Polly

[den]

I have discovered why Polly has been digging tiny hols all over the lawn. At first I thought she was being a BADDOG and kept sending her to the kennel, but watching her after the rain I discovered why she dug the holes.

Crickets.

She's after crickets! Red and Blue cattledogs (and red-and-blue cattledogs) have a lot of dingo in their ancestry. Dingoes are carnivores who also eat insects and berries, very much like a fox does.

I watched Polly stalk around the yard, staring at the ground with her ears cocked, then she'd freeze, sit back slowly, and POUNCE the cricket. Both front feet would smack the ground and she'd dig like mad, then shove her nose in the hole. I don't know if she's eating the crickets but the instinct is there.

Comments

Crunchy Crickets

[weyrdbird.livejournal.com]

Wow! Cool!

The things we learn from observation.Polly probably is getting one every few tries. Coyotes here do the same thing with mice and small rodents. Supplemental crunchy protien snacks.
The things us silly humans overlook:).

Re: Crunchy Crickets

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

I just wish she'd stop digging bloody holes in my yard.

[hedgegoth.livejournal.com]

Mebbe get a cricket dispenser for her? :)

[http://users.livejournal.com/crossfire_/]

At first I thought she was being a BADDOG...

...and of course you were mistaken. Polly is far to cute to be a BADDOG.

Interesting how she goes after her crickets, since that's also exactly how polar bears catch seals in the ice.

[makovette.livejournal.com]

Polly is more than welcome to live here in Las Vegas with us. We're swamped with a plauge of crickets, only the winter frost knocks the buggers down to semi reasonable numbers. We can us all the help we can get :)

CYa!
Mako

[tygermoonfoxx.livejournal.com]

Any clues on why an eskie would be digging?

*sighs* My new guy seems bent on tunnelling a hole to China. He's an off white and the dirt is black...and the carpet is pale rose...you can see where this is going.

[dragonpearl.livejournal.com]

My dog Nessie used to do that with worms. She would dig a hole, put her ear to it and then shove her nose into it snapping up a nightcrawler. Yuck. We think she did that cause she lived in the wild for so long before we got her.

She was put to sleep a few years ago before my parents moved. She had gotten what we call the Tidewater Crud, a very nasty mange, and was too old to travel.

[odiedragon.livejournal.com]

After your most recent Polly post, I went digging in your hournal to find out just what kind of dog Polly is. We think our dog is part blue healer/Australian Cattle Dog/whatever, so I'm always curious to find out about "similar" dogs. And given the chance he LOVES to dig too, though I've never seen him actually find anything.

He's some combination of cattledog, Australian shepherd (which arn't Australian at all, sadly), and/or border collie.

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

I've always wondered abd "Australian Shepherds." I've asked people about the breed and I get a WTF look.

Your doggie would pass as a cattledog if he wasn't so fluffy.

[odiedragon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think so too. That's where the shepherd/border collie part comes in, I think.

They were developed from dogs brought over from Australia I believe, and mixed with other breeds by western US ranchers.

http://www.herdingontheweb.com/shepherd.htm