Our feist dog Hannah will catch and eat squirrels, rats, birds, even snakes.
Er…how did she catch three black labs at once? Were they puppieS? Did she hurt them bad?
The late and lamented Bitz the Wondermutt (1/2 Rott, 1/2 black Lab) was incredible.
Not too long after I got her I started finding dead pigeons and doves in the back yard, at the rate of about one a week. They didn’t seem damaged at all, just stone cold dead. I knew something was up, but I didn’t link it to Bitz until a little while later. I was sitting at the patio table, she was lying in the sun near the fence.
All of a sudden she focused like a laser beam and crawled, crouched, about three feet, taking just forever and not making any sound I could hear. I was about five feet away. All at once she gave a WOOF and lunged, having startled the dove I didn’t see land, caught it in her mouth, shook it like a rag doll and carried it over to drop at my feet. Not a single toothmark. If it weren’t a little soggy looking I’d have had no idea.
What the hell could I do? I gave her enthusiastic praise and went to grab her a cookie. When you see that kind of natural talent and instinct, it’s a thing of beauty.
I also once watched her chase down, catch and kill a rabbit that was doing its damnedest to get away while we were camping once. Seeing a greyhound run after prey is beautiful, seeing a rottweiler do it is enthralling.
One of my sweetest and most heartbreaking memories of her was about a year or so before she passed. She was around 10 at that time and due to an old knee injury her running days were a few years gone. We were walking through the park near my house and I dropped the leash to let her roam around. The park is just a dinky little greenspace in my subdivision so there was no way she was getting out of my sight or into trouble, so I’d often drop the leash and let her follow her nose around for a while.
After a minute or so of just wandering, she started sniffing on a scent. She followed it a few feet and then pricked up her ears. Her neck stretched out, her tail went straight with her body and her left front paw came up. There was a covey of quail in the bush five feet in front of her. It thrilled me and broke my heart all at the same time, like she was saying, “I can’t catch the little bastards any more, but if you want them, they’re right there.” She had no “pointer” in her background and was never trained as a hunting or gundog; so I never figured out where that point came from, but it happened a couple more times before she got sick.
Sure. Depends on the dog. Rural dogs catch, and eat, critters all the time (I grew up in the boonies).
My oldest dog is a killer, but not an eater. She has killed a baby rabbit, 4 kittens, about 10 rats, lots of mice, and once, an iguana. My Shepherd mix loves to hunt mice and other tiny things, but when he catches them he just holds them in his mouth for awhile, then spits them out to chase them again. He does eat the flies and other bugs he catches out of the air, though.
My youngest dog is as fast as a rabbit, but he doesn’t have a kill instinct. He’s never grabbed anything he’s caught up to.
My friend’s Jack Russell here in the burbs catches and kills squirrels and rabbits all the time. Sometimes his ownder takes them home and cooks it for both of them. 
My old border collie/lab mix Jaco once brought me a dead possum. At least I thought it was dead, until it got up and ambled away. We were both quite surprised.
Back in the 90’s, when I lived in MD, I had a dog named Sandy. Sandy was a 25lb mut with some cocker/springer spaniel something in her. She was very spry but I had never seen her do anything really athletic. I had a fenced in yard and would simply open the back door to let her out and she could run all she wanted. The squirrels in the back yard would tease her, waiting until she was let out before scrambling to safety. Sandy would get all worked up when squirrels were present, often bashing her head on the storm door after I would open the inside door (usually as soon as I would touch the handle but it wasn’t unlatched yet).
One day she timed it perfectly, opening the door with her head and was in full stride before she left the (small) porch. Mr Squirrel must have panicked, as he didn’t head for the nearby tree or side of the yard - he headed for the rear fence with Sandy in full sprint right behind him.
Let me describe the yard - it was about 200 ft long with a 6 ft hill at the very back with my neighbor’s 4 ft chain link fence at the top. The squirrel was about 50 ft from the door, 150 ft from the back and literally 6 ft from the closest tree. Along the side of my property (perpendicular to the chain link) was a 6 ft privacy fence.
Mr Squirrel runs up the hill, jumps on top of the chain link and (instead of just going over to safety) begins to run along the top of it with Sandy in hot pursuit about 2 feet behind and running alongside the fence. Mr Squirrel makes the leap from the top of the chain link fence to the privacy fence. Sandy leaps at the exact same time and snags the poor squirrel in mid flight. They both then crash into the privacy fence and tumble to the bottom of the hill. Sandy gets up with Mr Squirrel in her mouth and starts vigorously shaking her head side to side (the death shake) . I’m standing at the door in my underwear (I had just woke up), so I can’t run out. I feel like I just witnessed something from “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom”. I start screaming "Drop It! Drop It! Drop It!
I finally get her attention, she drops the squirrel and comes back inside. I put on some clothes and go out, seeing a grey blob at the back of the yard, so I figure I’m cleaning up dead squirrel. As I get closer I see it’s just a squirrel tail so Mr Squirrel must have gotten away to tease another dog another day.
My beagles have killed 3 ground hogs. They do not belong in the garden.
Nordberg caught a squirrel and squished it to death about 2 months ago. It was bad because as she chewed it to death amid its squealing and squeaking. it was in front of 5 kids waiting for a school bus.
