Mozzie got a bird. Or maybe he found a bird…hard to say, since I didn’t witness the event. I let the Direwolves out for morning potty and settled in the chair on the deck. A moment later, they were in the side yard, where the fence is only about ten feet out from the house, and I noticed they were both standing over something on the ground, examining it very closely.

Move along. Nothing to see here…

Damn. I’ve been through this before, primarily with Ozark, as I mentioned in this recent post about his fondness for capturing bunnies, which it turns out are not very durable.

Mozzie also found some baby bunnies last spring. He couldn’t get to the ones under the enclosed deck, where the nest turned out to be,  but a couple were just big enough to venture out, and it didn’t go well for them. I eventually rescued and relocated the remaining little hoppers to prevent further unpleasantness.

The boys also surprised a possum one night, but I don’t think it was dead. It was likely just doing its “I’m dead, please don’t kill me deader” bit, and I used the pooper-scooper to put it in the woods outside the fence.

I don’t think Mozzie caught this bird “on the fly,” unless he flushed it and it bonked into the fence and stunned itself. Or it might’ve already been injured when he found it.

When I saw them, Oliver (being a poodle) lost interest in about three seconds and trotted off. I’m pretty sure the bird was still moving then. Mozzie, however, picked it up and tried to make off with it, so I had to corner him. He dropped it, and by now it was dead, so I put it outside the fence.

I have a bird hospital box (an Amazon box with some hand towels in it, very high-tech) for when birds bash into the sliding door, but thus far haven’t needed to use it, because it turns out birds are about as durable as bunnies, which is not very. Once again, I didn’t need to use it today.

For a twitchy, nervous little dog who is afraid of things like the sound freezer drawer opening, ice rattling, rustling of a plastic bag, or dishes rattling when I get a pan out of the cupboard, it’s odd he has this much prey drive. Though now that I think about it, his fears are mostly sound-related. Since baby bunnies and injured birds don’t sound at all like me getting the mixer out, I guess that explains it.

It’s like if you found out the shy kid who always sits by himself on the bus is secretly a ninja.

I shouldn’t be surprised. He’s a golden retriever, a sporting breed. But he dislikes unexpected things, and it seems like if he encounters a surprise bunny in the yard, he should slink rapidly in the opposite direction.

Now spring is upon us, and I just hope Mama Bunny has decided to find another spot to raise this year’s babies. While the enclosed deck is definitely secure, at least now that Oliver can no longer squeeze under it, it is still in a fenced yard inhabited by two canines, and the rabbits have to come out sometime.

How do your dogs deal with wildlife in their yard? What’s the most disturbing or surprising thing they’ve caught?