True. But one of the cats is a really good hunter, and the dog’s not much of a hunter at all. That cat’s been trying to teach him; but he’s mostly interested in the prey as a toy after the cat’s already finished it off.
Here you’re supposed to report it; the police will ask if you want the deer, if you don’t (not everybody’s prepared to dress one out on the spot, if at all) they’ll take it and get the meat to food pantries.
About 750’ to the next nearest house, here. And there are lots of bushes.
– yeah, that’s a ‘what sidewalks?’ area technique. Except, as I said, when your dog will smell it out and bring it back to the house.
When warm, I wear sandals mostly, so no open-toed kicking of squishy dead things.
And, as I said above, I wanted to see how long it took the neighbors to move it.
Day 4, Thursday, is garbage day. Their cans are at the curb, meaning they dragged them within a couple of feet from the corpse. Which is now a pretty desiccated husk. Wife couldn’t take it any more. She pulled a disposable foil baking pan from their recycling, scooped it up, and perched it atop their (lidless, overflowing) trash can. I told her she oughtn’t comingle recycling w/ trash…
When I was living in a small Ontario city, I once encountered a full-grown raccoon corpse (with no obvious signs of trauma) on the sidewalk while walking to work, next to a small industrial lot. I thought about calling the city to remove it, but figured that someone else would get to it.
The next day it was still there, staring at me as I passed. On the third day, I didn’t see it at first.
(gross part spoilered)
But I realised that it was now a skeleton plus a bit of hair and a wriggling mass of maggots. The image of grabbing a handful of maggots and stuffing them in my mouth came unbidden to my mind and I almost hurled.
The day after it was basically gone. I don’t know if someone swept away the bones or if there was some kind of scavenger that finally took up the task.
Which reminded me of an old cartoon of someone sitting on a bench talking to someone standing:
“That guy across the park is the laziest person. He hasn’t gotten off that bench all day.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve been sitting here watching him.”
A gardener said that a baby possum had run into our garage a week or two ago, and we looked and looked for it, but couldn’t find it. We assumed it had run out again. But yesterday it turned up, dead, lying in the middle of the garage.
Mr. brown used a shovel to put it out in the street, just out of the gutter, with plans to put it into the trash cans which were due to be wheeled out to that general area within a few hours. But between the time we put it out there and trash can time, it disappeared. I checked our Ring camera: the possum was there when the camera came on while a pedestrian passed by, but half an hour later, it had disappeared. I was hoping to see a coyote or stray dog snag it and run off, but no. And the possum wasn’t playing dead - it was a truly stiff corpse. Poor thing probably died of thirst or starvation during the week and a half it was hiding in the garage.
I would have moved it to the compost pile when it was fresh. Once it gets bloated or dried, I’m not touching it.
When i find dead stuff on the sidewalk or lawn, i generally move it out of the way. But once i was mowing the lawn and found half a rabbit, with the guts stretched out across the grass. I just avoided it and mowed around it. The next day i checked, and it had totally disappeared.
Walking down a street in Brazil with a Canadian girl. She goes to kick a small paper bag into the gutter. Problem was, someone had puked it in. The paper was good and soft! Her sandaled foot went right through it and splattered all up her leg.
A few years ago, one of the neighborhood cats I feed brought me a squirrel as a thank you gift, as they are wont to do on occasion. It was left on my doormat. I took the doormat out to the oak tree in the front yard which has a wooden flower box surrounding it and dumped the body there. It’s a graveyard for these gifts. The next time I went out, the squirrel was back but now headless. Two of its legs were laid out next to it and beside them, some organ. Nice presentation but I took the mat back out to the tree and dumped it. The next time I came out, just the tail was there. This time I accepted the gift and bagged it. Then I snuck it into the trash.
Years ago a small group of my coworkers and I would go for walks as a break. Being keyboard commandos, we needed the fresh air and exercise. The return leg of our loop took us along a rear driveway that was seldom used by pedestrians. We discovered a dead rat on our first walk that had probably been hit by a car. It had been dead awhile and was pretty flat. Nearly completely dessicated. Eventually (weeks after we reported it to the facilities people) someone scraped it off the asphalt and disposed of it. But a shadow image – a very accurate one – was left there and remained for over a year.
This was the same complex where a skunk got on the roof – where all the ventilation was – and died. They let us go home for the day.
This. I could call it in to Animal Control, but I’ve got a flat-nosed shovel that works well for such things. I’d assume that the rules for animal feces applied and double-bag it before dumping it in our bin.
If more of my brain cells were firing, I’d tell you the story of not really my neighbors’ dog in the car wash driveway.
I was about to say I really haven’t ever noticed seeing a dead animal on a sidewalk here in Manhattan (squished flat rats in the street, yes) and then today I walked past a dead pigeon! It was near a trash can so I’d assume it’ll get removed with the garbage by sanitation.
On my block, one of the parents would have disposed of it immediately.
Had I been the OP and had noticed the homeowners leaving it on the sidewalk, I would have gathered up my varmint shovel and flung the carcass back into their yard after the first day. Anger makes it much easier to deal with such issues.
The neighbors who used to live on the other side of my side backyard stopped tending their backyard at least 20 years before. It was a mass of 10-ft-tall impenetrable brambles. They could only enter/exit the house out one side door as the rest were blocked by brambles. We called it Grey Gardens. Whenever we’d find a dead animal in our yard, we’d just toss it over the fence - and it would be gone within a day. Thankfully, they finally sold the place and moved on, but I still refer to the yard as the Pet Semetary.
Worst thing around these parts are unscrupulous deer hunters bringing the carcasses (after they’ve foraged the good parts) and dumping them on the county road.
It takes a surprisingly long time for it to decompose.
I live far enough off the road to not be bothered. It just looks so bad. If it’s close to the gate I get one of the guys to go push it in the brush with the tractor.
If feral pigs are hit and die on the road no one wants to even do that. They are decomposing before they die, I think.
There are just so many of them.
Full disclosure - I have a bit of an attitude WRT some of my neighbors as to how they maintain their homes, and this neighbor in particular for having the nicest home on the block but being somewhat trashy IMO.
I’m often surprised at the amount of trash around. When I was a kid, we had a girls’ HS at the end of the block, and the students would drop candy wrappers, cigarette butts, etc. My dad instilled in me that anytime I walked up to my house I picked up whatever trash was lying about. We like a nice looking (not overly manicured/tortured) front yard when we approach/leave by foot, bike or car. I realize other people don’t care - but it still somewhat surprises me. Sometimes there will be a piece of trash - like an empty can - in the middle of someone’s lawn. It sorta surprises me that they will not notice and dispose of it. Sometimes I’ll just see how long it sits there (maybe getting run over by a mower!) Other times, my wife and I will bring a trash bag with us and pick up the trash we see.
The dead squirrel folk seem to yin and yang. Like I said, they had a rehab job which had to cost several hundred $k. By far, the priciest house on a block of $5-800k homes. But when they put out their recycling, they just strew cardboard boxes across their parkway (and they buy A LOT of stuff in cardboard boxes!) In addition to looking trashy, to me it suggests a disrespect for the trash guys (and is not how you are supposed to put out your recycling.)
No, this is not at all something that keeps me awake seething at night. Just a relatively minor thing I notice and form opinions about in my extremely uneventful life.
Final point - I bike with my sister. Last Friday I related this story during our ride. As we approached my home, I pointed out the house, saying, “That is the house with the dead squirrel.” She continued on her way home and I turned down my street - to see the guy sitting on his front porch from where I imagine he could have easily heard my remarks! Oops!
