When Good Dogs Go Bad

Brie is a killer. I've known this since she was a pup. Her first summer, when she was only a few months old, she started bringing home ground hog corpses. MANY ground hog corpses. 23 dead little beasties that summer, and those were just the ones I saw. Some of them were as big as she was. But I didn't mind. Fewer ground hogs meant fewer ground hog holes for the horses to step in. I even considered renting her out to cattle farmers and other horse owners as pest extermination. The only problem I had was that she brought them home to marinate them in the horse trough before devouring. The horses weren't at all crazy about this and Junior would regularly tip over the 100 gallon trough and kick it around the field after she got her ground hog out, and sometimes before.

Today while I was out in the strawberry patch pulling weeds I heard her up in the trees barking and yapping at something. I jumped up and ran up the hill with the other dogs once the screaming started. I was just hoping it was the ground hog that had dug a ginormous hole in the side of the hill in the horse pasture, instead of the stray orange tabby that I've seen now and then at the barn. At one point the screaming sounded like a cat and my heart sunk. But then I got to the top of the hill and saw that she had a little brown body in her jaws and was just standing there tossing it around like a toy. When she saw me, she dropped the corpse and looked at me waiting for approval. That's when the corpse raised it's little baby raccoon head and whimpered.

If you haven't figured it out by now, I love animals. All animals (except ground hogs). I have a huge amount of compassion for animals and very little left over for humans. I know this is the way animals die. How few wild animals die of old age anymore if they're not at the top of the food chain? I know all this, but still. It was just a baby, only about 10 or 12 lbs. And it was adorable. I used to know an orphan raccoon by the name of Tiffy. Tiffy grew up well loved in a home with a family of cats, then after raccoon finishing school she was turned loose to live in the wild. I hear she has a great career, four well behaved children, and a loving husband now. Tiffy was awesome. She had this big orange plastic ball (I think it was actually a tacky 70's light shade) with a big hole in the bottom. Tiffy would curl her 25lb body into this little ball and roll herself around the floor. We used to say she was bowling for cats because at times it seemed she'd aim right for them.

And now I had a baby Tiffy lying there on the ground dying and whimpering at me. I had a brief huddle with myself to discuss it. Be strong, be tough, finish the little guy off and don't let him suffer. Raccoons carry rabies. Brie was just doing her doggie job in life. He would have probably raided the chicken coop eventually anyway. This is the way things are in the country, now toughen up and do what has to be done!

I didn't have my pocket knife on me for some reason. I always carry that thing. I wasn't going all the way back down to the house for a gun because it would take too long and I have no idea where Glenn keeps the ammo (maybe he's smarter than I thought). So I went in search of a large rock, all the time preparing myself for what I had to do. By the time I found a rock large enough to do the job, it wasn't needed any more.

Brie didn't even want to eat it. She just killed it because she could. Or because it was on her territory. Or because she was PMSing. Who knows. I just know I'll be thinking about his cute little face and hearing that whimper in my head for the rest of the night.