I’ve never had a dog fast enough to catch one. Maybe they weren’t trying too hard. I’d be mildly upset if they succeeded, and would make an effort to quickly intervene.
It’s not a good idea for reasons already articulated:
1.) There is a small chance the squirrel might injure your dog. Unlikely, but possible.
2.) There is a larger, still not huge but quite possible, chance of transmitting disease.
3.) Partially or entirely consumed squirrels may soon find themselves being transported in semi-digested form to your living room rug.
4.) Around here if it was a native western gray squirrel I’d feel bad. They’re in mild decline and there is no reason to add to that.
5.) Potentially the most important reason - strong prey drives easily transfer over into any similar-sized animal. Your neighbor who just lost your cat or Shih Tzu to your dog may well take a legal interest in returning that emotional and material stress to you in spades.
Even a Chihuahua would kill a rat/mouse with it jaw. Surprisingly strong. My smallest dachshund whacked a rabbit bigger than her head in one swift move. I was lucky to get her presenting it me on camera.
Just to let you know what kind of killer hounds I’ve owned, the past several were all Goldens, and this guy is a 40# golden doodle. I don’t think we need to worry about him eating neighbors’ pets. But this fella is more spry than the Goldens were. Gives the vermin more of a run for their money.
And no - Eastern grey. Absolutely no shortage of them. Want me to ship you a few dozen?
A few months ago, my 5.5 pound Pomeranian went out in the yard for her evening pee. When I opened the door to call her back, she came running up to the steps with a dead chipmunk in her mouth. I live out in the woods. I honestly don’t know what to think. She may have just found a random dead one, but I can’t deny the possibility she did it herself.
Our sheltie was not bred to kill.
Perhaps he is partially descended from a limited number of dogs who, centuries ago, were bred to kill. But even more, he is descended from dogs who were bred to be good at the first part of the hunt (rounding up prey) and bad at the rest of the process.
Then, there might be human leaders, in the distant past, who made sure their deadliest warriors were supplied with multiple wives — meaning that I too could have been, in some partial way, bred to kill.
Either way, I don’t want to kill squirrels and don’t want my dog to either.
That’s fine, but dogs are descended from wolves, who are intelligent, resourceful, and efficient killers. Some breeds may have lost the drive to chase down and kill prey, but all dogs are predators at heart.
Our last dog caught one, but I told her to drop it and it scampered up the tree minus half of its tail. She decided to stop trying to stalk them and just run around the corner at full speed in hopes a squirrel was there. I didn’t have a problem with her killing one per se, but I didn’t want her eating a possibly diseased city squirrel and sure didn’t want to have to dispose of a dead one myself.
I have never “let” my dogs catch squirrels, but squirrel death has occurred despite my lack of permission. And yes a parasite that needed treatment has resulted.
The worst offenders were the two whippets with a pretty decent sized fenced back yard. Any time the dogs were in the yard there would be squirrel. They’d work as a team, one chasing driving to where the other would be on intercept course. Most of the time the squirrel would escape but not always. Then they’d come to the door, one dropping the prize, or half a prize, confused at my wife’s scream, or my lack of praise. Really puzzled.
They were doing what they were bred for so we had to accept it as a price for letting them run in the yard, and they had worn out paths that were there racing each other paths. Whippets are very fast.
The current dogs, a miniature Aussie and a six month old mini Aussie border mix, chase but have never caught a squirrel. The dumb bunnies that nested in our yard though … nothing I could do about that. And yes the puppy got parasites from that too. Forced us to delay his first puppy obedience class.
I know all dogs are one species and that species is a predator. But I would rather they eat the food that I know doesn’t contain parasites than hunt. I just can’t completely control that.
My dogs aren’t catching squirrels but they’re getting chipmunks, mice, voles, and rabbits for sure. Duke once came home with a little bird in his mouth, possibly he found it dead. The entire length of the fence is posted with no trespassing signs in dog language. I guess other animals can’t read dog language and come into the yard anyway. Our garter snakes Snakey and Little Snakey are hopefully staying clear of the dogs (they may not even be the same snakes every year). The dogs are going to catch and eat their own food if they can, they can’t help it. They’re also going to get wormed 3 times a year and the shots for squirrel related diseases are standard around here.
My dog is very protective of “his” back yard. And will kill anything that isn’t a cat or another dog that dares to trespass in it.
What bothers me is he actually eats his prey. THAT I will stop him from. But I don’t always catch him in time.
When I was a kid, our beagle mixes caught plenty of rabbits, and got to eat them. If they had caught country squirrels, we’d have let them eat them as well.
Yeah, a friend of mine visited friends “in the country” somewhere, and her dachshund caught and ate some kind of local rodent. The dog got very sick with some kind of infection (it’s been years so I’ve forgotten the details) which entailed a very large vet bill.
I’ve seen squirrels run up a stucco wall.
For those of us who have dogs with hunting tendencies, I’ve found that using a once a month flea/tick preventative that also has a wormer is a very good idea–I use Sentinel Spectrum. My original thinking was to prevent any cross species transfers of icky stuff from the inevitable kitty roca diving sessions but since I have at least one rat hater in the bunch the wormer is just as effective in preventing parasite infestation due to rodent hunting. So far though, nobody seems interested in the rodents after they’re no longer squeaky and running and they get left more or less intact where I’ll find them. Usually right inside the gate to the yard. This is why I keep a box of exam gloves on hand, dead rat disposal.
Might have died anyway. Two of our hounds had cornered a cottontail and it ran under some stuff where they couldn’t get at it. We called them off, extracted the bunny and examined it finding no visible wounds.
We put it in a box with some water intending to release it far, far away the next day. Come morning it was stone cold dead. We figured stress chemicals had proved too much.
I think the rabbit population around here will probably make it anyway.
My late bischon poodle loved chasing all the things in our yard. However, one time he found a baby possum that wasn’t smart enough to run. Poor Phobos had no idea what to do next. He stood there barkibg, it stood there hissing. Total stalemate. If I hadn’t picked him up and carried them in, they’d still be there.
This is hilarious! I know the feeling. Sometimes I gotta physically drag a dog out of a hole to get them to give it up and go home.
Duke chased some little critter into a 10 foot long pipe steel pipe lying on the ground that was to replace a gate post. All day he ran from one end of the pipe to the other, sticking his nose into the pipe smelling for the critter and lifting the end of the pipe with his nose to toss it around. He couldn’t see inside the pipe though. He probably saw the critter run in one end of the pipe and didn’t consider it could have run right out the other end and may have only been in that pipe for a few seconds.
OMG, I used to have an online acquaintance with a bichon named Phobos! She lived in Wisconsin, not Texas, though.