For the last two months I have been following Lucy around, camera in hand, peeping in the bushes like an annoying paparazzi trying to capture this amazing new thing that she’s been doing… Lucy has been leaping. Yes, I know that all dogs leap and jump but over the last two months, Lucy has turned into this graceful ballerina, leaping incredibly high into the air (at least 5 feet sometimes), arching her entire body and then pouncing on prey, just like a coyote or fox.

She never used to do this. It started with her bouncing very high on one spot in pursuit of squirrels…

Sorry, this next one is blurry but it gives you an idea of her springiness when jumping from a standing position.

Then she started incorporating bouncing into her hunting. Then the bouncing got higher and more graceful. Here is her exact position just before pouncing (from an ‘at rest’ position). Always perfectly still with that left paw raised and ears and eyes wide open…

Then POUNCE!!! I always seem to be a second too late (and always behind her), catching her just as she is coming down from her leap. So I persevere, following her, photographing her, trying to catch the ‘money shot’ with her frozen in mid-air right at the height of her glorious leap… One day I’ll capture it and will share it with you.
Here are my best shots so far…

My personal favorite (though very difficult to photograph) is when she is in the field in the high grass where she completely disappears. Suddenly, she’ll start leaping, these high graceful leaps in the air, one right after another (sometimes seven in a row), tirelessly popping up like a piece of popcorn… huge smile on her face… pushing forward like a strong swimmer doing the butterfly stroke in a sea of grass…

Lucy’s hunting is very fox-like and I found a very interesting podcast recently from CBC’s Quirks and Quarks, which talks about the leaping behavior of the Red Fox. Apparently, they become very still and locate the prey by sound and/or sight. Then they leap up high in the air and pounce on the prey. Scientists have found that they have a 74% success rate when they align their pouncing with magnetic north (which they apparently ‘see’) and only a 13% success rate when leaping randomly in other directions. Here is another website with a great article and incredible video of a fox capturing ‘invisible’ prey under deep snow. Although not as adept as this fine fox, Lucy also loves to screw her face and whole body into deep snow, so I love watching this.

Lucy truly does bring light and joy into my life. She also brings grace and wonder. Funny, how she is just simply being herself, expressing herself fully and beautifully and completely in her ‘dogness’. She inspires me to do the same (in my ‘girlness’). 🙂