Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Is he calling out for delivery rabbit?

That makes three and a half.

Three and a half confirmed rabbits that Little Bear has consumed. The three, he consumed in their entirety - stem to stern. The half, he got in a grisly tug-of-war over with Beauty.

The last one was at 1:15 this morning. And it's the second time I have awakened to the sound of bones crunching inside my lair. This rabbit was bloody huge: it must have been killed and delivered by Click, but it was...huge! It outmassed her by maybe fifty percent! So unless LB has discovered an incredibly accommodating delivery service and learned how to work my cell phone's tiny buttons with his enormous paws and managed to steal the phone and then put it right back after use instead of carrying it to his treasure spot and chewing it up, which is his usual MO, Click is going out and killing these rabbits, dragging them somehow into the lair (I'm afraid to look at the condition of the cat door - last time she destroyed it) and losing it to LB.

Except that this was never Click behavior. She catches mice and rats almost nightly and eats them herself, leaving me a regular morning mess to clean up. She doesn't kill for others. Or does she? She likes all the dogs, but Little Bear has become her favorite. She sits still while he does disgusting things to her with his great messy slobbery jaws - I have watched her entire head disappear into his mouth - and then she'll take a turn and groom him with her tiny tongue.

So is it possible she's actually catching these rabbits for him? And since it's only been in the past few days that the dogs have resumed sleeping inside with me...how long has this been going in? This could actually explain how LB has been expanding so alarmingly in girth lately, when I don't see him eat any more dog foot than any of the others. This is bizarre behavior, if true. I don't really mind, as long as they take it outside.

But do you know how much of a mess a large rabbit makes, consumed on the floor inside a small lair? And do they clean up after themselves? They do not.

Sheesh.

3 comments:

C.M. said...

Make sure you have deworming meds handy if Little bear is eating out. My Bear,a breed that is considered a "ratter", all 6 pounds of him has caught 5 chipmunks, cleaned the whole property of them really and has now gone on to catching mice ( Too numerous to keep count off) and the occasional sleepy bird. No squirrels as of yet, too fast I guess.

Vet advised me to have him dewormed once a month. This may explain his girth, worms make the dogs appear fat in the abdominal area but really they are just bloated.

Joel said...

Yeah, I've watched for that, but when I refer to girth I'm not talking about his stomach. He doesn't appear the least bit bloated, he's just growing sideways instead of high or long. Since Magnus died, Little Bear is now the broadest dog at the shoulder on the property including Fritz, the mutant Shepherd.

C.M. said...

Sorry to sound like such a darn bossy boots, but with almost as many children as I have toes, it sort of comes with the territory. Terrible habit don't cha know? Sometimes I forget to turn it off when I deal with adults.