Menace of the Sky



Now, for the most part, Chili doesn’t really bother much with the birds. Now and again, she might make a half-hearted attempt at catching one when it lands but not really. Either she’s already in a playful mood and it’s landed in her zone, or it just happens to land close to her when she’s lying down and after watching it for a minute she makes a mock charge. She lies under the hummingbird feeder while the hummingbirds hover over her feeding and she completely ignores them. Ahhh birds, nothing to get in a fuss about. Or is there?

There is one menace of the sky that stirs up the beast inside. She knows its cry, and recognizes it immediately. Its presence calls for a full on ‘battle station’ alert. If only she could convince us to let her out, if only she could catch one and teach it a lesson, but for some reason, mom and dad won’t cooperate. No matter how much she protests, growls and begs for us to open the door, we keep getting in her way. What is this black demon that torments her so? It’s a crow, of course.

You might think it has something to do with the size of the crow, but it doesn’t. We get quite a few Pileated Woodpeckers in the yard that feed on the suet and although Chili watches them, she doesn’t get crazy over them. You can say her name and she’ll turn around and look at you which tells me she hasn’t gone into that dark place in her brain. She recognizes that the woodpecker isn’t a crow, even though they are about the same size, and acts accordingly.

So what made her crow crazy? As with most things, it was likely us. Not that we don’t like crows, but we don’t like the crows on our suet feeder, they eat the whole thing. Three of them usually arrive and take turns pulling chunks of suet out of the feeder. With them around, a suet that should last at least a week, only lasts about 2 days. So, when we see them there, we want them off. Chili sees our reaction and reacts accordingly. Now that we’ve created this crow-hating monster, we need to uncreate it. Unfortunately, as you may have noticed, it’s much easier to create the monster than it is to get rid of it.

The only thing I can say here is, “Boy are we dummies”. We know better than this. You know why she doesn’t mind most of the birds, we don’t react to them negatively. With the Pileated Woodpecker, she was interested in the beginning but it was what I did that changed things. A few times Chili and I have been in the yard when a Pileated has flown over. Typically this is their scope out fly over. Since I love watching them up close, I picked a good spot close to the suet, then put Chili in a down and spoke to her calmly. Finally, when the Pileated would arrive at the suet, I wouldn’t let Chili get into that dark place. I would keep her in a down and sit beside her while we calmly watched the woodpecker. Each time, it’s gotten better and better. Now, when she’s in the house and sees one at the suet, she just sits and watches, as opposed to the crazy show that happens when she sees the crows.

I guess we’re destined to keep learning the same lessons over and over again. It’s not that we actually forget, it’s just that we’re going about our daily lives. Simply doing what we do. Chili, along with us, is doing what she does. Just trying to be a productive part of the household and help out Mom and Dad when we need it. She tries hard, she wants to make us happy, and that’s something we must remember. Now it’s going to be a win for the crows as we turn Chili from being a crow hater to a crow ‘who-careser’. (Yes I know that’s not a word and I don’t cares-er)