“They finally got one,” I muttered, hot-footing it towards my two Schnauzers.
I rarely let my dogs out without their leash, because they tend to run off.
But it was Saturday morning, and I was letting them roam in the backyard, carefully watching the dogs with one eye, while watching ESPN Game Day, with the other. Something on TV caught attention, and by the time I looked back to check on the dogs, they had captured what I at first thought was a bird, but upon closer attention, could see was a rabbit.
Earlier in the summer, when the rabbits were regularly raiding my garden, I would sic my Schnauzers on those furry critters, and then watch in amusement as the dogs inevitably gave chase in the wrong direction. If the rabbits ran west, my boys would take off in hot pursuit to the east, and if the rabbits went east, the dogs would cover the west end of the garden. So, I was confident they would never actually catch one of those long-eared thieves and even made a game of watching my dogs run around in circles, like they knew what they were after, when they obviously had no clue, while meanwhile, the rabbits would hop, skip, and jump all the way to their rabbit holes, where they would feast on whatever they had managed to steal from my garden’s bounty.
But Saturday, Max had somehow managed to catch a rabbit. Whether the bunny was already slowed by an injury, allowing Max to grab him, or whether my dog had miraculously managed to make his own unassisted catch, I don’t know.
But there I was in my backyard on Saturday morning, shouting at Max to “let him go,” while Max was furiously barking back at me like, “What’s with you? I finally did what you’ve been telling me to do.”
At last, I was able to put myself in between injured rabbit and aggressive dog.
“Run rabbit, run,” I commanded the rabbit. “Here’s your chance to get away.”
He just stared at me, motionless, like he was a pacifist and I, with the Gestapo, held his life in the balance.
“I think this rabbit’s leg may be broken,” I hollered back to Lori, who by then was on the patio, curious to see what the commotion was all about.
“Should I let my dogs kill their prey and put the rabbit out of his misery? Or, should I rescue the critter?” I asked myself.
Now, before you accuse me of going all Bambi on you, like I’m about to name the rabbit, Benjamin Bunny, and nurse him along until he can get back to Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail, and Peter, while I meanwhile, sip on chamomile tea, let me tell you, I do know a thing or two about the killer instinct in my animals. Schnauzers were originally bred, back in Germany, to be guard dogs and to catch rodents. So, there you have it: if Max and Baylor could have read ancestry.com., they would have barked back at me, “See, we told you, we’re just carrying on an old family tradition.”
As for that rabbit, well, he was classified in the order of Rodentia, that is, a rodent, until, 1912, when, for some reason, they upgraded him to a new order, Lagomorpha. But when the Lagomorpha ravage my garden, I’m back in pre-1912 mode: those danged critters are nothing but rodents, and my Schnauzers have a perfect right to follow their natural-born instinct to give chase, even if they are direction-challenged.
But the Schnauzers had actually caught one this time and were anxious to finish off the helpless bunny, while I stood guard in between, momentarily keeping the dogs at bay.
I gave in to the pleading rabbit.
“Back in the house,” I ordered the dogs.
Soon I was on the phone to the veterinarian.
“Can you take an injured rabbit?” I meekly asked.
Marching back to the scene of the crime, armed with gloves and a box to rescue the injured bunny, I was in for another surprise.
That rabbit hobbled off before my very eyes, gingerly hopping through the shrubbery, twitching his nose, disappearing into the field beyond the fence line.
Maybe he was playing coy, or perhaps I underestimated the extent of his injury, or maybe he really was slowed by an injury, meaning, nature would take its course in the circle of life. I don’t know what that rabbit may have been up to, but I do know this: if next Spring, I see a rabbit with a gimpy leg, half-hopping it out of my garden, moving a step or two behind the others, but nonetheless loaded down with my produce, I’ll let my dogs give chase, mercifully making sure that tricky rabbit has a good lead on my dogs, who will, I’m sure, race in the wrong direction after those furry critters.