Isn't Canine Behaviour extraordinary?

I just watched my young bitch making long furrows in the shingle over and over with her nose and thought, mmmm she is about to eat mud!!! So I went out to inspect what she was doing and she gave me a worried look that was on her face and hung her head low, looking at the ground.

I looked about the shingle to see what she was seeing and I was missing, when I spotted a tiny newly hatched dead baby bird that the newly furrowed shingle was about to cover up. She was gently trying to cover it. Not eat it, not play with it. Just cover it. I disposed of it for her and gave her a treat. This together with the tiny baby squirrel she caught last week which she dropped on command is testament to any dogs gentleness. You would think I was talking about my Golden Retriever wouldn't you? But its my Rottweiler who was doing this.

Dogs gentleness is extraordinary and looking at the Rottweiler rescue sites and the cruelty that is inflicted on them by certain types of homo sapiens that own them is sickening to beyond belief, it is of any dog of course, but Rotts hit the press so badly when they can't take anymore.

I often amazed by dogs gentleness as well.  I have a memory from a couple of years ago that I don't think I'll ever forget.  My very high prey driven Dobe and I were at a local park and walking along one of the wide paths we came about 50ft from a fledgling bird, she slowly walked up to, they touched nose to beak and she gently nudged it off the path and then left it be.  It was a very touching moment.

My first Golden who used to chase cats and I once saw kill a rat, went up to the leylandii and there was a baby bird perched at her nose level. She started licking it ever so gently and then just came away without hurting it.

Now this is interesting because I was walking one day with my darling Emma, (Golden) who stood very still without making an inch of movement, clearly something in her mouth. When I appraoched she had the edge of a birds nest in her mouth, perfectly formed, complete with tiny babies in it all with their beaks wide open. She was so worried she would drop them, she never moved. I put them in the top of the tree, (I didnt tell her they wouldnt make it) and she looked so relieved and smiley as we toddled off!! Extraordinary that all of us have had these experiences with baby birds. Thats 3 breeds. Any others I wonder?

Yes, I've seen one of my terriers really worried by a dead fledgling. She was the same, tried to cover it up, and was obviously relieved when I moved it away for her. But I had to teach her not to chase chickens!

Maybe they just don't like the taste of birds :-D  My zoi who will catch and eat rabbits and has tried to eat a hedgehog has caught a few starlings and blackbirds and always spits them out straight away. He can't resist anything that moves but clearly doesn't like the taste of them, or maybe the feel of the feathers.

It seems to me more the protection of the babies, and they cause huge concern to our dogs, otherwise they would ignore them. What do others think?

Certainly wasn't anything to do with not liking the taste of birds - you can tell by the rest of their behaviour that some kind of instinct that has nothing to do with food, takes over.  My girl never had the bird in her mouth just nudged it gently off the path.

A couple of years ago our Golden caught a rabbit after chasing it across a field, when I caught up with her I expected to find it dead but she had it between her front legs nudging it with her nose and licking it!  I told her to leave it and she did and it took off across the field apparently ok.  I've also seen her play with a frog, she appeared to be fascinated by this thing that jumped in front of her.  When it just sat there she gently nudged it with her nose to make it move again, she didn't try and hurt it and when it hopped into the hedge she left it.

I suspect it has something to do with the breed but I'm sure all dogs can be gentle if they want.

Well thats 3 breeds so far, Rottweiler, Dobe and Goldens so I would be fascinated if any others join in. My gentle Golden male ate a rabbit, shocked the hell out of me! My female Rott, doesn't!! its the baby bird / species 'thing' that facscinates me. I wonder who else with what breed may join in.

My Boxer (he is 8 now)  when around 2/3  , he was in the garden...unusually quiet ,  (not like him)  so I went to see what he was up to, there he was laying in the middle of the lawn with a baby fledgling between his front paws.... he was giving it the wash of its life,   it had obviously fallen from a tree, he must have picked it up, and set it down to give it the kiss of life.......

Poor boy , never had the heart to tell him he gave it the kiss of death instead!!!

My boy has never encountered a baby bird up close, but he is very gentle with the odd frog/toad we encounter, he nudges them and then follows them as they hop, he makes no attempt to pick them up, but seems to be quite fascinated by them.

He is also very gentle with our elderly cat, although I have no doubt he would have a go at any other cat in his garden, he very gently kisses our old lad and slowly follows him on a stroll around the flower beds! :-)

He loves horses too and likes it when they bend down and harumph at him :-D

My lab girl caught a baby rabbit, she does like to chase them!! anyway when i ran over dreading to see what she'd done,  she was giving it a good clean and sniff, then the rabbit ran off like the clappers it must have been it's lucky day!! :)

My collie was so gentle.
When my cat gave birth she became distressed when I sent the collie away so HE stayed next to her through out.
One of the kittens was stuck. Eventually she  delivered a massive kitten which was  not breathing. The mother was in a state and delivered two more very quickly which were very weak. I had to deal with mother and two coming. I put the bigger one to one side thinking it was dead. My collie had other ideas, he  stood and licked the kitten for ages, he took care of him. It survived.
All through the kittens weaning etc the collie cleaned those kittens as much as the mum. When the cat went off the kittens snuggled into the dog. We of course had to keep the large one !! He has out lived my collie, they were always together in the house, bed, food bowls,  cuddles mostly shared.
I miss that boy...

