Tag-Team Vole Wars

Watching Cala the Doberman and Zipper the Min Pin is always amusing. They're sort of Mutt and Jeff. Cala is black and sleek, tough, impatient, and very driven. She's the one you hear screaming and yodeling at the building while we train. Zipper is my first little dog. He's a bossy little burnished copper dynamo.

Saturday I took Cala, Zipper, and Viva, the matriarch, to a local farm where they can run. And hunt voles.

Before I got Zipper, we never hunted voles. We just ran. But Zipper, aspiring earthdog, loves to find and hunt vole burrows. And there are hundreds and hundreds of them. Once Cala realized there was something alive down there she was all about that. So they've worked out a deal.

Zipper finds a hot burrow and starts to dig, but his little feet aren't very powerful. So he calls Cala over, and she begins the major excavations (generally accompanied by screaming and ripping big chunks of dirt out with her teeth). As soon as she's got some depth, the 10# dog tells the 65# dog to get the hell out of his way, and he upends himself in the hole, feet waving, trying to get the prey. Said prey has usually had plenty of time to go lower during all the screaming and barking and digging. So they don't actually score that often. But it sure is entertaining to watch.

--Robin