Okay, so she's not THAT kind of bird dog, but Sophie the schnauzer likes watching birds almost as much as I do. She's surveying her backyard kingdom in the above photo to see what birds dare to invade.
I have to admit that I've taught her some bad bird habits. When big cowbirds were hogging the bird feeder, I told Sophie they were "bad birds," and she barked and rattled the blinds on the backdoor to scare them away. She'll do this whenever I say those words now. If I dare open the back door after saying the magic words, she'll shoot out the door like a bullet and chase away any birds that happen to be around. This was actually really helpful when I was trying to keep house sparrows out of the bluebird house, but if the bluebirds happened to be in the yard too, she would happily chase them away as well, returning to the back door very pleased with herself. Oops! Sorry blues!
I caught Sophie watching the hummingbirds a few times this Summer. She always had a curious and annoyed expression like "what the heck is that noisy thing?" but she never tried to scare them or chase them away. Of course, I never identified them as "bad birds" either!
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