Category Archives: Mammals

Mountain Mamas

Anyone who knows me very well at all knows that the mountain regions of Colorado are among my favorite places on the entire planet.  Any excuse to go there is just fine with me.   Alan and I recently attended a conference in Denver.   Denver is not actually in the mountains.  But it is close.   “Close”,  and an extra day or two is all I need to make a trek up into the high country!

We spent a couple of days way up in the heavens.   One of my favorite mammals to watch is the mountain goat.   They were out in droves.    Actually there were three different family groups that we discovered and spent time with.   Mountain goats are wonderful about sharing their space with people, as long as young children are not present.    Children make them nervous and even a little aggressive (I see eye to eye with them on this 🙂 ).

June is baby time in the mountains.   Each family group of mountain goats had its own tiny, fuzzy white babies.   Mountain goats form tight family groups of related females.    Males are off on their own in the high country.   They all come together during the mating season.

(Below) What kind of mother would allow her child to stand on the edge of a cliff?   A mountain goat mother.   This is where the goats feel safest.   Predators wouldn’t be very likely to spend time here.    The only exception is the Golden Eagle.   This fierce raptor is the number one predator of mountain goat babies.   They swoop down and knock them off of rocky cliff edges just like this one.   So a diligent mountain goat nanny keeps an eye on the sky!

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(Below) There is nothing like a nice firm mattress!   A mountain mama and baby rest together.    Although Mountain goats are devoted parents, they will not except the presence of a baby other then their own, even if it is in the same family group.   The mama will push another baby away, forcing it to give her some space.   They know their own babies from sight and scent and can tell them apart even from a distance.

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This baby below is about one and a half weeks old.    He was a wobbly fellow on his chubby legs.   Someday he will scale great cliff sides like an acrobat.  But for now, simply balancing on this rounded rock provides a nice challenge.

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Below, a mother leads her baby up the  mountainside.   The one clamoring up the rocks in the center of the picture is hers.  The other standing on the rock is looking for her own mother.   When she spots her, she will follow along.

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(Below)  Two babies nuzzle each other.   Baby mountain goats are VERY playful.  They bounce around on chubby spring-loaded legs.  Then when they tire, they come together and snuggle.   The baby on the left below is only a little more than a week old…

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Sometimes it’s good to have a friend…

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“Adventures”—the Yukon and Canadian Rockies

For those who are interested in stories, photographs and field sketches from far away places, I have just added two new segments to my “Adventures” link on this website.   You will see them at the top entitled “Yukon” and “Canadian Rockies”.

These are a few images from the Yukon entry.  This entry includes interesting history of the area and many images of summer in the far north including a close up look at some of the most famous animals of the vast Yukon territory.

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Below are a few images from the Canadian Rockies entry.   This entry takes you through one of the most scenic places in North America and gives you a glimpse into the lives of the fascinating animals who call the Canadian Rockies home.

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For much more, be sure to check it out!  🙂

Seeing the World For the Very First Time

Groundhogs have lived with us here for years.  There is nothing all that unusual about that, as many people see groundhogs here and there.  But for some reason our hot tub deck is especially popular with them.  Raccoons like the hot tub deck too, and usually occupy the area under it all winter.  But this spring a female groundhog was somehow able to call dibs on it and made it the site of her den.

I was in my studio working this afternoon and heard  funny squeaking sounds just outside my windows.  I looked out just in time to see two baby groundhogs playing a game of “Ring Around the Rosie” on top of our hot tub cover.  They were soaking wet from being in their little hole under the deck.   Heavy rains have soaked everything here.  The wet babies looked more like baby porcupines than groundhogs!   But the water didn’t seem to bother them at all.

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Mother groundhog is quite patient as her babies crawl all over her.   Oh, the joys of motherhood!

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In short order the babies dried off.  They seemed to almost double in size as their tiny bodies puffed up in fluff.

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There are five babies in this litter.  At first they stayed very close to mom.

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Flowers in the garden provide a wonderful place to play.  It took a day or two for the babies to learn to balance themselves in the classic upright groundhog position.   They looked like fat, fuzzy little bowling pins toppling over.   This one below has finally got it!

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This baby poses for his close-up.  Baby groundhogs are very inquisitive and active.

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The photo below shows the runt of the litter on the right with his sibling on the left.  Four of the five babies are the larger size.  But size is relative.  Baby groundhogs are small.  This gives an idea of how tiny the runt is.  He is about the size of my clenched fist.

