An Introduction on How to Not Chase Squirrels

It's been a busy little week (as always, I suppose!). Between Missy slowly getting back to health and having one of hubby's cousins stopping over for a few days, there hasn't been much in the way of free time for exploring.

Cousin lives in Cambridge, and was visiting the in laws last week, so used us as a stopover to break the journey back down. Apart from a random visit 3 years ago, hubby hadn't really had a chance to hang out with his cousin since our wedding, so we were more than happy to put him and his girlfriend up. 

Unfortunately owing to hosting duties, hubby wasn't able to join Missy and I as we went to continue her education and attended a Prey Drive Seminar (or, as I preferred to call it, an Introduction in How to Not Chase Squirrels). This was meant to have been held almost 2 years ago prior to lockdown, and has been rescheduled twice in the meantime, so it was aobg anticipated event. To be honest, I had thought of cancelling our space as Missy had calmed down a lot recently.

Then she injured herself two weeks ago in a poorly executed murder spree. 

To be fair, I had thought she had calmed down a lot. Then after her injury, I did the maths and realised that, including small rodents like mice, Missy was close to an average of a kill a month. More so really since her paws were sorted out with her new meds. (I feel so guilty that it was such an easy fix in the end, those paws, it just took too long for the right vet to join the dots up on her allergies.) 

Nonetheless. I sat her down and explained that she needed to listen and try the exercises. On a serious note, it was very informative and very interesting. I won't go into too much detail but we concluded that for Missy, the reward of hunting was the catching part. We discussed ways to fulfil that reward that didn't result in the demise of small animals, and behaviours to practice to avoid her getting into the position where she could hunt. Being sneaky, opportunistic and very, very, clever, we have our work cut out, but it's nice to have some new tools to try rather than clumsily shouting and grabbing at her.

That's really us for the week. It was a long day for Missy, and we are still being mindful of that paw, so tomorrows plans of visiting friends to exchange birthday gifts will be about it for her (on top of normal walks, of course!)

I did squeeze in a Halloween photo shoot, but I'll save those for next week!