I'm weak and a coward and I suck

The BBQ Pit
1

My foster dog, who up to now has seemed the be the gentlest of souls, just bounded into the house with a bloody muzzle. Not his blood, though. a search of the yard revealed a baby possum, shredded in a manner amazingly similar to any chew toy you might see lying around my house.

However, the chew toys lying around my house are not ** alive ** , and struggling pitifully to get away from our pentrating flashlight, taking one step, then collapsing. Resting for a few minutes, then struggling to take another step before collapsing.

Of course, I can’t stand seeing the poor thing suffer, and the kind and decent (not to mention more sanitary) thing to do at this point would be to brain the beast witha large cement block. But there is no way on this earth that I could do that without vomiting instantly and bursting into tears. I just can’t. I am clear as a bell that it is far more cruel and selfish (and unsanitary) to let the creature drag itself all over our yard and then slowly die, in agony. I KNOW. But I suck.

Goddamn dog. I was totally on the fence about keeping him…well, he just made my decision for me.

Ugh.

I suck.

** Pump Action Gerbil ** is out there trying to convince himself that the possum will be okay, because he’s certainly not too interested in crusing it to death either.

But he just did. Ack. Hacked its head off.

Yuck.

2

Coooool. Was there any splatterage ?

3

yeah, well, dogs kill things. get used to it. Cats do it all the time, Dogs are just less successful most of the time because chasing down small animals by themselves is not the way dogs hunt in the wild. I don’t see how you can begrudge the dog for following it’s natural instincts. Remember, dogs are VERY territorial, I’ve never seen a dog that wouldn’t go after a strange animal that is invading its turf. If you can’t handle that, maybe a dog isn’t the pet for you.

4

I remember my cat bringing home a young rabbit one time. All of the skin had been flayed from its hind leg and there was a gaping hole in its belly. Unfortunately, it was still quite peppy. As it bounded around my porch in a panic, its guts started to oooze out of the hole. Eeeew. Mucho Disturbing, if you know what I mean.

I know this kind of behavior in cats is considered to be a form of “gift-giving” from cat to master. Maybe that applies to dogs too, perhaps he thought you’d like a new 'possum pouch?

In honor of this moment in your life, Stoid, I’ve written you a little ditty…
*sung to the tune of ‘pop goes the weasel’

All around the backyard fence
the puppy chased the possum
puppy thought 'twas all in fun
SPLAT goes the possum.

now you’ve got a possum corpse
and puppy’s face all bloody
stoid wants puppy out the door
baddog’s not her buddy

see the puppy beg and plead
see stoid cringe in terror
from the beast that has become
a wanton possum killer! *

:slight_smile: glad you had someone else there to take care of it for you Stoid.

bella–who’d hate to see a dog passed on for acting like a dog

5

bella, that was disturbing…but clever. You have a gift, my child!

6

I want to know what you did with the rabbit, belladonna.

I couldn’t kill it either, stoid. I’d probably get Mr. LolaBaby to smash it.

Where’s a barf smiley when we need one? :x

7

ahhh, see–at the time of the rabbit incident I was lucky enough to still be a lowly college student, home for the summer. So, in other words LolaBaby, I had my daddy take care of it. :o
God bless the men of this world.

thanks Tsubaki! Clever but disturbing, the story of my life…

bella

8

I agree.

When I used to work at the local Oldsmobile dealership years ago I brought home a cat that had been hanging around the lot for a few weeks. I was always a cat lover, and so was my dad (my mom hates all pets). I was a happy owner for a few months, and I assume “Cat” (as all cats owned by my family were named) had happily adjusted to his new home.

One terrible night, I was leaving home to go sleep over at my BF’s house, and as I drove off, I felt a sickening “bump” under my rear wheel of my truck. I immediately knew what it was (Cat had been hanging around in the garage and had a disturbing habit of lying in the street occasionally), and as I slowed and looked in my rear view mirror, I saw Cat thrashing around on the ground. Luckily I was far away enough to not see any gory details. I literally parked the truck in the middle of the street and ran inside my house, screaming at my dad what had happened. He went outside to collect Cat and assured me that he had died instantly, as I had run over his head. I am so thankful he was there to clean up what had happened. :frowning:

Needless to say I was hysterical for the rest of the night, and I don’t remember how I did it, but I eventually got to my BF’s house and continued my hysteria over there. The next day he took me to the Humane Society to adopt a kitten. “Dave” still lives with my dad (probably happy I don’t live there anymore, as are my parents).