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Below, the tiny runt is behind not only in size but also in development.   He seems much younger than the others.  He also wins the grand prize for cuteness!

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Here is a bigger sibling in the same pose.  It is easy to see how different these two are at this stage.

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The tiny one is less active than his bigger brothers and sisters.  He doesn’t have enough coordination to run very fast yet.

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Have you ever seen anything so adorable?

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The babies play and explore but every now and then check back in with each other.  The larger ones are very good to their tiny brother.

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Two bigger siblings touch noses.  They do this often when they come together into the same space.   There is no apparent competition between them and they seem to really enjoy each other.

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This little guy ran right up to the window where I was photographing them.

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Mother groundhog gathered up more leaves to freshen up the den.

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The photo below required a very fast shutter finger and a whole lot of luck.  The tiny runt baby poses with his big brother.  This pose lasted for all of a millisecond before they scampered all around again.

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Below the tiny one seems to be having a conversation with his bigger brother.  I wonder what they were saying…

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A dedicated mom relaxes nearby.

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Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing…

I recently enjoyed one of my favorite things about being a wildlife artist.   That is spending time with the animals that I portray in my paintings.   This past weekend I traveled to visit my wolf friends who live in a captive pack in Indiana.   Wolf Park was established in the early 1970’s by a research biologist.  The wolves are raised as pups by humans and thus are habituated to them.   They are not domestic.  They are “tame”.   But a tame wolf is still a WOLF, and it is important to know how to behave around them.   I have been most fortunate to join the pack inside of their enclosure.   There is nothing quite like actually putting your hands on the subjects that you paint.

The fellow in the photo below is Reudi.   He is a lower ranking male in a pack of six wolves.  He has atypical blue eyes.   He has the cutest face!  I’ve always adored him…

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Actually going inside of different wolf enclosures gives an artist the unusual and magical experience of not only photographing and observing an apex predator up close, but also the chance to feel the “energy and spirit” of such an amazing animal.  I have had a life long passion for wolves.  I remember as a very young child searching the local library for a single book that might have just one photograph of  a wolf in it.   Even with the help of the library staff, I was not ever successful.   I couldn’t possibly have imagined as that wolf crazy youngster, that I would one day have a real wolf licking me in the face and asking for a scratch behind the ears.   Life is wonderful, isn’t it?

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(Photos by Monte Sloan)

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Hey Joni…He’s right behind you…

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Below, Ayla asks for a tummy rub.  It is important to remember that although wolves have so many dog like characteristics, they are indeed NOT dogs.   Correct protocol is important when sharing time and space with wolves.   Ayla did get a tummy rub…all of the wolves at Wolf Park are spoiled rotten (in a GOOD way).   Look at that CUTE Ayla face!

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Wolves are no match for healthy bison.   Below,  Renki strolls past a group of bison that are ready for him.   Nothing more than “testing” ever results from the wolf-bison demonstrations at Wolf Park.  It is a rare, up close look at the relationship between  an apex predator and a prey animal that has evolved with unusual toughness…

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My painting “Wolf Portrait” is one of my earliest wolf paintings.   The inspiration came from an experience at this wolf facility.    The point of this painting was simply to showcase the beauty of Canis Lupus.

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Wolves are individuals and their physical features can vary tremendously.   In my painting entitled “The Eyes of a Hunter” I wanted to capture the intensity of that amazing wolfy stare.

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A Late Winter Treasure Hunt

Every king looses his crown…eventually.   The neat thing about the whitetail king of our woods “Broad Beams” is that he just grows back a new crown on the top of his head each spring.    He is old now, very old.  He has haunted our woods for the duration of our time in this home.  My husband and I have grown more attached to him than any of our other deer, perhaps because of his enormous size and charisma or perhaps because we simply know him the best.    Each and every time I see him, my heart beats just a little bit faster.

Broad Beams comes by every day.    He is shy around “strangers” and will lay low if he hears voices other than ours inside our home.  But he knows Alan and I, and if we are here alone, he just strides right up to the house.   Below is one of my favorite scenes through our hearth room window…Broad Beams approaching on the deer trail.  When he sees me standing in the window taking his picture,  he will often stop and pose for me before proceeding.  Then he emerges onto the scene like the great titan that he is.

