Yep, just had one of those moments with Kirby. As many of you probably have heard me mention, I also keep praying mantises as pets. Well I've always tried to instill in Kirby that my pet mantises are not like insects outside and must not to be fussed with. I've never done any direct interaction with dog to mantis since if nothing more mantises are far too unpredictable with how they might react when startled. I have however made a point of showing them to Kirby when their in their screen cages, and I've taught him not to approach a cage if I set it on the ground when I'm cleaning and such.
Well today I had an unexpectadly close call. Kirby was laying on one side of the room, and I was doing a quick clean job of my mantises' cages on the otherside. It usually only takes me a few minutes to clean the cages and in this case I wasn't taking the mantises out in the process. Well all was going fine untill I got to Nubs, my smallest and most mobile mantis.
While I was cleaning out the bottom of his cage, Nubs decided he wanted to go for an unannounced afternoon flight. Thus, he abruptly launched himself out of the cage and flew directly in Kirby's direction. Kirby, who was watching me clean, whipped his head up to watch this bumbling bug slowly head straight for him. At this point I'm in panic mode saying, "Leave it." I have a craft desk set up in the middle of my room and Nub flew right under it when heading across the room and that table blocked me from any hopes of following Nubs with any speed.
Nubs flew directly over Kirby, only inches from Kirby's face before landing on the side of my bed right next to Kirby. It would have been so easy to snatch him right out of the air or off my bed. Instead however Kirby listened to my leave its, and came over to me when I called him.
He got tons of praise and a special treat for that control. I think I might have lost some years off my life with that incident, but I'm so pround of my boy for listening to me. Just couldn't help but share. =3