Lately I’ve been trying to make sure I go for a walk every day–mostly because I want to get rid of some fat (working desk jobs is a damned hazard, and now that I’m working in the NW Gourmet Gulch it’s just gonna get worse!) but also because I have these dogs…
Everybody knows you gotta walk the dogs, it’s a ritual and you’re a horrible human being and a poor excuse for a pet owner if you don’t. For a while there when SpaceDawg was laid up with her dicky arthritic leg I had an excuse of sorts to slack off the exercise, which is partly why I have all this fat now. (The other reason is that I like to eat, dammit! ANYWAY!) So I try to take the dogs out every day on the bike trail and we walk at least a couple miles, sometimes it’s all the way up Powell Butte–depends on how I feel at the time.
Now the other day a friend was over leaving her Dash with Himself to tart up and it was time to go walk and Widget was vibrating with anxiety that there might not BE a walk and maybe not a tennis ball throw session either and his antsiness level was at about DEFCON GAZILLION so I talked my friend and Himself into accompanying me in the gloaming for a stroll down the bike trail. It was a lovely evening, clear and slightly chill and the blackberries are just starting to bloom all along the trail and there are frogs croaking and little hummingbirds perched on the overhead wires–you don’t often see hummingbirds perching at all, ever notice?
Another thing that’s very common this time of year along the bike trail are Stupid Baby Bunnies. The blackberry thickets supply perfect habitat for rabbits and there are a shitload of them living in there. Right about now is the time when the first spring litters are getting big enough to go out on their own, and the verge of the bike trail is burgeoning with lush grasses and weeds–perfect bunny salad pickin’s. So we see SBBs all the time, sometimes dashing into the thickets or running across the trail, but also quite often just frozen in the underbrush, paralyzed with indecision as we approach–“EEK! Dogs AND people, should I run? Or just stay put? Oh no! Run? Sit? PANIC!” until they finally decide that running is probably a good option and in two leaps they’re safely hid in impenetrable blackberry thorn fortresses. Widget is fast as hell and he just loves to chase the little barstids back and forth until they finally lose him in the brush. He’s always on high alert, ears up and looking for some SBB to terrorize, quartering back and forth with his doggie radar on eleven, he is so ready!
SpaceDawg, on the other hand, slouches right along like it ain’t no thang. She alerts on running SBBs but she knows full well she has less than zero chance of catching one, since even in her prime she wasn’t a fast runner and now that she’s a tad elderly she’s way slow. There’s one thing about Space, though, that hardly anybody knows which is that she may not have much fast, but she does have a world of quick. She has an incredibly strong prey drive that’s hardwired into her–there’s no decision time when she decides to pounce on something, it’s instantaneous and she’s VERY powerful when she gets moving.
Is the foreshadowing working here?
I’m toodling right along, talking with my friend, Himself has been exercising Widget by sprinting off on his bike so Widget can chase him, then the dog doubles back and runs back to check on me–when we walk two miles he probably runs five… SpaceDawg is sniffing all the P-mail along the trail, snuffling away happily, then suddenly she translocates about seven feet to the left, yanking my arm sideways and if she’d leapt a foot further I’d probably have a dislocated shoulder. I stumble and catch myself and I look down at SpaceDawg, who’s crouched down in the edge of the blackberries, head down, snorting and rooting at something between her front paws. Uh oh–that’s usually a very good sign that some small rodent has met its maker.
Now I’m pretty sure it’s a lost cause, but I yank up on SpaceDawg’s leash, hoping that whatever she caught is just stunned and might yet get away. But no, sure as shit, her mouth is clamped around something–kinda hard to see since it’s nearly dark out. I look closer and there’s a cute pair of itty bitty pink bunny feet hanging out the front of her jaw, twitching slightly, and the damned dog is gulping as fast as she can trying to get the thing down her gullet before someone takes it away from her. I have her choke collar yanked tight, hoping to restrict her long enough to get it away, and Himself has sprinted up on his bike to assist–then we both just stop and realize that our fluffy cute widdle Malemute has transformed into a primal eating machine and furthermore that neither one of us wants to A) get near that snapping, toothy maw of hers and B) touch the twitching, saliva coated, probably dead bunny anyway. So I slacked off the leash and in one mighty gulp the bunny was gone.
My poor friend was slack jawed in horror at the whole scene and I couldn’t help but say “Aw, isn’t she cute? Why don’t you let her give you a big old lick on the face?” before dissolving into helpless giggles. We had to have a long session of self medication in order to restore our equanimity, and I suspect that SpaceDawg has received her very last head scritch from my friend. Something about coming face to face with nature in the raw can polarize a person just a bit…
Evolution in action–that’s one SBB who won’t be passing along defective “RUN NOW!” genes to another generation. Yeah, it’s a little disgusting, but I’ve found rats, gophers, star nosed moles and squirrels who made the mistake of assuming that any dog as big as Space couldn’t possibly be fast enough to catch them. We’re pretty much used to it by now, but I must admit watching it happen and especially watching her so determinedly swallow the SBB whole was daunting. And pretty disgusting, as well.
So now SpaceDawg’s other nickname is [Wallace & Gromit] Bun Vac 9000… [/W&G]