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Each year the antlers  on Broad Beams have grown back a bit differently which is typical for whitetail deer.   The  size of his antlers is on the decline now because of his advancing age.   He is a magnificent, battle torn warrior, wearing the scars from many, many years of maintaining his reign as King.     These post-rut pictures (above and below) were taken this January at age 8 1/2.  Indeed he is quite old for a wild whitetail deer.

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Alan and I  hike in our woods each March, looking for antlers that have recently been shed by our deer friends.  It is like a treasure hunt.  We find something every year, but usually don’t find the antlers from our big guys.  Last year my husband found one of Broad Beam’s antlers.  After much searching, we were never able to find the other one.  Antlers usually don’t drop off at the same time.  So if a buck is on the move while they are loosing them, the antlers can be miles apart.

This year I noticed exactly when Broad Beams lost his antlers.  I saw him in the morning with them, and then saw him in the early evening that same day without them.  So we surmised that they must be nearby.  My husband and I set out on our late winter treasure hunt.   It didn’t take long to find both antlers.   They were only about 100 yards apart which means that he lost both of them at close to the same time and he had not covered much ground in between.   What a wonderful gift our boy has left for us this year!

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A Last Look Back

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Once in awhile I take the opportunity afforded to wildlife artists to make an environmental statement with my work.  Ordinarily I paint only what I have experienced for myself in the wild.  But there are certain animals for which this is highly unlikely.  Even if I traveled to far away lands to see a Siberian Tiger in his remote wilderness, because there are so few left  it would be very, very unlikely that I would catch even a glimpse of one.  So I chose this beautiful, illusive creature to voice my sadness about what is happening to our wild world.

To best convey his story, I decided to place the tiger in the middle of nowhere.   He is not in the classic snowy backdrop that most wildlife painters choose for him.   Instead, he is floating in a sea of nothing.    It is nearing the last light of the day in Nowhere Land.   The tiger saunters by and pauses, taking a last long look at his viewers, the human animal which is the source of his demise.    Then he slowly continues on his journey… into extinction.

Most people would not look at this painting and immediately realize the sentiment behind it.   But the mood is quiet, the sun hot, and the day is nearly done.    I can’t think of a better mood to describe the sad story of this most amazing creature.

All wild creatures need our help.   It starts by caring.   This is what my art is all about.

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(Above)    A Last Look Back (detail)  Acrylic on masonite

An Unsinkable Will to Live

It is nearly impossible for me to convey my amazement in nature with mere words.  Just when I think I’ve seen about anything a person could see, a new miracle comes along and shows me how little I really know…

Two winters ago while taking a break at lunch time one day, I looked out the window of  or our hearth room and noticed a strange sight.  A good sized white tail buck had wandered haplessly into view.   He emerged from the dense woods, lumbering awkwardly forward  like a strange creature from a monster movie.  His large head and shoulders lurched upward and downward in a dramatic unnatural fashion.  As he came closer, I could see blood running down his right front leg, which had been snapped at the knee and now stuck out sideways in a grotesque, demented direction.  The flesh on different parts of his body had been torn open, creating great oozing wounds.   Closer inspection of him as he came ever closer revealed a broken jaw and fractured rear leg just below the stifle.  His eyes were shockish.  He had just been hit by a car, perhaps earlier that very morning.

I didn’t know this buck until that day.   He came right up to the house as they often do and loitered around, trying to find the courage to move along on his way.  Finally he lumbered off in that jerky monstrous walk, crossed the little dead end road in front of our house, actually jumped our neighbor’s wooden fence (on three legs) and drifted off into a dense stand of cedars.  I was sure that he was doomed.  Poor fellow…

How little I know.

The unfortunate broken buck not only did return to eat the acorns under our burr oak tree, but he became a regular here that winter.  Slowly, the bloody wounds began to heal.  But the broken bones of course remained broken and healed in strange unnatural positions.  It was always easy to recognize him even from a distance.  No one else moved in such an awkward fashion.

As the warm season came, my husband and I felt certain that infection would set in and Brave Heart  (a name well earned) would not live for much longer.   Again, how little I know.  Sure enough when the next December came, Brave Heart came with it as if blown in on a cold westerly breeze.  We could hardly believe our eyes.  Once again he was a regular sight out our windows all through the winter.

Another warm season came and went.  Our deer become nearly invisible as the lush greenery fills in the woods and some of the bucks relocate for the season.   With Autumn and winter comes better visibility.  Sure enough it is December and  today on cue, like an actor showing up with script in hand for his first scene of the season, Brave Heart appeared in our woods once again.  He can hardly walk, as the right front leg has become a useless appendage that seems to be more in the way than anything else.   But here he is…our unsinkable and brave spirited man.  He looks better this year than in the past, as the heavy rains have brought abundant food.  For an animal with limited mobility, this is an important factor in their survival.

