Nine Pound Lion Heart

I am starting to work the Calhoun Pup with squirrel tails on a fishing pole. The idea is to get him excited and barking. He is very interested, but only a couple of barks. Setting up contrived situations in training can work, but it can also be overdone, creating a bored dog, or a dog that trees without game up the tree.

Once in a while though, I can't resist watching my beloved little female Rat Terrier work a tail. Lizzie weighs nine pounds soaking wet. She was the runt of the litter, but don't tell her that.  Inside that little body is the heart of a lion.

She lives to kill barn rats, tree squirrels, and run rabbits. I can't take her along to do any night time chores. She inevitably will start running nocturnal rabbits and I end up chasing her halfway to the back of the farm at bedtime. She lives to hunt. 

Her boldness worries me for her sake, as much as me being annoyed at finding her. When I was a little agrarian kid, we always had a pack of these little terriers around. The largest game in our area were foxes. In the late 70's  coyotes came in, and they routinely prey upon small dogs.  Coyote predation on pets seems even worse in more suburban areas. I should not hunt the little dogs these days, but as my wife says, "Would you rather live life to the fullest and get eaten by a coyote; or be a stodgy bored house dog?"