Stella - The Bunny Killer

Like any pet owner, I love my dog. She's a pretty yellow lab. She goes well with my decor too. However, she is a savage beast Bunny Killer and I have a hard time getting past that. There have been two instances.

A few years ago, Victor came home from work to find Stella in the garden. She would not come when he called her and so he went out to see what she was up to. As he approached her he could hear a tiny little squeaking sound. When Stella turned to face him she had a tiny little hairless bunny hanging from her mouth. Her tail was wagging. She had dug a bunny nest out from under the neighbours side of the fence. She did a real number on them too as she pulled them through into our garden. I won't go into detail. Why do I know exactly what the scene looked like? Because Victor left it there for me to clean up! I don't think he wanted to deal with it. The little squeaking sound haunted him for days. So I took up the three little bunnies that were injured but not dead and brought them into the house as any mother would do. When I called the Humane Society they told me the hairless heroes were hopeless. Without Moms milk they would die. I was advised to return them to their nest! With a heavy heart I tuck them back in under the fence with some cotton balls and dirt. Victor covered the area up with some boards and small concrete slabs we had in the garage. I was less worried.

The next night there was a rainstorm. Stella was outside when I walked into the kitchen to get a tea. I looked out the patio door to see that she was back in the garden by the fence...where we put the bunnies back. The rain was really coming down and there was lightening and thunder. It was like a scene out of a horror movie as I saw her frantically digging at the bunny area of the fence. I called her into the house and sent her downstairs. My heart sank as I looked out into the garden. Maybe she didn't get to them. But maybe the rain caused the bunnies to slide out of my little patchwork nest under the fence.

The next morning I went out to find little bits of cotton strewn about the garden and no bunnies in sight.

It was about a month before I could even look at Stella after that night. How can a sweet female dog be so evil? I know it's in their nature somehow -she is a hunting dog after all. But how can she eat another animals babies? Oh the humanity!

It was even worse the second time...
My parents were visiting for the Victoria Day long weekend. We went to a Jays game, played darts, and went to the dog park with our dogs. My Mother's dog found a bunny nest in the middle of my back yard over the weekend. Surprising since Victor just mowed the lawn the previous week. Thankfully, her dog is not a blood-thirsty maniac and left the bunnies alone. Stella, to my great surprise didn't even seem to notice them at all! My mother on the other hand, was fascinated with them. She could not believe that the mother would leave them there in doggy-ruled yard. She kept checking on them to see if they were OK. They were much bigger than the fence bunnies. These ones had fur and big round bellies full of Mom's milk. We put up a little fence around them so Victor could mow around them on Monday after my folks were gone back home. I decided last night that today I would go home after work and put a bin from the garage over the babies with a hole big enough for their Mom to get it. I was worried that once they were old enough to start moving around, we'd have another massacre on our hands. I didn't have to worry for long because when I came down from getting dressed this morning she had her head in the bunny hole.  Tail wagging, of course. When I called her name she turned around still chewing on a little furry bunny like it was a raw steak. I almost hurled. I cursed her and she ran under the deck. I jumped into my rubber boots and approached the little fence and what was left of the bunnies this time. Two of the five remained. I had to put the chewed up bunny that Stella dropped on the lawn into a bag. Yes, I was crying at this point. I don't know what came over me. It was so terribly sad. If only I had protected them better.
I have to wonder if Stella knew they were there all weekend and was waiting for my Mother's dog to be gone so she didn't have to share them with her. My son keeps telling me that I will have to forgive the dog, but I don't know if I can this time. How can she look at me with those big sweet brown eyes and then nom-nom on little baby bunnies? Stella - The Bunny Killer. What am I going to tell my Mother when she asks how the bunnies are doing?


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