The Great White Furry Hunter Has Arrived!

Yes - It finally happened.

The Great White Furry Hunter made his first appearance in Anchorage today at 5:30 am (Alaska Standard Time).

Because Squirt weighs between 11-13 pounds at any given time, he is prime Eagle bait. Eagles can easily carry off a 25-pound salmon so what is a little white fuzzy dog. Plus there is a remote possibility a bear could come along and Squirt would be considered a “Scooby Snack” and don’t get me started on the rabid foxes around Alaska. These dangerous animals required a new household rule – “Squirt must be accompanied by a human AT ALL TIMES when he is outside”. Squirt’s freedom has been limited (not that he really minds – it is actually a bigger issue for the humans involved).

Our winter weekday ritual starts with the alarm going off at approximately 5:25 AM. Since it is dark and early, no coffee has been had and with the “middle agers” aging (especially after shoveling an acre of snow by hand the night before), it takes a few minutes to get dressed and downstairs. Once at the bottom of the stairs by the front entrance, I flip on the outside front light to make sure there isn’t anything to be concerned about in the front yard, street, deck, driveway, etc. As we (Squirt and I) walk to the back door, I check out the western windows to make sure there are no large objects in the side yard. Continuing to the back door, I put on my hat, gloves, coat and snow boots (I expect this portion to be eliminated in the summer weekday ritual). All looks good - finally – ready to go outside.

By this time it probably a little after 5:30am – we will call it 5:35am. Off to the side yard we go. Squirt jumps off the deck onto his specially groomed trail and starts the morning perimeter check. After sniffing a couple of places and coloring some snow here and there he heads off to the front of the house and I hear a very deep bark. Woof – Woof – Woof WOOF!!!! (Well – as deep as Squirt can make his bark.) And he is gone in a flash. I hurry around to the front and Squirt has plowed into a snow bank and is standing - looking – ready to pounce. At first I don’t see anything as the front porch landing latticework is in the way. I think it is just the neighbor walking her Australian Shepherd. Then the moose raises its head. Ut-oh. There is Squirt – nose to nose – with the yearling we have seen around the neighborhood. OK – they are actually about 10 feet apart but close enough Squirt was danger.

There I stood on the deck thinking – "crap – what do I do now?" I tried the neighbor’s method of “Shoo! Shoo!” That didn’t work. Do I go pick him up? That puts me in danger and I don’t run so well in snow boots and deep snow. (Not that I am a gazelle without boots and snow.) Start throwing snowballs? Like I could hit the moose over the porch anyway. So, the lucky neighborhood was awakened by me sternly going off along the lines of “Squirt – NO – STOP - Come back here NOW – I MEAN IT – DON’T you dare - COME HERE” and repeat about 3 times. He was a good dog, finally turning around and the moose didn’t come after him. I was lucky to have the snow bank there (allowing Squirt the luxury of blaming the deep snow for not going any further) or he was scared and decided he had pushed things far enough with the GIANT dog. I am pretty sure the yearling hadn’t had the “Dogs are evil” lesson yet from momma as he didn’t appear to be ready to charge Squirt at any time. The ears stayed up in “normal mode” instead of lowering to “unhappy mode”.

When he finally got back to the side yard Squirt was too excited to do anything else. Then, adding to the morning events, here comes the neighbor with her shepherd. I warn her about the moose and she crosses to the other side of the street. The shepherd's barking did scare the moose off. As the yearling was running off, I started to wonder where Momma was. You don’t want to be between a Momma moose and her calf. It was definitely time to go inside.

Normally after we get back in the house, Squirt gets a biscuit and we go upstairs to wake Robert up – very calmly and quietly. Today though, once we got our winter gear off, I said, “Go tell Daddy” and off he runs – full steam up the stairs and on to the bed. By the time I get back upstairs, Squirt is on top of Robert repeating the entire chain of events dealing with his hunting adventures by barking incessantly. I’m sure that was a pleasant wake up call. :)

Guess I might have to consider a leash in the mornings now…

We noticed upon arriving home tonight the moose had made the rounds later in the day going through several yards including ours. Moose must have short memories of Great White Furry Hunters!