If you have been following Lilly's tales then you will know that she is a proper sighthound...if she sees it she will chase it. Mice, cats, ducks, squirrels and even deer are her main sources of quarry.

During our few years together she has done four or five cross country dashes in the park after fluffy white tailed deer, and although she has a good portion of Whippet in her, they have luckily always eluded her. She returns so happy with herself for pursuing the chase, that it's hard to reprimand her.

As for cats, we are past cat owners and lovers, and there are a few that reside nearby. A couple on our street are 'ard nuts that just like to sit in plain view and taunt Lilly with their fluffiness, so she is always on the lead going out of the house, and gets put back on the lead as we are heading back towards home.

The one time that there was a near miss was when I was just puting the bins on the back street, and Lilly had joined me for a sniff about. All was well until she caught sight of a cat just hanging about down the street, and off she shot. Luckily that cat had the good sense to leg it up onto the wall out of reach, but it was a close shave, so I check now to make sure the coast is clear.

Mice, well they haven't been so lucky. Twice whilst out with Damian, she has pounced into the long grass and caught a mouse. The first time the poor little blighter was swiftly dispatched. It didn't stand much of a chance, after all the other half of her genetics is Staffordshire Bull Terrier, so she has pretty strong clamping jaws.

The second time the mouse wasn't so lucky; she disabled it, but didn't finish the job, so Damian had to swiftly put it out of its misery with a strategic stab of his Swiss Army penknife.

She likes to think she can get a duck or two, but they have anti-Lilly skills. If they are on the bank she will have a run at them, but they either take off or head for the water, and although Lilly will go in water, she's a wader rather than a swimmer, and doesn't have the swimming legs to go after them - quite literally as she has those skinny Whippet legs!

Now, squirrels are truly her nemeses.

In the country park that we live next to there are ridiculous amounts of grey squirrels. They must have killed off our British red ones years ago, and had a whale of a time breeding away to populate the entire park.

For a bit of education, grey squirrels carry a Parapoxvirus disease, which does not seem to hurt the greys but often kills red squirrels. They are also more likely to eat green acorns, using up the food source before they ripen, so there are not enough left for the red squirrels to eat, and the reds don't breed as often when they are put under this pressure.

Even though ours are the grey ones, they are very fuffy and look cute, and I do enjoy watching them in the park, but as grey squirrels aren't protected like the red ones, and are classed legally as vermin by The Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981, I am not worried when Lilly decides she wants to do a bit of squirrel stalking.

It is actually quite fun to watch her do her stealth walk as she tries to approach without them noticing. I actually stood in the park and videod her doing this for over five minutes, and in all that time she only covered about 15 feet. Spoiler alert - she didn't catch it.

This is a daily occurrence, and happens on pretty much any walk, but, seeing as there are a lot of dogs in the park, Bolton's squirrels have become masters of evasion. They are usually pretty close to a tree, and they are the Usain Bolts of the rodent world. At first sight of fur they shimmy up said trees, well out of reach of pointy fangs.

Lilly does her stalk, then a sharp bolt, and when foiled she moves on to the next hunt - watch her in action.

Two and a half years of this routine and she hasn't even had even a tickle of furry tail in her mouth.... that was until the 13th of January.

We had been for a long walk through the park, around the cemetary, and back into the park to head home. In the small dell there are two open field areas that she likes to walk around the edges, near to the trees. We were just heading round the corner of the wooded area with Lilly about 10 feet in front, when she shot off.

The way she did it, without any stalking, is how she usually sets off after a deer so I swiftly rounded the trees to see where she had gone, only to see something small grey and fluffy trying to run past her towards the trees. Unfortunately he or she had been too far into the field, and made a mad dash right past the grabbing jaws of a determined Lurcher.

It was the wrong move, and Lilly snapped it up in a flash. I stopped immobile. She was thrashing it about in her jaws, like she sometimes does with her toy duck at home. It was the sort of neck movement that would make a chiropractor wince.

I couldn't move, well, more like I didn't want to. I knew there was no way to save the squirrel at this point as she wouldn't have let me get it off her, and I also didn't want to have to do a 'Damian', and have to finish it off. I am a tad squeemish about that kind of thing, plus I wasn't carrying a penknife.

I just had to stand there and let her kill it. I think it went to its maker quickly as I'm sure the drubbing she gave it would have broken its neck pretty sharpish....at least I hope so.

After she put it down it looked like she was going to make it a meal, but a couple of nudges later, and she just walked off and headed for another chase. At this point I made my way tentatively towards what I sincerely hoped was the corpse of the unfortunate creature.

To my relief there was no movement and she had polished it off.

Although Lilly didn't want to munch on it, I decided that I should leave it where it was as, in the cold weather, there are plenty of foxes and other animals that would happily love a fresh meal without having to work for it - the circle of life'n'all that.

Since the murder walk, Lilly has chased plenty more squirrels and has gone back to her usual catch-free record.

So for my sake, and the squirrels', let's hope that this was just an anomaly to the usual state of affairs, and that Lilly and I can enjoy our walks without the faint threat of death hanging in the air.

A Murder Walk!

Mid-Morning Chorus