Dr. Ruby's Research Method

Today Dr. Ruby would like to share her method for exploring God's beautiful creation.  She says, "It's all in the nose".  You might think with her wonderful, long ears that it would be more about hearing, but you would be wrong.  It's definitely her sense of smell that wins out.

 It's also not her vision, which might be pretty good, it's just that at her lowly vantage point there can be problems!

It might look like she saw the rabbit in the next photo... but she didn't have a clue until she walked over there after it ran away and smelled its' trail.

 She didn't see the white-tailed deer in this photo either:

In the photo it might be hard to see the deer (it's in the tall grass at the top of the path) but in person it was pretty obvious.  To me, at least, if not to Ruby.

 In the previous photo, Ruby was just pausing to wait for me.  Then the deer realized we were there and ran away.

"Ruby, there was a deer!  Oh? Maybe next time I'll see it Grammy."

Some times Ruby follows animal trails that I can see...

but mostly not.  Her nose is always alert and quivering though, so I know when she is onto something.  The only way to show you is in a video...

So even though she missed seeing this flock of bobolinks on our walk this morning--

 I'm sure Ruby smelled more things than I can even imagine.

Here's another short video of her sniffing skills in the woods! 

Ruby and I hope you enjoy seeing her skills in action.