Projects: Sage

With spring warming the air and the soil, ground squirrels are emerging from their burrows and making their way from the blackberry brambles outside the fence into the pasture and toward the garden.  They typically have a dozens of burrows in the pasture by late spring and by summer they have invaded the entire property.

Fortunately, Sage is on patrol.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love tree squirrels; those grey bushy tailed acrobats who scurry and jump between the pines and the oaks.  It’s the ground squirrels who dig holes that the horses might trip (and break a leg in) and raid my garden that drive me nuts.  I don’t mind sharing my fruit and vegetables, but every year they take every stinking apple, plum, and tomato.

Last fall, Sage caught a squirrel and Kersey taught her how to kill it.  Since then, squirrels have become her passion.  About a week ago, she started catching them again. She catches them and then carries them around for hours, like a dead plush toy.  She doesn’t eat them.  We eventually are able to distract her with dinner — or she chases after another one, leaving the current “toy” behind — and we dispose of the slobber covered thing.

When Brett added wire to the pasture fence, he purposefully left access points for the dogs.

So far, I haven’t seen any squirrels in my garden.  Not one.  There is a rat that lives behind my tool shed and last year it dropped from the garage rain gutter and landed at my feet.  Talk about a Willard moment.  Sage and Kersey spent a couple days digging up the area under the work bench, next to the shed, trying to get the rat.  They made a huge mess.  I praised them.

Here is a video view of the pasture where Sage hunts the squirrels.  You can see her down at the fence line, sniffing around for varmits.   And the horses are way down toward the far end, eating dinner.  Sage tries to herd them to their feeder for dinner which is a joke.  The horses are always at the feeder at dinner time.

And, they herd her right back, more often than not (especially Lucy).  She’s better off sticking with  squirrels.