Any fan of Warner Brothers cartoons knows that Fudd's First Law is "Kill da wabbit, kill da wabbit, kill da wabbit..." My beloved bassador is a strict follower of this doctrine. She caught three wabbits in Pennsylvania (two dead, one wounded) and up until this morning she had the same score in Tennessee. If you count near misses, the count goes much higher. She has a two hundred pound anchor at the other end of her leash, so most of her encounters are misses, by a little or a lot.
This morning, about 45 minutes into our 1 1/2 hour walk, we encountered a rabbit lying in an unnatural position on Bellevue Road, up against the curb. Its left hind leg was bloody and obviously broken. Almost certainly, it had been hit by a car. It cowered and shivered and had to be in a lot of pain. At first, I restrained my wabbit killer while I weighed the options. As a former volunteer for Tamarack Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Center, my first thought was to try to capture it and figure out where I could take it and how I could get it there. Or I could take it to a vet and see what they can do. Or I could put it out of its misery. "How would I go about that?" I asked myself, as Grace strained and whined at the other end of the leash. Hmmm. We ran toward the bunny, and it marshaled its strength enough to take off running. But even with a two hundred pound anchor, Grace was able to catch it, shake it, kill it.
She carried it proudly for a few hundred yards, long enough for three other dogs to see that she had a fresh kill in her mouth, then she laid it down by a tree and we continued on our merry way. Was it my imagination, or did Grace have an extra spring in her step the rest of the way home?