(Below) A look at Brave Heart through our living room window.  He is in good weight this year.

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Injuries cause unusual antler growth, usually on the side opposite the injury.  Because Brave Heart had sustained injuries on both sides of his body, his antlers are almost freakish, with tines sticking out in all directions.   Here he enjoys the seed pods from a locust tree (we refer to them as “banana skins”).  In this photo his broken lower jaw is evident.  Because the break is in front of the back grinding teeth, he is still able to chew, which is how he has survived all this time.

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Because of the massive damage to Brave Heart’s body, he is socially repressed by all of the other deer in the area.  This may force his testosterone levels to be lower than other bucks.    Each winter Brave Heart is always the first to loose his antlers.    In fact, they drop long before the other bucks, even the young ones.     Below he is ambling through the woods towards the house.   His broken front leg is obvious from this angle.

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Where Brave Heart goes when the warm breezes of spring arrive is anyone’s guess.  White tail deer have a way of emerging from seemingly nowhere and then vaporizing into thin air as a mode of transit.  This simply fascinates me about them.

It is impossible not to admire such a creature for his infallible will to live.  Indeed, Brave Heart has survived through yet another year.     I’m happy to say… “HOW LITTLE I KNOW“…

Welcome back, brave fellow…

Like Fine Wine…

My friends hear me speak of monsters.  Some of these friends have even witnessed them for themselves.   When mature whitetail bucks float about in the darkness of our woods they seem almost bigger than life.   But even the biggest monsters come from humble beginnings…

In the autumn and winter of 2005-06 there was a young spike buck who for a reason unknown to us, attached himself to our home.  Maybe he spent his days as a spotted fawn here and had no reason to leave.  Our home was his home.  His home was our home.   Everyone involved seemed to like it that way.

There was something special about “Teenie Tines.”   I knew it from the very beginning.   Little whitetail bucks litter our woods like hickory nuts.  But I knew when I first met him that Teenie Tines was no ordinary little hickory nut.  He was a constant fixture at our fence often peeking over it to watch us in the windows as we admired his adorable little face.  He was unusually calm and tame and almost seemed to enjoy our company.  His appetite was voracious.   It seemed that Teeny Tines couldn’t consume enough to keep his fat tummy satisfied.  He gobbled down acorns like a 200 pounder.  He was the only little buck that the big bucks allowed at the fence while they too, pigged out on acorns.   Teenie was to this day the tamest deer we’ve had here.  I used to joke that I could have put a leash on him and walked him around the neighborhood.  How I adored him…

(Below) Teenie at the fence saying “Hello” one winter morning.

Whitetail bucks change a great deal from little spike tykes to the monsters that some of them later become.  But I know our deer by their faces.  This fall a HUGE buck showed up at our fence that we had not yet seen this season.  I grabbed my camera as I always do and started shooting away despite a shutter speed that was really too slow to yield much success  .  It was dusk so my camera ISO was as high as the national debt, but I took my chances and shot away.  Sometimes you get lucky.  I was hoping that this would be one of those times.

It wasn’t until I put the pictures on my computer that I recognized him…OH…MY…GOD…IT’S……….My TEENIE TINES!!!!   We hadn’t seen him since he was a little spike tyke.   That explained why as we stood so blatantly in the window and talked in normal voices he barely noticed us.  He looked at us with casual interest and then proceeded to eat every bur oak acorn he could find under that tree…just like the HUNGRY baby Teenie Tines.

(Below) Teenie Tines has aged like fine wine.  It is ironic that a little buck I once called Teenie Tines (because of his unusually tiny tines) now has some of the longest tines I’ve yet seen.   Maybe his new name should be “Titanic Tines”.

Another look (below) at our boy.  Teenie has once again become a frequent visitor here.  He comes often, stays long and casually saunters away, just like old times.   It will be interesting to see if he is big enough, and BOLD enough to hold this area against some of our other monsters.

No matter how big and impressive he gets, he will always be “Teenie” to me…

Farewell Mr. Twisty

Monsters roam in our woods like phantoms in the night. They arrive without warning, stay as long as they please and then vanish into thin air.