Some of mine will kill rodents except rabbits, they will chase rabbits and ducks across the field and corner them but never touch them.

They also display an understanding of other dogs or puppies needs in that when playing with a small dog or a pup they will lay down on their sides and gently pat at the other dog, remember my largest boy at ring craft as a pup laying on his side whilst two tiny young cocker pups climbed all over him, patting at them and nosing with such control you wondered how he could normally be so clumsy. He had at least six of us watching with tears on our faces so moving was it.

My Golden Retriever will catch and kill squirrels but hasn't had a close encounter with a fledgling yet. He will allow two doves to sit in the garden with him but chases off other birds. He will happily ignore chickens and ducks when walking past them but will swim towards ducks if they are on the water. He ignores the seagulls at the beach whatever they are doing.

Perhaps it is all to do with the age of the creatures they come in contact with and the rapidity of their movements.

I remember, a good few years ago, seeing a news video about a little boy who had fallen into a guerilla enclosure at Jersey(?) zoo. A very large gorilla came and kept watch over him and chased off a younger male gorilla who was trying to get near to the boy. It sat guard over the injured boy up until rescue services were able to remove the child from the enclosure. It was wonderful to watch this huge animal displaying such gentleness to an injured youngster of a different species.

Our Golden is just not interested in cats or birds of any type. 

The cats I assume becuase we have one and she knows from experience that cats are 1) boring and don't want to play and 2) have sharp claws. 

The birds she chased for a while when she was younger but now seems to realise that they also are boring and don't want to play because everytime she tried to play with them they flew away.

Although not similar to other stories this did bring a lump to my throat.  About two months after our first min schnauzer came to us, Sally, our largest Guinea pig died.  I put her in a box and left her in the shed (ready for the dignified burial when kids and OH came home).  I needed to go into the shed for something, and Barney followed me in.  He straight away started sniffing at the box (it was on a shelf) and then let out a long whine!  I nearly cried.  He was so good with the pigs, and we made sure they were all comfortable with each other (they played together under strict supervision).  He must have sensed that she was dead.  How amazing is that!

A very sweet story of when my friends cat had kittens. They were about a day old and I was in the bedroom holding snoops collar to let him have a look and say hello and they were in a bottom draw put on the floor, He was pulling- straining at his collar and as they were so small I was worried he would be rough with them or eat them! Once I got him to calm down a bit, I let him sniff each one only 4 kittens, then suddenly we were plunged into darkness as my friends electric had run out! I was worried as my bully was even more keen on getting into the draw on top of mum and kittens! after a minute the lights were back on and my snoop became very distressed charging about the bedroom this was because the mum-cat had taken a kitten under the bed- even though he had just smelled the 4 babies about 3 minutes before- he knew one was missing from the group, when we got it back we showed him the lost one, he gave it a little lick and was happy & calm. We kept one of those kittens she is 5 now and he thinks he is her Dad! 

What extraordinary stories of gentleness. How heartwarming, please keep them coming...

Mine seem to adjust their play to suit the dog being played with, if an equal it is 'all hell let loose' but with a pup or an oldie they are so gentle they are like different dogs. And although they will chase things in the field they never harm them controlling the pace so as not to over run whatever is being chassed, if as in the case of rabbits and sometimes ducks the prey freezes they too stop and wait for one of us to pop the trapped creature over the fence.

Another instance with my snoop was when I had a bitch Cleo to mate with him, she came to stay at mine for a few days to see if they would breed- On the first night, I had the back kitchen door open letting them run about- snoop was very excited to say the least having this ripe female staying over. When he came rushing into the lounge to me and was really looking at me- I was like whats the matter, as he had not taken any notice of me since she came over! and he was like doing a lassie saying mum come here- so I walked outside and it was pitch dark but noticed Cleo was looking very into something on the floor and making odd noises- I pulled her away and put her in and got a torch and it turned out to be a poor hedgehog it had fallen off my high wall from the woods next to my house ! I would never have thought a hedgehog interrupting 2 bull terriers breeding would of lived to of told the tale!

