Something is squirrely

I have always liked watching squirrels. I know, they are rodents, but they crack me up. They like to flick their tails and run around like crazy maniacs. Anyway, we have a few squirrels that like to bury nuts in our yard and chase eachother, jump across the branches in the trees, and run across the fence. There were two, then three. I think they had a baby because the third was smaller. Now, there seems to be a new sheriff in town. Today, a big one that looks like an albino, or at least a blonde squirrel, showed up.

In order to increase the action, I have trained my dog Bernie to chase after them. That's his only responsibility in this family, and he knows it. The squirrels know it too, because when they hear his tags jingling (even before he gets outside) or the doggie door, they take off. So, maybe I've created a little Pavlovian response.

If I say, "What's that?!", he runs to the door, looks out, let's out a gruff, and if he sees one, he goes and chases it (this is also great if I want him to go outside because I feel like he hasn't gone to the bathroom in a while). If he sees one in the yard, he tears across the family room, out the doggie door, and chases them away. Sometimes they chatter at him. Sometimes, if there are two of them, they run crossing patterns. Sometimes they taunt him, climbing down a trunk until they are just high enough that he can't reach them. It's great when they are running along the fence and change directions and he loses them (they're running 5 feet above him, after all). Sometimes if they keep coming back, he stays outside and stalks/"hunts" them. I have no idea what he would do if he actually caught one (he is pretty fast, but the squirrels are more agile), but once he brought a dead bird into the house for us and was so proud of himself.