Clever drake, stupid dog

[sandgrubber]

Yoli (2 yr ESS) has been getting pretty good at recall under distraction.  That was until we went to the Awatere River and encountered a drake doing the wounded bird act to draw her away from the nest.  He practically dive bombed her flying low, landed in the shallows, then headed for the swift and deep. She almost caught up and he did a one wing flapping thing that drove her crazy.  Before I knew it they were out of sight... I'd guess around a km.  Then he flew perfectly normal, back upstream, she chasing behind.  This repeated with variations five or six times. 

The current is very strong.  I ueventually got worried that he would get her so tired and worked up that she'd be in danger of drowning, and was able to catch her and put her on leash. 

She's sleeping soundly. 

[sandgrubber]

1 hour ago, Snook said:

You didn't try to catch her sooner? It must have been very stressful for the bird to be chased for so long. 

The bird was leading the chase.  Floating down and flying back up a river isn't much stress for a bird (Paradise duck... very common around here). They can fly a hundred km a day. And no, I had no hope of catching her; she was not listening at all. No way to catch her until she was pretty tired.  

[asal]

pretty stressful for you, our nsw rivers have bull sharks in them, they love dog for dinner. humans too. one took my mums cousin in a supposedly shark proof pool near the bridge over the Georges river near Bankstown airport.

 

turned out there was a hole in the net 

Edited October 10, 2020 by asal