Scruffy The Legend

I was walking Ruby and Charlie in our yard. Ruby stopped suddenly, and appeared almost frozen like a pointer might do. She was stretched out as long as she could make herself. One hind paw was way back. It was obvious that she was investigating some animal under the bush, as she commonly does. The only difference from usual behavior was that she seemed to want to go after it, but at the same time was afraid. A snake maybe? I bent down and looked carefully under the bush, but saw no animal. Then I saw it! We have a plastic life-size owl with very realistic eyes. It used to be on top of the arbor to scare birds away form the grapes. Now we have a new arbor and never put it back so it is under this bush. Charlie paid it no attention. Picking it up now, and moving it toward Ruby, I see that she is definitely afraid of this thing. Moving it toward Charlie, he could care less. I am dumbfounded. Charlie was always the sight dog and Ruby the scent dog. This owl has no scent other than that of plastic. I am actually proud of Ruby, because I already know how good her nose is, but now I see that she has very good visual interpretative skills, well. This reminds me of something: how come the retrievers never go after the decoys, or do they?

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