As I may have mentioned before, I am not the sharpest tool in the shed first thing in the morning. This morning as I was walking Seamus, I came up with a stupid saying that I’m pretty sure tops all of my previous morning slow-brainedness. (See? Still not good with the words. Too early.)
On Monday when we were walking, Seamus dove into a thicket of bushes and came up with a squeaking, terrified mouse in his mouth. Naturally, I freaked out, and started yelling “drop it! Drop it!” and being a good dog, he did. This took me totally off guard, because while Seamus stalks the odd bunny, squirrel or pine cone, he’s on the leash and never really gets to actually go after anything. Prior to this he’s always confined his hunting to stuffed bears, which he kills with great enthusiasm. Plus, he’s a beagle, so he’s more interested tracking scents than he is in actually catching anything. I don’t think he actually hurt the mouse, just scared it.
Every morning since, he has dragged me back to that thicket of bushes to revisit the scene of his triumph. I won’t let him go into the bushes, so he’s had to content himself with sniffing around them and inspecting the area just in front of them where he actually dropped the mouse. Well this morning, instead of trying to go into the bushes, he decided that he would pee all over them. And that was when I said it: “Good boy! I don’t mind you peeing on mousies. I just don’t want you to kill them.” Now there’s a sentence I’d be willing to bet no one else has ever said!
P. S. I don't think Seamus really hurt the mouse. He just frightened it. At least, there was no mouse corpse when I went back later, so I've decided that mouse was traumatized, but not injured. What? Please leave me my delusions.
the poor mousie was probably ok, they are tough little creatures!