paydirt
In the past, I’ve mentioned how Sabrina often finds things to show me – snakes, frogs, toads, some insects. On Saturday, she really hit paydirt. While hiking through a ravine, I stopped to shoot a couple of photos of Don and Sabrina as they walked downhill ahead of me. Sabrina was lagging behind a little in the first shot, then further in the second shot. In the third shot which I’ve posted above, you can see that she has turned around and is looking at something in the leaf mulch. A couple of seconds after I took this shot, she looked up at me and then back at the ground, then back at me. I’ve seen her do this often enough that I know when she’s letting me know that she’s found “something of significance” that I should come and look at.
Sure enough, Sabrina did find something of interest — a veritable goldmine of whopping big Narceus annularis millipedes – see below. I pushed the leaf mulch back some more after I took this shot, and there were at least a couple of dozen millipedes in an area about a meter square. That’s probably about the most I’ve ever found under mulch on a patch of earth of that size. What a dog!
Tags: Narceus annularis, millipedes
May 29th, 2006 at 4:01 pm
What a good dog! Dogs are incredibly intelligent, and articulate.
May 29th, 2006 at 4:07 pm
Sabrina is such a good girl! Nice to have a companion who is as much into the millipedes as you are. Looks like it was a really nice day for a walk.
May 29th, 2006 at 4:40 pm
DivaJood – Yes, dogs really are so intelligent. Our Collies have always been so attentive to everything that we do, so I suppose it’s no great surprise that Sabrina should be so interested in finding the things we like to look at.
RA – Yes, she’s a great girl. This weekend, I even noticed that she was paying attention to the dragonflies while we were walking along the trails. She also sometimes points out butterflies. It’s really quite fun to see what she comes up with sometimes. And yes, we had a couple of very nice days for walking. We had hoped to get out with the canoe, but didn’t. Perhaps next weekend.
May 30th, 2006 at 1:13 am
I thought you were going to say she found a truffle!
May 30th, 2006 at 1:40 am
Duncan — lol! I’d rather find a millipede than a truffle — which probably gives you some idea of where my mind is at. (-:
May 30th, 2006 at 1:10 pm
Good girl! I love the photo of that ravine. I love the angles and the light. I wish I were there!
May 30th, 2006 at 1:27 pm
pablo – it gets even better! There’s a beautiful rock outcrop that runs along the top of the ravine just out of the left side of that photo. Here’s a section of it (click on the image to see a larger view).
November 10th, 2006 at 3:22 pm
[…] That said, Sabrina can’t really mind the photography too much. She frequently finds and points out the kind of thing that I would like to photograph — a butterfly, a snake, or even some millipedes. When she has located something of interest, she stands next to it, glancing from it to me a couple of times to let me know there’s something I need to look at. I suppose there are other possible explanations for this behaviour, but I suspect she’s doing her version of “pointing” like a hunting dog. A couple of years ago, she found a young Common Snipe (see below – click on image for larger view) while we were out for a spring walk. She stood quietly next to it, looking from me to the ground a few times as I walked up the trail to see what she’d found. At first, I couldn’t see what she was looking at — so well camouflaged was the snipe — but then I realized that the bird was crouched just inches away. I shot a quick photo and we departed. Oddly enough, Sabrina checks that exact spot almost every time we pass along that path. […]