We have grown accustomed to living with monsters. In fact we have given each one a name. We have learned over time however, that it is not a good idea for one to name their monsters…

Broad Beams” and “Twisty Tine” were two mature whitetail bucks at the peak of their prime. We most often saw them together, first under the cover of darkness and then as their confidence in us grew, at dusk and ultimately in daylight. They haunted our woods and ruled everything in sight.

We watched these two monster bucks grow bigger and bigger each year. By the winter of 2006-07, their ultimate size had become nearly ridiculous. They were an unrivaled pair that traveled together for a very long time.

One December morning I went for a stroll in our woods. I followed the deer trails as I usually do and stopped to study an old dead tree trying to decide whether or not it would make a good background for a painting. Suddenly, movement about 20 yards away caught my eye. It was strange movement in the tall grass, frantic and flailing. Then the movement stopped. This repeated several times before I realized that a huge buck was down, lying on his side on the ground kicking his legs, trying desperately with no avail to stand. His great head and antlers would repeatedly lift up into the air and return to the earth again with a loud thump.

Being the period of rut for whitetail, I gave him a wide birth. A burst of adrenaline could create panic and cause further harm to him and maybe to me. I checked back several times that afternoon. The state of things there had not changed. As evening came I could get closer and could see the life draining from the eyes of this great monster buck. By the next morning the buck had crossed into that unknown place where we ultimately will all find ourselves.

It was my husband who first recognized him. We hadn’t seen our monster bucks since the spring before; in the summer, the woods are thick and lush and the deer are mostly hidden from view. The antlers of a whitetail buck grow back differently each year after a shed. We realized to our surprise and disappointment, that this was our beloved Mr. Twisty. His antlers were different this year, but it was indeed the face of our old friend.

(Above) Twisty in his prime, sporting his whopping 16 point antlers (one tine is hidden).  This is a post-rut photo.

Nature has a way of taking care of things. The death of one means life for others. Foxes, raccoons, bobcats, turkey vultures and coyotes were all able to reap benefit from Twisty’s demise. They all ate very well throughout that winter.

I had seen our other monster Broad Beams shortly after I found Twisty dying. Deep scars all over his face and wounds on his legs told a story. With the ladies around it apparently was finally time to decide once and for all who was going to be King. I could tell by looking at how beat up Broad Beams was, that his was not an easy victory.

(Above) Broad Beams in his prime, the old man of the forest who became the unrivaled King.

The King’s sward (above). My husband found the shed weapon of Broad Beams that likely finished off the great Mr. Twisty.

(Above) Mr.Twisty as he lives on today…the beautiful sculptural remains of a once great giant.…     FOND FAREWELL, OLD FRIEND…

The Whistlepig

Nearly everyone has seen a groundhog at one time or another. But I don’t think that most people ever really stop and take a good look at them and notice how adorable they are.

Groundhogs have lived here just outside my studio windows for the past several years. One summer mother groundhog even used our hot tub deck as a playpen for her babies. Groundhog babies are just about the cutest things around. I’ve pictured one below.

The groundhog (also known as the woodchuck or whistlepig) is a rodent, belonging to the group of large ground squirrels known as marmots. In areas where food is abundant a groundhog can grow to up to 30 pounds. These animals see the winters through in hibernation.

Here a groundhog is climbing up onto our deck rail. It looks like she is strumming the strings of a horizontal harp. She is surprisingly agile for her plump posterior.

Here she has made it up onto the top of the deck rail. When she decided to descend, she jumped down and landed with a loud thump!

This baby groundhog poses for a picture. He and his little sibling grew up on and under this deck. It was fun to watch them mature…

Yellow-bellied Marmots have the same basic physiology and many of the same habits as the familiar groundhog and are in the same family, but marmots inhabit rocky areas often at very high altitudes. They too, hibernate in winter.

My painting of a yellow-bellied marmot entitled “Inquisitive”…

The Masked Bandits of Bell Road…

The Godsy household is home to furry masked bandits of two kinds. One kind lives in the great outdoors and is the absolute OBSESSION of the other, who lives indoors.

We have raccoons here in great numbers; big ones, little ones. We have all sizes. This little bandit scrambled up a tree just as a big storm was rolling in. The other little bandit, my dog Wager was about to pop outside of himself with excitement. To Wager, a raccoon is just about the most entertaining thing on the planet. He watches them through our windows for HOURS. The raccoons make for great “dog TV”!

This is our INDOOR bandit Wager, posing in our driveway…….would somebody please hand him a Kleenex?……

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