This picture is somewhere in the Pecos Wilderness, I think, but it could be almost anywhere, any day. Blanca and & I hiked literally thousands of miles together over the years. Almost every day we were out on the trails near our house, and weekends and vacations brought us all over New Mexico and Colorado, plus a few other places. Sometimes I was on foot, sometimes on skis, snowshoes, or a mountain bike, but with Blanca always trotting alongside or checking out things in front (often behind, actually, and sometimes too close, as she caught a hiking boot in the chin on occasion).
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On one of our evening hikes in the Jemez Mountains- it must have been late fall of '93- Blanca saw her first deer. She gave chase, although I don't think she actually thought through what she would do if the deer didn't want to play that game. I doubt that the deer were seriously concerned, but they bounced off through the woods, anyways. And I was suddenly alone- and a bit distraught, since this was the first time Blanca had willingly been out of eyeshot. I decided it was best just to wait, and five or ten minutes later, back came Blanca, panting and happy. I think that was the only time that Blanca really tried to chase an animal- usually she'd just run for a couple of hundred feet, at most, until she was sure that she wouldn't be able to catch the critter. And maybe, she didn't really want to...
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There was one time that I'm pretty sure she didn't want to catch the critter. We were working on an archaeological dig in northern Colorado, near the Cache La Poudre. It was evening, and we were walking the half mile or so back to our tent. Blanca's ears went up as she took an interest in something in the woods. She trotted off into the trees. I kept walking along the forest road, knowing that she'd catch up as soon as her curiosity was satisfied. A few seconds later, I heard loud crashing noises, and Blanca came rocketing out of the brush, running at top speed right past me, without a glance. She didn't stop until she was back at our campsite. Y'see, we'd heard reports of a bear in the area... We ate dinner in the truck that evening.