Chronicle of a death foretold

[ksmith]

Gaby got the chipmunk.

I pulled into the driveway, then let the pups out to do pup things as I unloaded Kuro. I had lugged my stuff into the house and garaged Kuro, then walked out to check the raised bed when I spotted Gaby with a head sticking out of her mouth. I thought it was a frog at first because all I could see was pale underside of a throat and a U-shaped mouth. Then she dropped it and I realized what it was. Seeing as she and the old guy were inside all day, someone must have been feeling a little too self-confident and wandered too far from shelter.

Gaby dropped it when I told her to, and I disposed of it outside the fence. I confess to feeling a little upset. I don't care much about the squirrels and I actively dislike the mice, but we hadn't had chips around here for a few years because of the influx of coyotes and feral cats, and I like them. Yeah, I know, prey drive and all that. Nature red in tooth and claw, and little faces that look like Benji.

Comments

[topayz4.livejournal.com]

My youngest (just over a year) caught a prairie dog last Sat. He was very proud of himself.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Gaby treats her kills like toys. She keeps them beside her when she isn't burying them and digging them up again.

[cepetit.myopenid.com (from livejournal.com)]

Lucy (http://scrivenerserror.com/lucylit.shtml) is a vicious killer. In the last ten years, she's ensured quite effectively that we do not have wabbit pwobwems (33 of them), and she's caught and "disposed of" half a dozen each of birds and squirrels. She even brought me a dead rabbit on Father's Day a few years ago, right to the back door!

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

Even when you don't like a particular critter, it's still hard to see it dead or dying. It's called empathy, and I'm glad you have it. How much more horrible if you didn't, eh?

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

Pip, Scourge of Nature, stands in the garden waiting for the fledgling blackbirds to flutter by at nose height. With predictable results. Unlike Gaby, he refuses to drop prey on command. I caught it, I'm keeping it. You catch your own.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I've had trouble getting mice away from Gaby in the past. Maybe something in the tone of my voice this time caught her attention.

[equesgal.livejournal.com]

Most of our local squirrels have died off due to a weird strain of mange, so the chimpmunks are all over the place. After Arwen wiggled her paw out the screen door and caught one and brought it, LIVE!, into the house I've made sure she can't catch anymore. They are cute.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I'll keep an eye out for any others, but there isn't much I can do to save them. They hang around the bird feeder to pick up fallen seed, and Gaby knows it.