This Guy!

This is Maverick. He belongs to one of the girls that come regularly to the horse establishment that is now at Oakfields Farm. She presumably has her horse there and is there frequently to ride it. Maverick is a German Shorthaired Retriever and is a complete nutjob. He has an incredible amount of energy, and he greets us - when he sees us walking by - at a dead run. Then he goes from between us jumping up and celebrating wildly. After that he has twice now dashed into the woods and come out a few moments later with something dark in his mouth. The second time was this morning, and the something is a woodland box turtle, so the next thing I have to do is get it away from him and then The Husband has to distract him until I can return the turtle to the woods. Fortunately, several conditions exist:

1. He responds appropriately to "drop it."
2. If you get a stick and throw it for him, he is delighted and brings it back for you to do it again, and again, and again.
3. Also, it turns out, he knows what "no more" means!

So today The Husband played fetch with him, while I took the turtle into the woods, and then we went down the road with him for a while, continuing to play catch. Finally after we told him "no more" he ran back to the stables! Brilliant.

I do rather wonder how he finds a turtle that fast. Very weird. He hasn't hurt either one of them, but I wonder if that is always the case if no one gets it away from him quickly. Also, I wonder if his person knows that a turtle has a relatively small territory (about one square mile) that it needs to be returned to.

Well anyway - he's a fun dog, and we're doing what we can to keep the turtles safe.