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This is really weird, but every evening for the past week, a deer has come into our yard to play with our neighbor's dog, Bella. The dog jumps around playfully and wagging it's tail while barking in a playful manner. The dog is obviously trying to play with rather than attack or threaten the deer. The deer also prances around playfully and tries to sniff the dog. They are obviouly being very playful without trying to attack each other and it seems that they are "friends". It's one of the more amusing things I've seen.

Has anyone heard of anything every happening that similar?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXvXCtXkd68[/youtube]

Scott wrote:This is really weird, but every evening for the past week, a deer has come into our yard to play with our neighbor's dog, Bella. The dog jumps around playfully and wagging it's tail while barking in a playful manner. The dog is obviously trying to play with rather than attack or threaten the deer. The deer also prances around playfully and tries to sniff the dog. They are obviouly being very playful without trying to attack each other and it seems that they are "friends". It's one of the more amusing things I've seen.

Has anyone heard of anything every happening that similar?

That is really bizarre. Do you live in a transition area between urban and rural? Sometimes in these areas the deer become semi-domestic because people are feeding them and if close to an urban area there is often no hunting season. Either that or the deer may have escaped from a venison farm and is used to people and other animals.

We had the same thing last year with a deer coming by to hang out with our beagle. When the deer first came up, the dog barked like crazy but the deer didn't seem to care. When the deer didn't run away, the dog walked up to the fence. After that, they visited a few time before the deer stopped coming back.

We live less than 1/2 mile from the nearest area where people hunt, but the deer have very little fear of people. We regularly have them sleep against the house or under the deck where I walk maybe 5' away from them to get to my car.

Do you live in a transition area between urban and rural? Sometimes in these areas the deer become semi-domestic because people are feeding them and if close to an urban area there is often no hunting season. Either that or the deer may have escaped from a venison farm and is used to people and other animals.

I live in on the outskirts of small town in a realitively isolated part of Colorado. There are literally hundreds of deer in town.

Supposedly, we're the elk capital of the world too with an estimated 25,000-45,000 elk in the immediate area. Occasional bear and mountain lion as well.