Opening day

Libby here on our opening day (took the shotgun for doves too but intense dog activity sort of kept them away!)

"Yesterday we had a splendid, heavy rain here, which turned the streets into rivers, an then today we went out on our friend Lee's ranch (100 sections) with the dogs and had our first hare chase of the season. When we first let them out of the truck, the dogs ran amok -- they were SO happy to be out they just had to run as fast as they could to burn off energy. I put up a hare that they had run past, and it took off in the opposite direction. I almost didn't yell to the dogs as I thought they would never be able to close in on it. But I did and our youngest tazi, Larissa, spotted it first and took off after it, with the others following, from about 100 yards behind. This was her first real hare chase, and she poured it on, closing in on it. At first the hare was running with its ears up -- it didn't think it was in any danger. But as the dogs started gaining, it realized that it was going to be in big trouble if it didn't get moving. When it laid its ears back the serious chase was on, and they ran for about four minutes, turning it twice. Four or five horses in the next pasture came right up to the fence to watch...way more interesting than watching cows! Finally the hare, who had run to a corner of the fencing very intelligently ran through it twice, and lost the dogs. We had parked the truck by a water tank that had collected a lot of rain water around it from yesterday's storm, so the dogs all ran over to it and had a wonderful wallow to cool off, grinning at what fun they had had. Luckily it was a sandy are so they mostly got wet rather than covered with mud and cow shit, which they always enjoy but we, for some reason unfathomable to dogs, don't like. A good start to the season for all of us."