DEER ATTACKS

Cold and a little bleak in OK Falls at the moment. One of the hardest things to get used to is how early the sun sets at this time of year. Twilight is just a little after 1600 and it is totally dark by 1640. God knows what it will be like in the dead of winter.

I had an interesting experience on the walk with the dog yesterday. We were walking in the huge expanse of community forrest and two deer's were in front of us moving slowly away, but keeping an eye on both the dog and I.

Matilda, as is her want was scampering around like a blue arse fly, running full pelt here, screeching to a stop there, coming back and having a mock charge at me. In other words she was being a pest as usual. As we started to go up the slope of a hill Matilda ran 40 metres in front of me and stopped on the track to look back to where I was.

Now the mother deer must have watched all of this and thought that this pint-sized dog must have been a potential threat to her accompanying fawn, who was no Bambi anymore, it was a good size.

So mother deer decided to give Matilda a warning and charged her. Matilda, dipstick that she is wasa totally unaware of this and was looking back blissfully unaware at me. She didn't realise that she was in any danger until the deer stormed past her at close quarters. That got her attention.

The mother deer wasn't finished and came back for another go just to make sure the dog got the message. This time Matilda saw her coming and leapt out of the way. Luckily she jumped the right way otherwise she would have been trampled. Having got the message Matilda bolted back to me and hid behind my legs. The deer's gave us both a final look and took off over the hill.

I looked upon all of this with some amusement as one doesn't usually connect cute looking deers with Kamikazi charges. I assume the deer meant to frighten the dog rather than harm it. I know if she had hit the dog she would have done some serious damage.

Of course today on our walk Matilda gave all the deers we saw a wide berth. Perhaps she isn't as silly as I thought!