Number Three

I, of course didn't feed Peg yesterday as she was too fat to hunt. She had eaten enough from Fridays catch that she wasn't able to put it all over and she threw up some of it on her perch overnight. ( The food all goes into her crop, and if she cannot put it over quickly, it spoils and she has to cast it up) She has a tendency to over indulge when she gets the chance.

This morning she weighed 724 grams and seemed to be very hungry and anxious to hunt. Karen was going to go with us today, which always makes things better. We got a bit of a late start and I had the sun in my eyes all the way there, but I am getting used to not being able to see when I drive. There is nothing on the Desert to block the sun when it comes up.

I am going to have to be a little more lenient on her weight control, today she was into her hunting so much that she was hard to keep on the fist. She was looking down all the holes and into every crack trying to find something to catch. She made a couple of attempts on Bunnies but they would hide, and she would go to the ground, of course allowing them to slip out the back way. She was for her, difficult to get any where with, as she kept going off and wanting to do a little prospecting on her own for something to chase. Normally she sits the fist really well, not flying until she sees something to chase. She had made a shot at a bunny and it had evaded her in some rocks. She was sitting on the rock where she had last saw it, and I was trying to see if it was hiding out a bit from the rocks. Karen walked up to the rocks and Peg went to her rather than come with me. We all took a few steps more and the rabbit bolted right out from under Karen. Peg was off in a flash and made a shot at it in the middle of a clump of sage. I stopped to see if she had caught it, and for a while there was nothing, then I heard a rabbit scream. Peg had chased him down on foot and caught him.

I have been complaining because she keeps losing her advantage by going to the ground, and hoping that she will finally tumble to the fact that height is her friend. Normally she is there running around on the ground and the rabbits are ducking around and going out the back door. Karen was able to see some of the action, and every where the rabbit ducked, peg was on the other side of the bush cutting him off. Now I will never be able to get her to quit chasing them on the ground.

I had saved a front leg from her last kill and was offering it to her to eat, so that I could clean the rabbit. The older rabbits will have tape worms in them, and I would prefer to prevent her from getting any of them. The meat is no problem, but the guts can be, so I like to get rid of them and make sure that she has only good clean meat.

The girl is showing promise. Now I am going to have to stay in the field until she has caught something, or she gives up.