The dog got a rabbit. He was happy about it. Me, not so much.
I’ve got a smallish yard in the suburbs with a 4 ft chain link fence around the back – It’s only 50 ft wide but reasonably deep at over 150 ft. But, take the house, the front yard and the garage out of that, and the back yard space is about 50 x 80 less a cut-out for the garage on one side. We get regular wildlife – rabbits, lots of squirrels, the occasional opossum. Haven’t seen any skunks but I know they’re in the area.
Anyways, it was late evening – about 10pm and I went to let the dogs in. Yep, I have multiple dogs. Like a crazy cat lady you may ask? No. I have 3 dogs but only 2 of them are here at the moment. Casey is out of town with my wife. She trains school bus drivers and she’s at a bus company about 6 hours drive away for a couple months. When she came back for a weekend she picked up ‘her’ dog to come with her for company. Hopefully they’ll be back in a couple weeks.
About my dogs. First there’s Beowulf, we call him Wolfie. He’s a big dog, just my size. Telling you he weighs only 85 pounds doesn’t tell you how big he is though. He’s a cross between a German Shepherd Dog (GSD) and a Mastiff. He got the GSD’s body – skinny – with the Mastiff’s legs, long and large. The head is GSD-shaped, but wider muzzled with the excess skin around the jowls a Mastiff has. He’s almost 10 now, but when he was younger he could put his paws up on my shoulders and look me in the eyes. Oh, I’m 6 ft 3 in tall. He’s mostly black with beige and a bit of white on the chest & belly. Not the tan of most GSDs, but beige. Long furred like most GSDs. We got Wolfie when he was 6 mos. old from a guy who I don’t think was expecting as large of a dog as he got. So, he became ours.
Next we got Casey. Casey is a small dog. Well, small to me. She’s about 45 lbs, Pit Bull or Staffordshire Bull Terrier or some mix like that. A little small for a Pit but that class of dog. She’s cinnamon colored with a red nose. Yes, a red-nosed cinnamon Pit. One word of warning though, she’ll knock you over and lick you to death, and her tail will leave welts from all the wagging. And don’t let her get you started with a ball or tug. You won’t be allowed to leave. Seriously. She’s 6 but most people think she’s still a puppy because of her energy.
Lastly there’s Chance. Chance got his second chance with us (pun intended, that’s why he was named Chance). He’s a lab – something mix. Probably a Coonhound or some sort of Cur, I call him my hillbilly hound dog because he came from Kentucky. He’s a midsize dog at about 65 lbs. Brown, but not chocolate lab brown, more like the brown on a beagle or hound dog. He’s 4.
Meanwhile, I’m letting the 2 boys in and Chance rushes in like normal – he sees an open door he goes through it, even if that’s not where he wants to be. I have to call Wolfie. A couple times. Finally he comes trotting up… with a rabbit in his jaws. Yep, it’s dead. I think it’s his first rabbit. Well, first that I know of. He wants to bring it inside. Now I don’t have the cleanest house, I have dogs after all, and I don’t mop as often as I should, but a dead rabbit is not coming into my house. We have a bit of a conversation at the back door for a couple minutes before he gets the message that he has to drop the rabbit to come inside.
Now there’s blood on my concrete back step, under the awning where the rain won’t get to it. Knowing me that’ll be there for a while.