Backyard Casualties

Yesterday afternoon, I let the dogs out to do their usual race around the yard to run birds and squirrels away from the feeders before snuffling in the grass and taking care of business. When I went to the back door to holler them up with the promise of a treat, Pepper raced up with a bird in her mouth. This bird, to be exact.

After I did a little shrieking and dancing in place with some hand wringing thrown in, I hollered at her to drop it and she did. She doesn't like it when I raise my voice and thus immediately responds. So I was able to scoop her up and shove her into the house. In the pic above, you can see her watching out the window, seemingly sad her little prize was taken from her. When I turned my back to look around for something to cover it, Ollie dashed in and grabbed the bird before I could stop him. Not as easily cowed by a raised voice, he gleefully dashed off to prance around the yard with the poor dead bird in his mouth before I was able to shame him into letting it go and get him in the house with Pepper.

Then I had to perform retrieval and burial duties because the husband and daughter weren't home. Thanks to the brand new pooper scooper rake and bin I haven't even used yet, I got the dead bird double bagged in Walmart's finest for disposal. 

Once that was completed, I let the dogs out once more to finish their potty patrol, only to be horrified when Ollie dashed over to the wall of cabana windows where there was another dead bird. So here we go again, him prancing around the yard with his prize while I'm chasing after, telling him to drop it. Thank the Lord Ollie's easily lured by a treat, which got him to let go and follow me back into the house. Then it was round two of the scooping and double bagging.

In hindsight, I just don't think the dogs were fast enough to kill that first bird unless it was ill. The second bird Ollie snagged in front of the cabana was probably a victim of a run-in with the windows. I had the windows cleaned last month and so I bet poor birdie flew right into it and broke his little feathered neck. Now if we could just get some of the more pesky yard squirrels that constantly raid the bird feeder to do the same thing as these birds, I'd be pleased to see the tree rodent population weeded out a bit .