WABBITS, WABBITS EVWYWHERE

I suspect the latter. For example on our "big walk" in the morning I have seen a totally happy rabbit biting down a dandelion stem only a few yards away from the dogs. The bunny was either so hungry that it didn't care about the pending danger or so confident in its ability to run away to safety that it didn't bother moving. At any rate with each munch I became more apprehensive about what would happen when Patches and Skittles finally looked in the correct direction and saw him. We were still on the driveway. Bunny was on the grass. Then suddenly---realization, running, rabbit and dogs, yelling, and stopping (the dogs not the rabbit). Bunny made it safely into the tree line, and the dogs came back to me and we returned to the original reason for our walk-morning business. At least my two Shih Tzu's get their exercise!

Lately Patches has shown himself to be a mighty hunter. Small (ground clearance of about 4 inches) but mighty. He has learned that rabbits like to live UNDER things, like bushes and the roots of trees. In fact several years ago I was trying to clean out underneath the apple trees and I discovered a large HOLE under the roots. This could have been an ideal place for a nest-dry, secret, safe. Unfortunately Patches is nosy, and his mantra is "no tree left alone". He is small enough to work his way under the branches, and more than once his little explorations have resulted in a sudden explosion of rabbits exiting their home. He is a smart dog and remembers where these rabbits were. So he knows that the evergreen bush at the place where the walkway and the driveway meet has been home to a family of rabbits, and also the evergreen tree at the telephone pole where the cable used to run before we went to dish TV is a likely site. He checks these locations faithfully on every outing.

There is another conglomeration of plantings, intended and unintended, that was the site of the worst rabbit massacre I have ever seen. It was first a spirea bush. Then as the mystery trees produced berries, many forms of wildlife ate them and, as is expected, released the seeds in their waste. The branches of the spirea bush must have been very inviting because an entire new mystery tree began growing right up through the center of it. Ad to this a third sort of bush and you have a picture of this strange multi-form plant. Then one day as he was leaving, my husband told me to watch out for something on the driveway that he had nearly tripped over that morning while he was taking the dogs out for their first "piddle trot". I went out to look when we went for our "big walk" later only to find a dead bunny. Since dead animals will attract flies that produce maggots, I make a point of securely bagging the unfortunate prey. But no sooner had I gotten my materials to do this, Patches came up to me wagging his tail and producing ANOTHER RABBIT. I told him to "drop" as if it was one of his toys, and he obeyed me, but with a strange look. He couldn't have known how sad I was at seeing another dead rabbit, and I had to pat him for being a "good boy" and letting it go. This must have encouraged him and he went back under the bush and came out with a THIRD RABBIT. I repeated my "drop" command and took this new rabbit when Patches went back to the spirea and emerged with a FOURTH RABBIT. All the while he was wagging his tail as if he was bringing me gifts.

What could I do? The breed that was supposed to be "lap dogs" was actually hunters. I should have figured this out when Skittles was a puppy and he emerged from an apple tree with a huge mole halfway down his throat. When I pulled it out of him and disposed of it, he promptly emerged with a second one. His little dance that consisted of jumping, sniffing, barking, routing, and grabbing was comical, but not for the mole that became a meal. Skittles' insistence on consuming his prey immediately was unpleasant. Pulling it out of his mouth and stomach was more so, but I couldn't let him consume something that was full of bones and hair which would make him sick. On both occasions, Skittles was non-plussed at having his "food" pulled back out of his mouth and gut, and he ignored me the rest of the day. Unlike Patches' "gift bunnies", Skittles' moles were clearly intended to be consumed. Yuck!