Maggie is extremely obedient, smart, determined, agile, and she eliminates vermin with a vengeance. I swear she has the biggest canine teeth of our dogs, and she is not a big dog. More than that, she knows how to use them. She is the ruling bitch in the house, because she has the weapons and the moxie to use them. Because she is smart, she has never to my knowledge actually had to use them. She speaks softly and carries big teeth!
She will go after pack rats (for you city folk out there, these are the hoarders of the animal world, and they are real animals, large rats that like to chew on automobile wiring harnesses among other indigestible things, and that collect things from small tools to trash and carry them to their huge nest mounds. Their nests are made of sticks, grass, bark and other materials and they can be 3 feet (1 meter) or more high mounds of stuff, with the stolen booty buried deep inside. We have found screwdrivers, box cutters and children's toys inside a nest, along with plastic bottles and insulated wires. Most nests are off the ground in the fork of a tree, but some are simply on the ground in a bush or corner of a seldom used shed. We have had pack rats in the barns, chicken coop and windbreaks. They are pretty rats, white bellies, large eyes, but very destructive.), opossums, raccoons, regular rodents like mice, rats, voles, moles, shrews and gophers, squirrels, rabbits (they are not rodents, of course), muskrats, the occasional birds (from sparrow to pheasant,as well as an owl once), reptiles (snakes and turtles are her favorites, but she will chase a skink now and then) and as of yesterday, even a woodchuck.
Woodchucks are not too common here in Kansas, but she found one in our shed, buried under a cabinet, and Maggie will not give up, when the hunt is on.
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| Poor dead chuck |
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| Maggie with her prize |
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| Oh she is so PROUD |
The other dogs have long learned their lesson - don't even try. They seem to know exactly where the safe distance is.
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