Delilah had a close encounter today.

I’m calling it a “close encounter of the turtle kind.” Get it?

I knew right away she had discovered something because she was fixated on it.   Once I got to her, I did my best to remain calm and get her to “leave it.”  I was pretty sure it was a box turtle but since I’m not turtle expert, I wasn’t 100% sure it wasn’t a snapping turtle.

Delilah is a hunting dog, she loves to be on the trail, finding and chasing little animals.  She knows where they hide, she remembers where she saw and chased them last.  Since the turtle doesn’t run like a chipmunk or squirrel, I was kind of worried that she would try to pick it up and do damage to the turtle,.

Thankfully after about a minute, the fascination had passed and we continued on our way.  No harm, no foul.

Since I really want to keep this blog specifically about dogs; I will not be sharing my  Boston trip here, if you would like to read about my trip to Boston, you can find it on my personal blog.

Because I was planning on going to  Boston late afternoon, I took a half day and came home at noon to be sure I had time to get everything done before we left.

Naturally one of the items on my “to do” list included walking the dogs.  I had mentioned back a way about a game you can play with your dog that would also help with off leash walking.  I finally had the opportunity yesterday to implement my plan….Bwa hah hah! (That was an evil laugh for those not “in the know” or ITK for text speak.)

I had planned a good 45 minute walk because I wanted the dogs to be really good for Chet while I was gone.  The dogs ran far enough ahead so they could not see me and I saw my opportunity.  I hid behind a tree.  I heard them running back towards me, but I remained very still and then carefully peeked out from behind the tree.

Sampson saw me first, but Delilah did not.  She stood in the fork of the path and I saw her looking right and left, trying to figure out where I had gone to.  I could tell she was concerned but she wasn’t panicking and before she went into full-blown panic mode, I stepped out from behind the tree and alerted her to my presence.

We continued on with our walk, but it must be noted that Delilah didn’t go further than about 20 feet away for the remainder of the walk.

Mission accomplished!