9

I had two slugs in me, one lead, one bourbon, when trouble walked through the door. Blonde, as usual. kind of blonde a Greenie would clearcut a rainforest for. Before I could react, she trained a pair of 38’s on me, not the gun, the lethal kind…

I decided to play it cool.

“What’s the trouble, tits? I mean, Toots.” Damn. C-cups. Instant dyslexia, could only get worse. Suavlely, I pulled out a smoke and my trusty Zippo. Lit my nose.

“Its Fluffy. Fluffy has mangled a cute little…” The old waterworks started up, the ol’ testosterone lubricator. I offered her my handkerchief, she examined it with a pair of tongs and declined.

“So you need a hit man, huh? Someone to come over and rub out the vic, send it along to the Big Back Yard? So you come looking for a Y-chromosone…”

She stated batting the Big Browns at me. I was cornered for sure now, she was stroking the glands that turn mild-mannered hacky-sackers into KillBots. I gritted my teeth, and reached for the video cassette I had stashed under the desk. I tossed in nonchalantly onto the desk. Well, may it was pretty chalant. I was sinking fast.

“Whats that?”

“Video of your last conciousness raising session. About how men are smelly, selfish, and scratch themselves inappropriatly. About the cruel pleasure you take in making him get up in the middle of the night and trim his toenails. About how we dis the Goddess, and our toilets smell of beer pee. It’s all there, sister. What kind of local pet is this, anyway?”

“A Gaboon Viper. Probably too much for a wuss like you” She had dropped the subtlety, going for the nukes now, the ol’ Teeny Weenie ploy, the ol’ Hung Like a Bull Hamster Attack.

“So you won’t help po’ pitiful me? Oh, what shall I do, whereever shall I go?”

She was distracted, I dove for the window. Eight floors. Safer. Much safer.

“Next time you need something snuffed, call a lesbian.” I shouted on the way down. Luckily, I broke the fall with my face…

10

Hi - Larity…elucidator. god damn I love film noir.

I also have to echo the sentiments of 5HT, a dog that lives outside or runs around free outside is going to follow the instinct to hunt and ocassionally kill things. Perhaps you should have a done bit of research before taking in a dog that you will now have to abandon.

Seems to me you’re more distraught about a baby possum than a dog that will now be homeless.

I don’t meen to add to your apparent self loathing, but as the owner of an abandoned dog I get sort of touchy about these things.

11

Is it possible the dog saw itself as defending its territory from an intruder? My husband’s sister used to have a cat that would leave “gifts” for her tucked away in her shoes…a bird’s head, the ear of a rabbit, a squirrel’s tail.

12

Um, jar–I think Stoid said she was fostering this dog. Meaning, she’s providing a temporary home until a permanent one becomes available. My reading was that this incident merely convinced her that said permanent home would not be her own.

Not quite the same as pet abandonment, IMO.

bella

13

Animals do disturbing things like this (As my Rottie about the pack of baby bunnies we had to call him off of last week. He wanted one SO bad he was shaking). It’s what they do, especially if they’re in an area where they can run around free (a fenced yard). Part of pet ownership is dealing with the nasties, so maybe a dog or outdoor cat isn’t the best idea for you.

I’m sorry for your experience- seeing a half dead animal is always awful. Do try to remember, though, that dogs will hunt when left to their own devices and this could occur again.

The thing I’m curious about is: how did he get a hold of the animal without you or someone seeing it occur? I’m not being critical, but if you let an animal out unsupervised, it could get into untold trouble. What if he’d gotten hold of a neighborhood cat instead of a possum? Food for thought- maybe he shouldn’t be out unsupervised. (For the record, our two dogs are never, ever out unsupervised, as I don’t want them to get hurt or hurt anything)

Zette

14

Generally I agree with 5-HT in that as far as I find accpetable, I have no problem in seeing my animals follow their instincts. Luckily my two collies are far too concerned with trying to ‘herd’ each other and their collection of tennis balls rather than maiming any small fuzzy creature coming our way.

