11:28 – Colin is now officially a Fearsome Predator. Ever since the robins showed up this spring, Colin has been trying to catch one. I keep telling him that he can’t catch birds because they can fly away. Today, Colin successfully stalked and pounced a robin that was too busy listening for worms to pay proper attention to the Fearsome Predator nearby.
Fortunately, no robins were harmed during this exercise. Colin carefully stalked to within about 10 feet (3 meters) of the unwary robin. Colin then fired off the afterburner and accelerated from zero to top speed in about one step. The robin saw him coming and tried to fly, but Colin overran it before it could get airborne. Border Collies have all the hunting, stalking, and pouncing instinct of wolves, to which they are closely related, but have all of the kill instinct bred out of them. So Colin didn’t chomp the bird, satisfied with merely overrunning it. The bird was knocked sideways, but quickly recovered and took off pretty much straight up. It didn’t even lose a feather, but it’ll have a story to tell the wife and kids when it gets home.