Rough Day for the Easter Bunny
(Critters)
Armadillos sometimes live for awhile in underground dens they’ve dug around here – one under the back steps, one under the front porch with two openings, one near the driveway under a redbud bush, and another among a big cluster of cast iron plants surrounding an old pecan tree.
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I used to actively discourage them, but don’t anymore, since I learned about one of the potential alternatives.
Bosco is another matter.
The crazed leopard hound cannot sleep knowing an armadillo shares the same ground as him. He hasn’t managed to catch and eat one yet (came close once), but, well, he hounds them until they move on for a less stressful home.
A month or so ago I noticed Bosco running around the pecan tree with the iron plants, diving in and out of them and generally carrying on like a goofy dog who smells something.
Rabbit. A rabbit was in there. She showed up in the front yard on quiet mornings, where Bosco couldn’t get at her. Sometimes she grazed out back while the dog was sleeping.
Last Friday afternoon while his mom was still at work, Boy-boy and I went out to toss the baseball around while the Princess played on the swing – and the rabbit was there in the middle of the yard nibbling grass.
Boy-boy and dog spotted rabbit at the same time. It didn’t go well.
The rabbit panicked and tried to get away from all of us, but instead slammed into the chain-link fence on the west side of the yard. She recovered and headed to the back of the yard and toward, I kind of hoped, the back gate, where she could squeeze under and escape.
Instead, Bosco ran parallel to her in the middle of the yard while she followed the fence line, cutting her off from the gate. She dove into a tangle of blackberry canes, hoping for a safe hideout. But the dog crashed through the brambles as if they weren’t there.
You could hear the rabbit squeal as he dragged her out of the bushes. Luckily, 7-year-old Boy-boy’s view was obscured as Bosco shook his prey and broke her neck. It was over quickly.
Boy-boy was pissed, on behalf of the rabbit.
I grabbed her by the back legs before Bosco could think about tearing her open. It was a “her,” and she was sleek and fat – quite possibly pregnant. I thought briefly about a plate of Hasenpfeffer, but I haven’t hunted for years and don’t have a good skinning knife anymore. And even if I did, cleaning the bunny in the vicinity of Boy-boy and his little sister was out of the question.
So I walked down to the river with her, apologized for the inconvenience and tossed her in the water, where she would become a good meal for catfish or possibly a lucky alligator downstream.
I tried talking to Boy-boy of Nature’s Balance and Dog Instincts and how Bosco felt it his job to protect the family against all threats, and how it’s hard to evaluate whether a strange animal is a Category Red threat or just a Category Light Green without bringing it down for a closer look.
It didn’t work at first, and Boy-boy was so busy giving Bosco the Bad Eye that he wasn’t watching where I was throwing the ball.
Later, though, I heard him telling the Princess that for all Bosco knew, that rabbit could have been as dangerous as a copperhead, and he was just doing his job.
So it goes in a household where the kids’ only experience with putting meat on the table has to do with white paper packets from the grocery store.
If I still lived on a farm like my forebears, or still had time for hunting, this gap in the kids’ education would not need filling.
I made a mental note of the need to take Boy-boy fishing much more often.
→ B.Dunn, Mar 16, 2008, 02 08 pm
Wow that pup of yours is no pup anymore!
Glad to see you are about and still writing. All the best to you and yours,
Michael
— Michael Mar 27, 05:39 pm #
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