But there was this one time when I had to draw the line - I had an elderly cat, an old tom, who was a great hunter and would regularly try to teach me to hunt by bringing me mice and birds (‘See? There is free food out there, and if I poke this mouse and let it try to escape, then pounce on it and rip it to shreads, it is FUN!’). One day a stray, skinny 5 week old kitten wandered into my backyard, so I fostered it, much to the tomcat’s disgust, for the two weeks it took to rehome her. But after initial ‘keep-the-fuck-AWAY-from-me’ hissing, my cat settled in fine with her, and decided to give up on me and try to teach the little one to hunt instead. He started bringing LIVE mice into the house, letting them go in front of her, then stalking them down and killing them, noisily and fairly gruesomely. I could just about cope with the hypersonic squeaking and crunching of lil mouse-bones, and figured it was a temporary situation. The small pile of mouse-guts left over for me to clear away was nothing more than a one-kleenex job. So I thought, it’s all just part of owning a cat, let him have at it.

Then one night, I hear him struggling through the catdoor, and as I go through to check out what’s happening, he darts past me with a fully-grown rabbit in his mouth, practically the same size as him, a good three-times the size of the kitten, and squealing loudly. I had visions of friday-the-13th-esque blood-soaked scenes on my soft furnishings, and the LOUD wails of anguish the rabbit was giving off was just too much. Unfortunately, by the time I had managed to grab kitty by the scruff of his neck, the rabbit was barely breathing, bleeding from a deep wound to the throat and making awful sounds of distress. It couldn’t walk when I carried it outside, so I hit it hard with a shovel until it stopped breathing. Yes, I felt sick, and felt shitty that I had deprived my cat of his biggest catch so far, but it was the only way I could deal with the situation best for me.

I am not the sort of person to allow large scale blood-soaked massacres in my living room just to keep my pets happy. But I would never blame an animal for simply acting with its nature. I echo Zette in saying I am sorry for your distress, but it’s part and parcel of having a unsupervised pet.

15

Hey… Dogs are preditors. Be grateful the dog is obviously inexperienced and incompetant as a preditor… A real killer do would’ve left you with only scraps of fur (if that).

My father’s dog killed and swallowed a baby rabbit whole rather than let my step mother take it away. That dog knows how to kill.

16

I think Stoid would have preferred it if the dog had killed the possum, rather than leave it to suffer.

17

Calm down. The dog is a FOSTER…I am a VOLUNTEER for a RESCUE organization and I have thus far fostered five dogs and found every single one of them excellent homes, which would be the point. It’s just that each of them has been a potential keeper for us, that’s how we’ve gotten involved in this to begin with. And every time I turn another one down, the rescue people rejoice because it means they’ve still got me to foster yet another stray that we have pulled out of the shelter, and foster homes are very hard to come by. I’m doing a GOOD thing.

** Zette **, he snagged it on our fenced patio, which is attached to our fenced yard. I live in LA, we have critters in our yards.

As to this being the tipping point, we have noticed Winston being unusually concerned with a few spots in the yard the last week or so. He has been going in and out repeatedly every night, coming back in looking like he’s been trying to get into something (covered with shmutz, etc) so I tend to think this was probably something he’s been trying to do for days. Which indicates a prey drive that is too high for my tastes, especially since a prey drive that high oughta be apparent as it might be sublimated into ball chasing, and that is not the case here. It has been my good fortune not to ever have had a dog that would behave this way. Maggie (who is ALSO a rescue) has come upon several wild creatures and all she does is pant and wag her tail at them. I know it is not some freakish murderous thing, but it’s not like every dog does it, I and my family have had probably 2 dozen dogs over the last 40 years, and this is a first. ** Dr. Lao ** also has it exactly right: at least my cat has always eaten everything it tore up.

And Boris, I adore you. <smooch>

stoid

18

Ah! Of course.

19

Ahhh…same situation here (In NY). Ours haven’t brought in or left us any half eaten critters, though, happily.
Although once our cat ate…something (I don’t know what) and left a completely clean heart and two kidneys on the floor in our hallway. We never found a carcass of any sort, can’t imagine how she got whatever it was, and never solved the mystery. The parts were way too large to be a mouse or rat- the kidneys were about the size of a quarter each.

::shudder::

I know what you mean about getting a non-hunter, though. My Shar-pei wouldn’t kill an animal for anything. He has no interest in chasing, even a ball or frisbee. Then again, he thinks he is feline and acts accordingly, so that figures.

Zette

20

I’m surprised no one has mentioned rabies yet. Possums carry rabies-does Puppy have his shots?