Quincy was a mole dog. She would walk along and smell a mole underground. He would jump in the air and hit the ground with both front paws digging at once. Then he would come up with a mole by the tail. He killed at least 10 of them.
We had a terrier mix in high school that would catch rodents. He also successfully fished.
Erp! That should have been: Luckily she does NOT kill these catches, does NOT kill. Hopefully that was understood from context.
We have a terrier mix who’s left us a graveyard of squirrels and birds in our backyard.
My “favorite” was the day I had to break up a doggie tug’o’war game with a carcass.
I have 7 Jack Russells that are highly efficient killers. Squirrels, Rabbits, Rats, Snakes, Lizards, Egrets, etc. Nothing small that comes into our yard lives, luckily the big deer can escape.
Mama dog is the most deadly, the others will sometimes corner something, but she doesn’t play at all, rush in, quick snap and shake and its all over. She is also the smallest. Katie has been seen catching birds in flight that are dumb enough to swoop into the yard.
Just thought of a flipside. My last Golden was an incredibly gentle soul. She and my son’s rat used to play together all the time. And we were convinced from the way she interacted with the squirrels that both sides knew it was not a matter of life or death. At times you’d swear the squirrels were taunting her.
The most incedible incident was one time we were hanging out in the yard, and there were a bunch of mourning doves at the feeder. Daisy ever-so-slowly crept up behind a bird on the ground, and the bird actually let her touch her with her nose and sniff her, without making any attempt to fly away. Quite an inimidating beast, that dog! 
Our next door neighbor has some kind of terrier. Several years, some crows were repeatedly dive bombing him until he caught (and ate) two of them. The crows left our street for the rest of that year, but they’re back. Noisy creatures.
I was about 7, they attacked me on my way home from the bus stop. She came right through an electric fence and fought them off. Two were badly enough injured that they were put to sleep right away. The third was also, but only after the game warden (or whatever the dog catcher’s office was called) took the owners to court.
I still get teary just thinking about her - I really miss that dog.
When I was a kid we had a Westie, Sam (Sam the Second, actually.) We had to tear up the bathroom floor one winter and then we had a mouse problem. He’d sit in the kitchen doorway and wait until we went to bed and then catch the living crap out of the mouse population. They’d all be lined up by my mom’s chair in the morning - sometimes as many as ten at a time. He knew his business.
He wanted desperately to catch a squirrel but it was always beyond him. One day he ran one up a tree and we think it had a heart attack and died - fell down, anyway. He picked it up and shook it until if it wasn’t dead before it certainly was then, and he was so damned proud of it.
Never ate any kills, as far as we could tell - just bagged 'em and left 'em for us.
Oh, yes. We’ve had them kill rabbits and birds and even a skink once - husband found that by stepping on half of it (the other half was lying nearby). A possum got away with its life by playing dead (amazing to see that actually work!) and they would have offed the neighbor’s cat if my husband hadn’t been right there to break it up (dumb cat - it’s climbed over our fence and been in our yard three times - it can’t seem to figure out nothing good happens when it does that). Tough has also found two bats (already dead) which I was completely unthrilled about - that required phone calls to the vet and animal control since bats are such a potent rabies vector here.
We have a bird feeder in our yard - it’s a popular place for squirrels, pigeons and the like to meet up.
Our golden retriever (Windsor) will try to creep up on them, and they just completely ignore him. I mean, it’s downright rude, they hold him in such contempt It’s absolutely hilarious - he’ll have his nose down, his butt up in the air and tail just waggin’ away like a fan - inching along the ground. They continue to ignore him, until finally he just can’t take it anymore - and he’ll take off at breakneck speed only to watch them all scatter just before he can get there.
He’ll come back up to the porch - and watch them all come back to the feeder.
Lather, rinse, repeat for the next hour or so
Now, we had a cat when I was in high school that was a natural hunter. It started bringing home bugs and stuff as a tiny tiny kitten. By a few months it was bringing home small birds, which soon became large birds. Then bats. Then squirrels. Then it started bringing home rabbits - rabbits that were probably twice his size :eek:
We started nervously making jokes about when it would start bringing home deer. And when a neighbor mentioned that his dog had gone missing, I swear everyone in the room turned and looked at the cat…
The cat died when it was run over by a car; I swear it was probably trying to drag it down and bring it back…
My dog catches maybe one squirrel for every 30 or so she chases. Those she catches, she pins to the ground for a moment. I yell, “leave it” and she lets it up and it takes off.
Great user name/question combo, btw.
I was visiting my brother and his wife (they have two dogs) and the oldest dog (a bulldog beagle mix) brought me a gift while I was sitting on their porch. She gave me a half eaten bird. Yuck.
Their purebred beagle loves hunting and is always catching birds, mice, rats, etc. Eek.
My golden has caught 2 rabbits and 2 groundhogs (and a case of fleas) in her time. She eats the EYES out of them before I can get her to give up. It’s gross. She also eats the eyes off her toys…
She also caught an already-wounded carrier pigeon that ended up being fine, other than a broken wing. I had the wing set at a vet (really!) and found the owner. The owner probably took the bird home and put it down.
I don’t think she’ll ever catch a squirrel or a chipmunk. But she stalks them like crazy! The chipmunks at my dad’s place scurry up the downspouts and she tries to chase them up there. Dad’s downspouts are a dented mess.