Yodeling

Usually I'm not around in the mornings to see or help with the dogs' morning routine. On my days off, my spouse keeps his usual routine and gets them fed, watered, and pottied and lets me sleep in as my work wake up time is 0300, and sleeping a few more hours is a big treat.

But, today, there was no way I could have slept in. True enough, I was doing a fairly good job of it until I heard "OH NOOOOO! HANNAH!!!!" My eyes snapped open.

Then I heard it...the yodeling of a standard poodle in hunt mode. She's spotted a rabbit in the back yard and she was on the move!!! Phoebe went to the edge of the porch and just stopped, not even trying to get into the act.

I could hear Robert moaning in between calls to try to get Hannah's attention. Well...that's not gonna happen till she's either caught the rabbit or the rabbit gets away.

I began to roll out of bed, then decided it wouldn't do any good anyway. I've seen that dog hunt rabbit before, even gotten bitten as a result of trying to separate Phoebe and Hannah from the last unfortunate.

Robert had never seen Hannah in full hunt mode before. Suddenly the yodeling stopped. It was silent in the yard, much to the relief of all the neighbors, I'm sure, who could not have been amused at hunting dogs at 0545!

"What do I do?" he asked.

"Nothing...you just let her have it," I replied. And then I rolled out of bed.

I pulled my boots out of the closet and headed for the kitchen door. In the meantime, he'd gotten Phoebe and Yama back inside.

Hannah was down at the far end of the yard, snuffling her kill.

I pulled my coat on over my jammies and carefully slid my way across the icy yard. She headed back toward the deck and inside. I went back for the rabbit.

Gods, I hate picking them up when they're still warm! I hate picking them up when they're cold, too, but when they're warm they're just so recently dead you know?

Rabbit disposal finished, and I was back in the house with a nosy poodle who kept checking me out to see what I'd done with her bunny.

Gallows humor abounds - I keep hearing Elmer Fudd singing "Kill da wabbit...kill da wabbit..."