Dachshunds on the prowl

It was just a matter of time, I suppose. Cami and Harry are nine and a half years old, and they’re dachshunds. In German, dachshund means “badger dog.” They have always wanted to hunt and kill a critter. The problem is that every critter they go after is either faster than them (chipmunks, bunnies), waaaay bigger (wild turkeys), or is maddeningly adept at hiding in trees/ jumping over tall fences (squirrels).  It’s never been a fair fight, from the dogs’ point of view. In other words, no prey has ever sat there quietly and let itself be killed.

A year or so ago, there was the (I felt) stupid rabbit who almost allowed itself to get fatally cornered in the back yard. I was in the house one afternoon watching the Red Sox on television, P was outside with the dogs, and I suddenly heard one...then two...blood curdling screams. I logically assumed that the first scream was one of the dogs in agonizing pain. Turns out the first scream was the rabbit, who had just had its tush (or some part of its body) bitten by one of the dogs. Have you ever heard a rabbit scream? Now I know where Alfred Hitchcock got the idea for the sound in the famous shower scene from “Psycho.” He had to have heard a rabbit being attacked. For real…not a pretty noise.

So anyway, the rabbit screamed, then P screamed as she was watching the scene unfold before her, and eventually the rabbit wriggled his or her way through the chain link fence. As far as I know, neither dog said anything of note. The rabbit got away, minus a few tufts of fur and a little bit of blood. That was the closest either dog has gotten to a successful kill. Personally, I felt badly for them. My lovely wife was appalled (and rather annoyed with me, it should be noted) that I, of all people, a pet blogger, was willing to see an innocent bunny get eaten.

“Hey,” I reasoned, “it’s their yard, not the bunny’s. Sorry, but Cami and Harry have every right to defend their territory. From my point of view, if the rabbit had a brain, he’d have said to himself ,"Self, perhaps it would be wiser to check out the five surrounding yards that do NOT contain sprinting, barking predators with sharp teeth.” I have nothing against rabbits. I think they're adorable, but between a stray rabbit and my dogs, on my dogs' own property, I am firmly pro-dachshund. In someone else's yard, I'd make sure the dogs leave the prey alone. Actually, I wouldn't have to. Rabbits can hop away faster than Cami and Harry can run after them.

Fast forward to this past Monday. It’s early evening, and P let the dogs out to pee. Within a minute or so, she says in that I’m-not-messing-around-here, pay-attention-voice, “David, come out here quick. I need you.” So I did. She said “Harry has found something. You need to get him away from it.”

What Harry had found was very small, about the size of a chipmunk, and it was grey. It looked like a fat mouse with no tail. Also, it wasn’t yet dead, but it was about to be any minute now. Whatever it was, Harry had broken its little neck, and was deciding what he should do next. Cami, oddly, was not joining in on the attack. She was loitering nearby, seemingly looking for FOV’s (friends of the victim) to interrogate with extreme prejudice.

I got the dogs away from the small victim, which they didn’t appreciate, as they reasoned that they still had some unfinished business to attend to at the scene. Once the dogs were safely indoors, I returned to the victim, who had by this time stopped breathing entirely. When I picked it up with a garden implement, I saw that it was in fact (emphasis on ‘was’) a very tiny rabbit. Harry had killed a baby bunny. I have no idea how it had gotten there, but my first thought was “rabbits aren’t loners. Where there’s one little bunny, there are going to be more. Where are they?”

I haven’t answered that last question yet, but I can tell you Harry Potter Dachshund Greene was quite pleased with himself, and was almost strutting, as if he was doing his own impression of Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder from “Stir Crazy.”

There will be no living with him now.