Caution! Do not read if you're a PETA operative. Don't be
blastin' your Sarah McLachlan tear-jerker with your sad-eyed, one-legged, bald
canine looking over your shoulder. Bless your pea-pickin', caring and sharing
heart. I admire your selfless devotion to all critters great and small. But
this post is not for you. Do yourself a favor, and teach your pound pup to
shake hand. Look away.
The Pony ran down to my dark basement lair this evening
after supper. He'd been working on a part for his Science Fair project display
with his dad in the BARn. They cut a piece of plexiglass in a triangle form to
represent a prism. The Pony has arranged rays of colored paper to shoot out
from one side, while a plain white beam of paper light shines in the other
side.
"Guess what your monster Juno is doing right now!"
"Uh. I don't know...eating eggs?"
"No! She's eating the back end of a baby rabbit! Actually, she's not even eating it. She's tossing it in the air and chasing it and tossing it again. And it's still alive. At least if she would eat it, the end would be over mercifully soon."
"Huh. What is Ann doing?"
"She's chasing Juno around, hoping to get a bite, but Juno is fending her off."
"That's my girl!"
Sorry, politically-correctors. I am not going out in the yard to chase a border collie/lab through the mud and wrestle a limp rabbit baby from her mouth. No. Not happening. I don't like to hear or observe animal cruelty. I'm talking about animals' inhumanity to animal. But there will not always be somebody around to protect the tender baby rabbits while I'm away. I can't punish an animal for what an animal does naturally. Unless it's for growling at another animal in our pack, of course. That's different. Because I say so.
Anyway...Juno grew up running rabbits with Tank the beagle, our dear deceased hound who had registration papers and a trial champion mother. No, we didn't seek him out and pay a fortune for him. The Veteran, Farmer H's second son, gave him to our boys for Christmas one year because he wasn't home long enough to take care of him. So Juno cut her teeth on rabbits. They were a three-way tag team, Tank and Juno running the rabbit, and Ann waiting in the BARn field to join them when they flushed it from the brush. That's what animals do. In nature. And that's the reason rabbits breed like...well...like rabbits!
Juno must have a hollow leg. Legs. Her regular food, plus treats saved specifically for her from leftovers, handfuls of cat kibble, and eggs (ALLEGEDLY) are not enough. Now she wants rabbit butt.
I feel like an enabler.
Poor Juno. Again she was accused of something she didn't do.
ReplyDeleteObviously, she was trying to save the bunny from Ann, to the point she was even tossing it up in the air to keep it out of Ann's gaping mouth.
Poor, poor Juno.
She is just trying to kill it, not eat it! It is her huntress instinct. My tiny 6 lb doxie, the late Sweet Emmy Lou was also known as Emmy, the rabbit slayer. Just what they do.
ReplyDeleteSioux,
ReplyDeleteThat's it! Juno is a rescue dog! She was doing her best to rescue the bunny from the gnashing, egg-stained teeth of Ann. You may need to free your calendar in case you're called as a character witness.
*****
Kathy,
Dogs are such animals! And seasoned hunters.