Daisy
This is Daisy, the pup that went to MO. I took this picture about a month ago, when she was 7 months old. This is the pup that held two hunters and their dogs on the ridge until her owners got there.
Is she the only dog her owners have? I'm very interested to hear more details about her holding those hunters- were they trespassing? I've noticed that Dovey is more cautious (stand-off-ish) with strangers than Beau.
Yes, the hunters were trespassing. They had unintentionally crossed the property line onto posted land in the dark. This happened about 1 am, if I understand the story correctly. The owner heard the hunters yelling for him from the hillside in the middle of the night and it woke him up. He got and up and got dressed and hiked up the hill where he found Daisy circling the hunters and their dogs. Daisy was six months old at the time. It was lucky that the hunters knew the family and realized they were at fault so they didn't use their guns on her. Daisy acted alone, even though the family also has a male ES pup. The ES had a very traumatic experience as a young puppy, and he is coming out of it, but still cautious about going too far from the house. It was probably his barking next to the house that alerted the owners to what was going on up on the ridge.
Ellen takes a little while to warm up to strangers too. Funny, because
neither Jacob nor Jenny is that way. Daisy didn't seem to have much of a
problem with that. She came right up to us. I had a hard time getting the
pictures because she wanted to come up to me whenever she saw me heading in
her direction.
November 1, 2000
I talked to Daisy's owner on the phone today. They are planning a litter this spring (likely born in Feb.). I encouraged them to register both Daisy and Guess (the pup they got from Jennifer). Guess has gotten over his puppyhood trauma and is tough enough that he is repeatedly taking on their male Pyr, even though the Pyr is chewing him up every time. I told them that neutering the Pyr might help, although the aggressor is Guess not the Pyr. He says that Guess is definitely more aggressive than Daisy (not surprising--he's a Dolly son and also a male), but he does pretty well at everything but catching chickens. He doesn't have a soft mouth like Daisy I suppose.
Incidentally, I got a slightly different version of the story about Daisy
and the hunters. The person who told me the story last year apparently had
a few facts messed up. As it turns out, Daisy only held the hunters for a
short while (not 45 minutes to an hour as I was first told). The owner
heard the hunters yelling for him from the hillside in the middle of the
night and it woke him up. He got and up and got dressed and hiked up the
hill where he found Daisy circling the hunters and their dogs. Who knows
how long this sequence took, but it probably wasn't longer than 15-20
minutes at the most. It is still an impressive story, but we might want to
change it on the website to reflect the way it really happened.