This afternoon I took my dog for a walk in the mountains and he happened upon a garter snake(this was my dogs first snake encounter)I didn't see the snake first, which doesn't suprise me(lol).. Well as he naively got his nose closer to check her out, she(snake) either reared her tail or hissed or both. Next thing I know my dog looks like he levitated on all fours and was a foot off the groud(okay maybe I'm excagerrating a bit). Even so I am sure my dog would have given david blaine a run for his money!!! I would love to hear stories about others and there encounters with animals other than dogs. P.S when ever my dog sees horses he's absolutely fascinated and looks at them as if he is thinking .. "and I thought I was the noblest creature on earth!!"

Ahaha!

My Springer has mercilessly killed three garter snakes. I feel bad -- I liked the little suckers. They used to live right by my side door in some bushes. To this day, if you say "Tessie, snakie snake!" she'll run outside and snuffle around in the bushes. She's a terror.

The best story was when I took her to a local pond for some swimming. She had never swum in a pond before, just in pools, so this was new for her. I had her on a 6-foot leash (holding it way up over her head so it wouldn't get tangled) and she was splashing around in the water. I could tell she didn't have enough room to really swim without her paws hitting the ground (I was trying not to get -too- wet) so I called over my mother to bring me my thirty-foot leash to clip to the handle of the 6-foot leash. I clip it in there and proceed to untangle the rest of the leash, slowly 'letting her out'. She was probably only 10' away from me when a Canada Goose lands a few yards in front of her. Somehow or other I managed to lose the leash and she managed to get far enough away from me that I couldn't grab the end. (This was a traumatic experience! )

Let's fast forward to twenty minutes later. The god-damn goose WILL NOT fly away and is satisfied honking its head off, swimming about three feet in front of my very persistant Springer. (Keep in mind this dog has NEVER been in a pond before and has not been swimming in over a year...) My mother stayed where she was on the beach and kept calling her name, I start trying to run to the other side of the pond, informing hikers and people fishing to try to call her over if she comes close. At this point, the goose was leading Tessie to the other side of the pond, away from my mother. After about thirty minutes total chasing this freaking goose, she finally turns her head towards my mother and starts swimming back. (Meanwhile, her desperately-trying-to-prepare-for-agility-season, mildly-out-of-shape owner has just run about a half-mile towards the other side of the pond and now must run a half-mile back!)

She swam back to shore and promptly rolled around in the sand with the biggest Springer smile on her face. I've never seen her sleep so soundly! Needless to say, we haven't been to the pond in awhile...