Finn, the mighty hunter

When you read the literature about Irish Wolfhounds, they warn they are a hunter breed. They can consider any smaller animals as prey, including smaller dogs and cats. It's part of their heritage, and what they were bred for.

Finn never seemed to have gotten any of those instincts. He hasn't chased a squirrel, rabbit, anything in our back yard except for once a deer, and us. He will run up and down the fence a bit with his next door neighbor, the greyhound. The greyhound's instincts are intact, he goes after anything that comes in his yard, usually chasing them into ours.

Since I have vegetables planted, as well as a mature strawberry bed, I want those critters kept out! Squirrels especially have done damage, eating bulbs and digging up new plants. This past winter deer ate an entire bush, so we have been hoping Finn would start keeping all these animals out of the yard.

Yeah, not so much. Until tonight though. Tonight we walked out in the back yard, and there was a groundhog munching away. Finn spotted it, and froze into a point. When he took a step, I encouraged him by saying 'Get it Finn, Get it!' and running with him. Finn took off, and chased the groundhog, but didn't get close. He had a blast though, and spent some time sniffing and searching exactly where it had gone.

We came out about an hour later, and now there were TWO groundhogs, in the same place as before. I shouted "Get it Finn!" and he was off! He can really move when he wants to. He had one groundhog in about 10 seconds, and it stood up to fight back. Finn paused (I don't think he expected to actually catch it!) and the groundhog took off again and got away under the fence.

Finn was pumped and did laps around the yard for a while. The rest of the evening he kept checking the back yard, hoping they had come back, but they finally got sensible and went off to eat in safer yards.

Now, if he would only go after the squirrels!