playing with dead things

So, it's a little disconcerting to walk outside and find your dog running around with an animal carcass in its mouth. I shouldn't be surprised since she now has a lot of land to explore and was bound to find some poor thing's mutilated body. I just don't like the thought of my dog playing with it.

It was a beautiful, sunny spring afternoon when I walked outside to see Althea (our dog) running around gleefully with what kind of looked like a rag in her mouth. I immediately knew it was something she shouldn't have, and as I got closer, I saw that it was definitely the shriveled up body of some animal. After frantically ordering her to drop it, I studied the creature and thought that this thing was a mongoose - and I was like, cool a mongoose! - but that thought was quickly dispelled by my husband who informed me that mongooses do not actually live in this part of the world.

Turns out the poor animal was just a boring ole squirrel.

 

  

In my defense, this thing is way past looking like a squirrel. 

I have no clue how long it had been dead or by what means it met its end, but I am pretty sure that Althea did not actually kill it. So far, she has not had the best of luck in catching any animals, especially squirrels. Plus - and I may be naive here about my dog's killer instinct - Althea would never actually kill an animal.

Why would I think that, you ask?

Here is proof:

Once, while at my parent's house, my father noticed that she was carrying around something in her mouth. After opening her mouth, he discovered she was carrying around a little, newborn bunny that she had found in their backyard. The bunny was perfectly safe and my father was able to put the unharmed bunny back in its hole, which he had no idea was there in the middle of their backyard, and put up a little makeshift fence to keep Althea out of it (and getting her little baby bunny back).

And there you go...my dog is the absolute sweetest thing!

Does this look like the face of a killer...

It is more likely that something else killed this squirrel (right?!) and unfortunately left the carcass in a place that Althea could find it and enjoy it. It could have been our cat Hank or a number of other animals that wander around out there.

Even if she did not kill the thing, Althea still enjoyed running around with it, so I had to discard the carcass (on my own!) with a very long stick. And I guess I need to resign myself to the fact that there may be many more dead animals brought to us by our own animals.

I just hope and pray I never see them in the actual act of killing...