Looks like Tigger and I have the killers. My golden would happily eat anything. I found him with a freshly dead pigeon at 16 weeks. It was nicely plucked but he hadn't broken the skin. He almost ran down another pigeon soon after but I called him off. He almost had venison for breakfast when he was chasing a baby deer but I called him off that. He has caught a rabbit, a myxi bunny. Being a retriever he didn't quite get in with the kill and tear right away. I'm sure left with the body long enough he would have had some rabbit. He's eaten a lot of rabbit in the fields that was already dead and the package was already opened. He has eaten blue tit and appeared to like it just fine. It was one he caught. He had it penned in the shed earlier when I brought him in. I went out and the bird appeared to have flown away so let him back out. I looked out the upstairs window just in time to see the last bit go down his gullet.

I don't know what he'd do with a baby bird but I have my suspicions it wouldn't include nuzzling.

My Staffy x Lurcher licked my female parrot on the beak when she landed beside her. V. cute!

I havent any experiences about fledgelings or anything. Its just that, do you know when something makes you laugh and you cant stop laughing? It was you HairyLoon. When you said "horses bend down and harumph at him. Oh sorry, that is so funny!! Harumph, what a wonderful word!!! Sorry!! Will settle down now!!

My golden was lying in the garden late last night with her back to me. Usually one call brings her running, but after calling her three times I went to see what the problem was. She had a huge moth sat on her front paw, and as I got to her she looked at me then back to the moth. No amount of coaxing would get her up, so I swished the moth off onto the lawn and she happily stood up, only to go and lie down ever so carefully with the moth between her front paws. Again she wouldn't budge, just lay there wagging her tail peering down at the moth. The only way I got her in was to slip a lead on her, once inside she sat by the door with soppy eyes pleading to be let out to rejoin the moth. I wouldn't care but I hate fluttery things.

In reply to annieg - I'm glad it made you chuckle - I saw the word harumph in a story book once about horses, and I though it perfectly describes the noise they make, 'snort' just isn't the same :-D

Claire

Unfortunately i wasnt there but a few weeks ago my mum panicked because Fred was layed in the sitting room on his back with his legs in the air but with his head raised (kinda like when you do a sit up) she ran in wondering why he was like it-being melodramatic my mum said it looked like he was frozen having a seizure or fit........turns out he had a butterfly on his nose and didnt know what to do and was too scared to move so he was just layed there going cross eyed looking at it! :-) :-) :-)

That is  a fantastic tale... How lovely.

> Looks like Tigger and I have the killers.

I have a killer too :-)  The couple of occasions that she has managed to get hold of a fledgeling I'm afraid it has met a speedy, sticky end before I could get the chance to stop it. 
She is not a savage beast, she is as gentle as you like with her own species especially puppies but she is a dog.  Similarly, my chums Newfoundland I am sure would risk the rapids to rescue a human from drowning but I have seen him, on more than one occasion, motor through the water scooping up ducklings with the ease of some gruesome basking shark browsing plankton while my chum flaps her arms futilely on the bank.  We don't let him swim neer families feeding the ducklings just in case.
I have to say, if I caught my dog digging a trough for a dead bird and attempting to bury it my first thought would not be that she had adopted the burial rituals of the Western world but, rather, it would put me in mind of what she does with every bone she has ever been given, which is bury it now to savour it later :-).  Perhaps I had misinterpreted that.  Was she, infact, mourning the death of the cow? ;-)

My Beardie girls surprised me with a fledgling one day.  I heard a whistling chirping noise which I thought was the old computer - prone to mimicking bumble bees and flies so a chirrup wasn't out of the question, but then I realised the sound was as rhythmic as the computer tended to be.  Looking around for the source I spotted some wet tail feathers sticking out of my girls mouth and the noise continued.  She wasn't applying any pressure but gently holding a tiny very wet fledgling. It was a warm day, I took it from her and put it back outside in the hope that mum would return. 

My Mini's play tiddley winks with frogs  (hee hee)

When a hummingbird hit our window and fell to the ground our ESS ran over and got it.  Now she was a trained gundog so should have had a soft mouth with birds, but a tiny fragile hummingbird.  I was sure the wee thing would perish but she brought it to me, I held it out in my palm while it got it's breath back and then it flew away.

> Well thats 3 breeds so far, Rottweiler, Dobe and Goldens so I would be fascinated if any others join in.

One of my terriers came into the front room with her mouth not completely closed.  I asked her what she had got. Gently placing her chin on the floor, she opened her mouth, and a baby frog jumped out and started hopping round the room.  She couldn't stop wagging her tail, and her mouth was open, tongue hanging out, grinning all over her face. 

Yet my Toy Poodle killed a rat - it screamed, it was horrible.

i havent had any experiences of these sort of things but when we had bailey a tiny little 7 week old puppy we put her next to kacey who was lying on her side bailey scooted over to kacey and started to suckle off her making such loud weird noises lol kacey just lay there and let her get on with it tail wagging and lickin baileys head i was like awwwwwwww