It’s been my understanding, so far, that border collies don’t chase deer. Sheep, yes. Trucks, yes. Tiny kids with tiny plastic mohawk bike helmets on tiny bikes, yes. But deer, off their radar. I just thought it was a thing, and we’d never have to worry about deer chasing with Banksy.

Um, yeah.

This morning we were walking in the woods, on the edge of the meadow where we frequently see deer and coyote. I keep my radars up there, where there are deer, there are usually coyotes, and this is a very coyote section of the forest. We went this way because 2 bad dogs found something with bones on the other path and were VERY naughty about not eating whatever or whoever it was and at least as of right this minute there is no barfing.

So we are walking briskly along, even Ruby, who is on her long rope, and just to the right of me, like JUST to the right, is a large, very casual boy deer. Banksy and Gustavo were ahead and didn’t notice him. He looked right at us, apparently his radars were up too, and he was all, oh, the dog lady, and didn’t really care.

He was very close, and I had no idea if he had the whole family in tow. So I called the dogs and put everybody on a leash. Just seemed like a good thing to do. Which was super because he stepped right out in the path in front of us. RIGHT out in front, and casually walked into the meadow.

He’s all, Oh HI guys.

He was big. And fat. Not used to seeing big, fat deer but here’s one and he’s just standing there in front of us, giving us the once over.

I’m thinking, is this deer crazy? What deer ever do this? Rabies? On drugs? Twitterpated?

So all along, in her long 2 year life of forest walking, Banksy has been pretty chill about deer chasing. I ask her to lie down, hold on to Otterpop, and call Gustavo back because he is a forest creature and he loves to chase him some deer and some squirrels. He doesn’t chase long or far, and he always comes in pretty quick. So Banksy’s never chased a deer.

Oh BOY OH BOY did she want to chase this one.

He finally stepped off the path and casually sauntered out through the brush towards the meadow.

Let’s just say Banksy got everybody riled up. She hasn’t popped a cork in a long time, thought that was a thing she’s grown out of, but yeah, I guess she still does it. Everyone started popping corks, champagne exploding all around me. Except for Ruby, who had no idea what all the hulabaloo was, and just kept trucking along behind us. I finally dragged everybody away, and we headed back on the path, up towards the other meadow. The other meadow where we see a lot of deer, usually at more of a distance. Soon as we got to that meadow, off goes Banksy.

Like she was gathering up a huge herd of sheep on a giant outrun, off she goes around the meadow, where we’ve all seen deer many times. There weren’t any in there, but she was scouring that meadow at top speed, knowing now those things we see in there that usually mean Banksy lie down, are DEER!

She now apparently has a deer switch, and it’s been turned ON.

She came back in after zooming around the whole meadow once. With crazy eyes and a big sideways tongue.

I predict some interesting hikes coming up in our future. Deer radar, now on.