Mystie and the Bird

Our younger Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Mystie, has a wonderfully unusual personality.

I’ve been owned by Cavaliers forever and adore every one of them, with all their quirks. Mystie’s quirks just happen to be way different from any others I’ve had in the family.

We call her the nutcase, since she likes to chase sunbeams and reflections. It’s not just chasing laser beams or flashlights, although she does that, too--and starts talking to us if she even just sees a flashlight. She lies in the sunny spots on the floor that enter from our skylight. She talks to us about reflections from the skylight that shine and move on our high ceiling. She observes as I walk past an area in the house where the sun is shining, just in case I’m wearing a watch and its reflection shines against the wall. She also creates her own reflections by licking walls and the tile floor.

Mystie is additionally a bird dog. Well, she is a spaniel, but Cavaliers were bred from the first to be lap dogs, to be held by courtiers in the time of King Charles II of England so fleas would jump off the people and onto the dogs.

We have a good-sized backyard, and birds often land there to eat grass seed or seeds from the large tree in the middle that fall to the ground. Once, when she was hardly more than a puppy, Mystie actually caught a bird! Neither she nor the bird seemed to know what to do about it. I fortunately got there in enough time to get Mystie to back off so the bird could fly away.

Now, there are a couple of gray birds in our yard that might be sparrows or wrens, although I haven’t identified them yet. The fatter of the two loves to torment Mystie, landing in front of her on bushes, then soaring off to perch on the utility wire or tree overhead, or on the neighbor’s fence, and cheep at her.

I suppose it’s a game for both of them, although in leaping to try to catch the bird once Mystie fell onto her back. That worries me, since she’s had some health issues and I’m concerned about her.

Yesterday, Mystie insisted on bringing a bird feather into the house. Was it from her friend? I couldn’t tell, but wouldn’t be surprised. My husband also saw that bird and its usual companion sitting on a nearby branch taunting Mystie.

Later, near sunset, when Mystie was outside for her last romp of the day, the bird perched on a nearby bush and chirped till Mystie looked that way. Then it flew low along the pathway, only rising up to land on the neighbor’s fence when Mystie began chasing it. Then it sat there and chirped its taunt.

Do your pets play with wildlife? If you have cats, I wouldn’t be surprised--nor with many dogs, too. What’s their story?