Snow Day, Part 3, Maya on the Hunt

I'm going to indulge my obsession with Maya in this post. The dog fascinates me, amazes me, and at times frustrates the hell out of me. This is about my fascination with her. Her mind is as agile as her body, which is capable of scaling a 6' chain link fence and jumping a 4' fence from a standstill position. She's a hunter, a scavenger, a survivor. After the Great Escape the week after we got her, she was living rough, at large and on her own, for four weeks. I expect she survived with a combination of hunting small prey and scavenging from trash cans, but she actually gained weight in the course of the ordeal.

She heard something rustling in the snow-
covered grasses.

She no longer needs to hunt to survive, but she clearly enjoys it. It's apparent in her obsession with deer spotting when we hike, and yesterday I saw a more practical form of hunting in action, with more realistic prey. We were hiking the trail through the field at Pleasant Grove. They are allowing the natural vegetation to grow back so it's no longer being mowed. That means a lot of tall grass and small shrubs, all of which were covered in snow. Maya immediately sensed some small critter, whether by scent or sound I don't know, probably a combination of the two. Here are a series of pictures I snapped as she stalked and pounced at her intended prey. It got away, whatever it was, and I had no intention of letting her catch anything, but the fun was in the hunt for both of us.

And she went over to investigate.

It definitely piqued her interest and she went on point.

She left the trail for a closer look, and sniff,
pinpointing the location.

She jumps forward.

and then up,

all four feet off the ground, she pounces!

We head on down the trail, looking for another opportunity.

No luck, but she is undeterred. 

You can't be afraid to get your nose wet when hunting in snow.

I could write a tome on that tail of hers alone. 
It curves in at least three or four directions all
at once and it seems to almost act as a sensory
device. It's in "ready mode" here - alert and 
ready for anything.